This Is the Year

by Gloria Muñoz

This dazzling YA cli-fi written in prose and verse will speak to any reader struggling with the state of our world and how to understand their place in it.

"In outer space, no one will know me as the girl with the dead sister."

Seventeen-year-old self-proclaimed Goth and aspiring writer Julieta Villarreal is drowning. She’s grieving her twin sister who died in a hit-and-run, her Florida home is crumbling under the weight of climate disaster, and she isn’t sure how much longer she can stand to stay in a place that doesn’t seem to have room for her. 

Then, Juli is recruited by Cometa, a private space program enlisting high-aptitude New American teens for a high-stakes mission to establish humanity’s first extraterrestrial settlement. Cometa pitches this as an opportunity for Juli to give back to her adopted country; Juli sees it as her only chance to do something big with her life. 

Juli begins her training, convinced Cometa is her path to freedom. But her senior year is full of surprises, including new friendships, roller skating, and first love. And through her small but poignant acts of environmentalism, Juli begins to find hope in unexpected places. As her world collapses from the ramifications of the climate crisis, Juli must decide if she’ll carry her loss together with her community or leave it all behind.

Told in gripping prose interspersed with poems from Juli’s writing journal, this genre-bending novel explores themes of immigration, climate justice, grief, and the power of communities.

Genres: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Poetry, Dystopia, Fiction, Contemporary, Fantasy

367 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2025

Reviews

[Ga.selle (Semi-hiatus) Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I know I’m so dramática trudging through this swampland in crushed velvet and combat boots like I’m on the set of Nosferatu with sweat streams in every crease and liner lakes around my eyes, but is there anything more gothic than Spanish moss, dried palmettos, and cicadas petrified and screaming all at once into the humid night?"

Taken from Juli's journal 📝
Reasons to leave Earth: 🌏👩‍🚀🚀
1. I could buy Mom a house.
2. TORNADOS.
3. in outer space, no one will know me as the girl with the dead sister.
4. HUMANS ARE EVIL AND UGLY.
(She listed a total of 16 and a few reasons to stay) 😹

JULIETA VILLARREAL is a graduating student and is going through grief, trauma and existential dread after the death of her twin sister Ofelia. She is an aspiring writer and journaling is her form of catharsis and also attending sessions with her psychiatrist.
She was approached by a Cometa agent named Audra Morningstar at her workplace and tried to scout her to join training to become a Cometa ranger. She was informed that at NASP they pay New American Ranger at least twice the federal minimum wage to start. They offer tuition reimbursement programs and monthly stipends for family members who might need assistance.
She did a little research of her own and she found out that agent Morningstar wasn’t lying: all Cometa Agents are basically set for life—a decent salary, paid college tuition, guaranteed housing, and if you agree to fulfill two more service missions, you get a Cometa Plus stipend until you die. It’s a nice deal. She could move her mother away from the shoreline and into a new place, an actual house. If she leaves the planet, it's going to be a win-win situation. Cometa training lasts only a few weeks. Statistically, only a few of the trainees from the southeast will make it through, and then only three will be picked for the program. She's determined to be one of the three. Is it too good or too sci-fi? What could possibly go wrong?

I forgot that I even requested for this novel for it was approved a bit late. The coverart is cute and so is the story. This dazzling YA cli-fi written in prose and verse and is not annoying for a YA novel and the MC is very relatable. I like that it is mostly read as a journal. I didn't mind that this only has one POV which I often find boring or tedious. This is a unique and interesting read with topics about global warming, dealing with grief and learning how to enjoy life again.

My thanks to Holiday House / Peachtree / Pixel+Ink for providing an early copy. I received an arc for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.🖤
Expected publication date: Jan. 7, 2025

[Nicholas Perez]

Cover looks gorgeous and the mixture of prose and verse sounds interesting.
Curious to see how it all plays out.

[Ifa Inziati · Rating 3 out of 5]

This Is the Year is a daring experiment of combining prose and verse into a story about dealing with grief and appreciating little things. It tackles futuristic problems from climate change, endangered species, to space travel, that mingle with classic YA problems such as relationship with family, friends, and oneself. The cover is gorgeous, and the color palette fits the story inside. It also centers diverse characters especially Puerto Rican community.

The prose and verse are connecting to each other, but I enjoyed the verse part most. Although it looks like it's written in second person, it's clearly in first person (Juli) who's talking to her sister (Ofe) and not to us the reader. I can't quite pinpoint what deters me from really get what this novel is about initially, because it takes quite long until the space cadet program is introduced, and for involving a multimillion project like flying students to the space, the ending is too easy. Plus Juli seems to get through the program in a breeze (exceptional score, top of her class, praises from others) without showing she's (or used to be) athletic and academically achieved before. It's as if the space travel itself is entirely a metaphor. And it didn't really match the realistic near-future portrayal that carries the atmosphere of this book.

I am also fifty-fifty with the believability of the future here. Some things confuse me like why there are no waterproof eyeliner and mascara (is it to picture how hot Earth is? But even today our beauty products are far superior than a decade ago), why manatees can go extinct (we already have genetic engineering plan about Dodo birds and alike today), 12G signal (if it's as far as version 12, it may as well change the name), and mentions of vintage slangs (this one is interesting though, because it implies that slangs cycle back like fashion trends. Lit is considered vintage while rad and adorbs are in). But I liked that it hints on political climate prediction and how teenagers are becoming more aware of the situation, and more careful to decide.

This book offers a unique experience that's different from other prose-poem or prose-verse YA novels. Even though it didn't blow my mind, I'm glad to see many representation and environmental concerns—something that I feel becoming less and less mainstream—here so I hope it helps raise more attention to young adult readers too.

***

Mixed feelings for this one. I hope this is not a sign that I grow out of YA... full review to come.

[Jada · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the poems and how they tied into the writing style!

I would've liked to have known more about the space program, like how their ships worked, or maybe some rundowns of Moon life or something, because so little of the book focuses on the sci-fi theme as opposed to the highschool drama and implied climate issues.

Content: Some characters get high and vape, there's a few cursewords, dark humor, mentions of death, lesbian and bi characters, and a choice word is repeated from page 262 on.

[Shannon Miz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why do I not remember this book? But I liked it. I remember that much. Admittedly, that doesn't seem like a great endorsement, but also I have really been through it, so cut me some slack. Or don't, I actually don't care. Anyway, after I started reading my notes from this I did start to remember more. Juli's lost her sister, and she is really struggling. She's sort of shut herself out from the world, including her old pals. And when her school hosts a company planning to send new graduates into space, Juli is ready to GTFO of the whole planet. 

It's set in a near future, we've gone and messed up Earth even more than we already have, to the surprise of no one. So this group is supposed to be helping to build a new colony on the Moon- basically to replace a dying Earth, as it were. There are some red flags, but Juli cares zero percent- she just wants to escape her life and the loss of her sister. Only, turns out you cannot escape grief. She also finds herself navigating relationships, both old and new, and trying to figure out how these relationships work outside of her sister's orbit.

It's a really lovely story, obviously emotional, but also uplifting because Juli is still putting one foot in front of the other. The ending was... well, it was a little silly? But I couldn't really fault it too much, because the book as a whole was really quite good. I enjoyed Juli picking up the pieces, and learning so much about herself and her friends along the way.

Bottom Line: A lovely story about a young woman figuring out how to keep going after an unimaginable loss.

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight

[Cami · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gran manera de terminar mi año 😭

Este libro fue un viaje a través del duelo de Juli, un recordatorio de que nuestro planeta muere y debemos hacer algo (al menos desde nuestra trinchera), sobre el futuro cercano al que tal vez nos enfrentaremos y que nuestros seres queridos pueden sostenernos cuando más lo necesitemos.

Ha sido una grata sorpresa leer la prosa de Gloria, transmite todas las sensaciones y pensamientos que va teniendo Juli a lo largo de la historia, de una forma que te deja cautivado.

Definitivamente lo recomiendo, por favor agréguenlo a su TBR ahorita y en cuanto lo publiquen (7 de Enero) LÉANLO. Y espero🤞🏼 que sea traducido al español.

Muchas gracias a NetGalley y Holiday House por el ARC, para dar mi honesta reseña.

——————————————————————————-

Such a great way to finish my year 😭

This book was a journey through Juli's grief, a reminder that our planet is dying and we must do something, about the near future we may face and that our loved ones can sustain us when we most need it.

It has been a pleasant surprise to read Gloria's prose, it conveys all the sensations and thoughts that Juli has through the book, in a way that leaves you captivated.

I definitely recommend it, please add it to your TBR right now and as soon as they publish it (January 7th) READ IT.

Thanks to NetGalley and Holiday House for the ARC, to give my honest review.

[Caylee Gardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poignant, timely, and fresh! I can’t think of a better books that answers how to respond as humans in a world that feels like it’s always collapsing in on itself.

[Robin Perkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this as part of a Goodreads giveaway.

This was a wonderful book. It dealt with the nuance of grief in such a real way. While dealing with the death of her twin sister the main character is also focusing on a space program to help save the planet from ecological issues. So while giving us a wonderful view on grief this book also gives you the chance to look head on at environmental issues that we are currently facing and what could possibly be done to help.

[Jacob (Jake) C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The central themes of This is the Year, by Gloria Muñoz, are summed up in two quotations from the novel: “There’s nothing you can do to change what you did yesterday, but you can decide what you do today” (p. 190), expressing the novel’s theme of coping with regret and loss and moving forward, one day at a time, and “Each migration is a long, tough journey, and they arrive to hotter climates, and often fewer resources … but you adapted and have somehow survived. You’re a pretty amazing bird,” (p. 216), literally describing the plight of an endangered bird in the novel, but also figuratively describing the plights of the narrative’s humans, who push on with their lives amidst the wreckage of their surroundings, and anti-immigrant discrimination that is characteristic of both current and (in this telling) future Florida. This is the Year is a young adult speculative fiction novel that takes place in a future version of Florida where climate change has advanced to the point that the wealthy have fled the coast and moved inland, and working class families - in particular, New Americans (i.e., immigrant families) - have been forced out of the inland areas and left to live in the dilapidated coastal mansions that the wealthy used to inhabit as tornados, hurricanes, and environmental degradation threatens their existence. The story centers on Juli, a high school senior who is mourning the loss of her twin sister, Ofe, as well as the losses of her friendships and her bond with her mother, which have all been negatively impacted by the shared trauma of losing Ofe. As Juli and her friends and family try to put their lives back together amidst the mental, social, and environmental wreckage of their lives, Juli simultaneously reorients her life around an unexpected new opportunity to escape - both literally and figuratively - the trauma of her sister’s death, the painful daily reminders of her frayed relationships, and the worsening physical environment of her home state. Juli tells the reader her story from her perspective as she communicates with the memory of her late twin sister.

The setting of This is the Year is both familiar and alien, as the reader might expect from a story set in a version of Florida where current climate trends have advanced, but whose forms are merely extreme versions of existing trends - tornados, hurricanes, red tides, and sinkholes, among others. It adds up to a dystopian, Florida gothic setting that Muñoz paints in sparing-but-vivid detail. The perspective of the novel, told largely as a first-person inner monologue directed at the narrator’s late twin, is immersive, and the narrator’s thoughts and feelings are believable and relatable. Juli and many of the characters in the novel are Colombian-American, and the narration is told in English with significant bits of Spanish interspersed throughout, realistically portraying the translanguaging that is characteristic of bilingual Latin Americans in the United States. The other characters are diverse, and largely believable, if a bit one-note, overall, in some cases. The plot of the novel asks that the reader suspend his or her disbelief at times, and its conclusion is significantly foreshadowed, but the overall effect of the narration, characterization, setting, and plot is an engaging and engrossing novel that will likely keep the reader’s attention all the way to the end, even if this novel is truly about the journey more so than it’s about the destination. This novel belongs on any teacher’s shelf, especially if he or she teaches any Latina students. This novel could be exactly what a young adult reader needs as he or she deals with loss and confronts an uncertain future.

[Tihare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gloria Muñoz crafts a deeply moving portrait of loss in This Is The Year. The story captures the unbearable weight of losing a sister, particularly a twin, whose absence leaves a void that feels like missing half of yourself.

Muñoz sensitively portrays how grief reshapes everything, from daily routines to identity itself. Yet through Juli's journey, we witness the gentle truth that time, while never erasing the pain completely, does soften its sharpest edges.

The narrative also beautifully illustrates how healing isn't about forgetting, but learning to carry love forward. A poignant reminder that resilience grows quietly, day by day.

The cover is actually really what got me to read this, but now I feel as though I need to own a copy because of how beautiful the writing is.

[Kinyorda Sliwiak · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had never heard of cli-fi before reading this book. Climate Change Fiction. It is not for me. I am a tree hugger. I am worried about the environment, etc. But this book is preachy. It is over the top. You should assume most people reading this book have similar values. The main character is learning how to cope with high school after the loss of her twin. She is annoying, like most 17 year old protagonists. 17 year old's saving the world is a popular trope in fantasy novels. Like most teenagers, what you thought was the end of the world was actually just something you had to work through. Even when they are literally dealing with the end of the world, they can't move past their teenage angst.

[Isabelle Altman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to put down this book three pages from the end because I was crying so hard. But I did eventually finish it. It's so sad and hopeful at the same, beautifully written, centered on such a believable, flawed character written with empathy and love for the world and the people in it.

[Kkharvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.6

[Tiffannie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was great! The concept was done so beautifully and for being a sci-fi/YA novel it held a lot of realism. I enjoyed the characters and their growth within this story. Gloria Munoz does a wonderfully job at writing about tougher or even touchy subjects. Juli’s use of the poems paired with her character perfectly!

[Ana Elizondo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Juli, a senior in high school is dealing with the death of her twin sister among other things.
Sad, humorous at times, and heart warming.

[H · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite book of 2025. Want to feel a bit of hope about this world, read This Is the Year. It's funny, smart, heartfelt and my goodness so thought provoking. Juli is the goth character of my dreams! All characters were fully realized. I recommend this book to teens and adults who care about the environment, friendship and community.

[Willow · Rating 2 out of 5]

The end was good—the rest I found rather mid. About two-thirds in, I wrote this rant, and although the end did make up for a few things, my opinions still stand.

First of all, in this book, the earth is dying. But it barely shapes the setting. Sometimes they mention that it is way too hot outside, or they mention yet another animal that has gone extinct. But I missed the effects of these things. For example, how do people navigate the world when it's too hot to be outside? I barely noticed a difference from our world.

Juli, the main character is described as someone who cares a lot about the planet. Yet, she is willing to work for a company that only escapes the problem instead of fixing it. (Alright, she does have her reasons)

That aside, she is enlisted in this cool space program where only the best will pass. But there is so little of that shown in the book. There are a few chapters that describe the tasks she has to do, but then the next chapter is just a contemporary high school drama.

That's just a few of the things. The book lacks structure and connection between the sub-plots. It's just a few stories in a trenchcoat [end rant]

Thank you NetGalley and Holiday House for giving me access to an e-arc for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

[Dulce Perez · Rating 5 out of 5]

After losing her sister Julieta feels lost. As she navigates life after her her sister she gets made and offer to tempting to refuse! This book tackles difficult topics including Grief and the impending doom of earth! This book was written beautifully and the ending left me feeling motivated to be the change.

[fede ૮ ․ ․ ྀིა · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about grief and loss, but also about hope. Juli, the protagonist, faces a lot of different struggles in her life, and we, as readers, can easily empathize with her. She's grieving her sister, who recently passed away, and trying to find her place in the world as a teenager. When a private space program recruits her, she feels she might have found the answer to all of her questions. Gloria Muñoz has crafted a novel that is gripping and hopeful. With beautiful prose, the author offers a poingnant and honest exploration of immigrants' exploitation and the damages of the climate crisis. Finding your place in this world, a world that puts profit over everything else, is more complicated than it seems. Highly recommend checking this out!

Arc kindly given by the publisher. All opinions are my own.

[Kai (CuriousCompass) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A coming of age story about grief and climate change told through a mix of poetic prose and teenage nihilism in a time of upheaval. As ecosystems collapse around us, the kind of future presented in This is The Year becomes more and more familiar, constantly becoming less tomorrow and more today. Juli is a teenage poet mourning the death of her twin sister Ofelia as she goes into senior year.

Juli struggles with immense feelings of helplessness as she watches her mother rot away in grief, watches her friends try and fail to reach her, watching natural disasters ravage the earth and her community while the rich and powerful look away and pitiless corporations rule over it all.

Her solace is poetry, but even her writing skills don't entice her to care about the future - writing programs, college, life, all of it has lost its luster for her. Her apathy is contrasted by the fierce love she has for life, for the earth and nature, the animals and habitats she's watching be devastated. As Juli makes an unexpected new friend and struggles to reconnect with old ones, she's forced to juggle her priorities, emotions, and grief and decide whether she actually, truly, thinks life and the planet earth are worth protecting.

There's also a dash of beachfront cleanup, AI reality show hosts, astronaut training, and roller derby!

I would be lying if I said Gloria Muñoz didn't scare me a little with this one. But the overall message is one of hope and responsibility, of how worthy the planet is of our fighting for it and attempting to protect it.

The writing is quick and cuts to the point while still offering so many rich details and such a compelling and vivid setting. A glimpse of our lives fifteen minutes into the future, one that is both familiar and scarily topical yet still feels slightly fantastical in the best way. There's no telling whether any one of us can have an impact or what it will be, but this is a book about how it's so important we keep trying, how we aren't suffering alone even when we feel isolated, how community and devotion are worth so much more than corporate growth or obedience to a system that has actually failed to prove itself again and again yet is upheld by vulgar amounts of ill-gained wealth garnered at our own expense and sold back to us as a lifestyle or a salvation.

This Is The Year is a beautiful, melancholy, vibrant tale rich with the author's clear love for our planet and its species, with a sweet, believable teen romance, a futuristic flourish, and a lot of worthwhile musings on the climate, our future trajectory, and what it means to claim your own path instead of being pushed around by the chaos of the world.

Thank you so much to NetGalley for the chance to read an early copy, I absolutely adore this book and can't recommend this one enough for LGBT readers, those who love a coming of age story, those who loved the book Whip It by Shauna Cross, and those who care about environmentalism and conservation work.

[Caitlyn Gloriod · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the Year is a speculative fiction novel narrated by a high school senior named Julieta Villareal. Julieta and her mother live on the coast of Florida, which is falling apart due to the climate disasters that are occurring, such as regular tornadoes, extreme heat/cold, animal extinction, etc. Julieta’s identical twin sister, Ofelia, passed away in a hit-and-run, and throughout the book, she is narrating to her. Julieta is struggling with the untimely death of her sister and what is seemingly the end of the world, so she turns to the Cometa space program to escape her current reality. The Cometa Initiative is a space program geared to rebuild the moon to make it a viable place for humans to move to, since the Earth is crumbling. The book tells Julieta’s story of grief and deciding whether or not she should leave Earth behind to start a new life for her and her mom.

To be completely honest, I was not very interested in this book all the way through. There were a few times that I would find myself super interested, but I just wished there had been more exciting details involving climate change. Julieta was a tough character to follow. She was battling grief, depression, and guilt throughout the entire book, which was understandable, but it did make her character unlikable in some sense. There were times that I wanted her to make a different decision than she would or think that the right answer was obvious, which would make me frustrated. I did like the intertwining of poems from her journal throughout the book, and the fact that she was narrating her year to her deceased sister made it feel more heartfelt. This was not one of my favorites, but the story was well done. I would recommend this book to a classmate if they were looking for a book that did not have any huge plot twists or shocks. This is a read that is steady and consistent throughout, which some people really enjoy, but I just needed more thrill. At the end of the day, I felt like this book represented grief very well and had a realistic ending.

[YSBR · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book follows Julieta Villarreal during her senior year of high school in a near-ish future dystopia. Juli is a New American who lives in Florida during a time of mass extinction and climate catastrophe. She is also dealing with the loss of her twin sister Ofe, in a hit-and-run accident the year before. She is recruited by Cometa, a subsidiary of a SpaceX- like company, which plans to send young astronauts to the moon to build a colony. Juli must decide if leaving Earth will be her chance to escape the heartbreak of her day-to-day life, or if she should stay and hope for the future with her loved ones.

This was an absolutely gorgeous book about loss. I especially loved that the central story was interspersed with Juli’s poems as she worked through her grief and the huge, life changing decision of whether or not to leave the planet. I think this will resonate with teen readers who are trying to grapple with the challenge of hoping for the future when it feels like the climate is collapsing around us. Juli’s personal loss is magnified by what feels like the loss of her entire world in a way that feels very real to the modern teenage experience. What I found most compelling about This Is the Year was the way it handled the cautious optimism that community can bring in times of immense grief. Juli has to learn to trust the people around her in order to regain her hope for the future, which provides a positive way forward for teens who may feel stuck in their climate grief. Link to complete review: https://ysbookreviews.wordpress.com/2...

[Amaris Castillo]

Julieta Villarreal lives under a crushing weight rooted in grief and desperation about the state of the world. The 17-year-old is reeling after losing her twin sister, Ofelia, in a hit-and-run. Juli doesn’t know how to move forward without Ofe. There’s also the deterioration of Juli’s Florida home. Flash floods and tornadoes ravage the state once a month, and the number of animals that are extinct has risen.

After scoring a record-high score on an aptitude test in school, Juli learns about Cometa, a private space program enlisting high-aptitude New American teens. Their mission is to build humanity’s first extraterrestrial settlement from the ground up. Desperate to leave Florida and the sadness that engulfs her daily, Juli believes this program is her path to a better future for herself and her mom. She is convinced it’s a chance to do something big with her life. But is it really?

'This Is the Year' by Gloria Muñoz is a thought-provoking YA climate fiction novel about what it means to find hope and meaning in a crumbling world. Muñoz brilliantly melds a story about a grieving teen with themes of climate change, environmentalism, and the true definition of community. The author and translator has crafted an unforgettable main character in Juli, a Latina goth who takes readers on a journey as she tries to make sense of a rapidly changing world.

I spoke with my friend about the inspiration behind her genre-bending book, the term “New Americans,” and more. You can read our full conversation over at Latinx in Publishing: https://latinxinpublishing.com/blog/t...

[Kassidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you #NetGalley and Holiday House / Peachtree / Pixel+Ink for allowing me to read an advanced reader's copy of This Is the Year by Gloria Munoz in exchange for my honest review. #ThisIstheYear

Julieta Villarreal is a complex individual who is struggling with two things one her loss of her twin and two what she wants to do in her future. Juli, always had her future planned out with her twin sister Ofe, but her tragic death a couple of years ago makes her life and choices unsettled. Juli, faced with what most teenagers nowadays struggle with what she wants to do seeks guidance from everyone, but herself. One day at her high school this high tech flashy space program called Cometa shows up. In Juli's eyes, this is her future to make this program, get off of the wasteland called Earth, and help her mother get a house away from the ocean. This sounds great and Juli starts focusing on her future in space. In the end, Juli needs to decide her future. To find out the decision she makes read This Is the Year today. #ThisIstheYear

Gloria Munoz crafts verse and prose together, that feels to be unnecessary for the story plot line. Juli herself is a relatable character that all students can connect to, but the conclusion of the novel feels rushed and afterthought. Another consideration is where Juli talks to Ofe, in the novel a lot in the second person at first was confusing. It would have been awesome if that was the focus and not trying to blend prose and verse.

[Pip · Rating 5 out of 5]

golly, this was beautiful.

as a Floridian, reading this book that touches so acutely on issues that are so raw and relevant to our state was a very meaningful experience. the themes of climate justice and immigrant rights particularly stand out, but there were also so many affecting moments involving community in the face of disaster; I legitimately cried when I read Muñoz's letter to the reader at the end of the novel, which offers a raw reflection of the quintessential Florida experience of coming together and surviving repeated natural disasters, and opens with the following:

Earth is a hard place to call home. But it’s ours, or we’re its. Perhaps we belong to each other. Or maybe we hold no ownership; maybe we just exist in the here and now.

I coincidentally picked this book up not long after the anniversary of Hurricane Ian tearing my county apart some years ago, and October is the month that I lost my grandfather after another hurricane, Irma, ripped through the gulf coast nearly a decade ago. neither of these experiences are exactly what Juli goes through in This Is the Year, but the melding of grief and collective disaster stirred something within my heart that made me remember my own experiences, and I found a little bit of a home within her story. just for a little while.

[Ben James · Rating 3 out of 5]

At it’s heart, this is a novel about discovering that running is not a solution to your problems. Escaping doesn’t solve anything, it just leaves other people to fix the issues.

I found moments of this book endearing, but the overall narrative deals with a lot of different threads which don’t always work together. Juli, out main character, does so much that’s it’s a wonder she ever graduates the exclusive space-cadet program she’s part of. She must not sleep! Those threads are there so the book can explore a lot of cli-fi issues, but I think the novel could be tighter if it tried to do less (e.g. cut the volunteering on the poisonous beach plotline, or the roller-derby plotline).

There’s a second person device where Juli is speaking to her [spoilers] dead sister Ofe, yet I think the novel would have benefited from leaning into this more experimental aspect of its construction.

The rug gets pulled out from under the reader at the end. I always feel like if a story spends its whole time building to something big (in this case, going to space) then it should deliver on that. I get why Juli changes her mind, I really do, but then what was the point of all that training which was the main plot of the book!

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much to love about this YA debut. Really excellent climate fiction, set in the not-too-distant future when the world is dealing with the repercussions of ignoring warnings about climate change. In Florida, Juli is also dealing with the recent death of her twin sister Ofe. When her high school promotes an opportunity for New Americans to become Cometa Rangers, traveling to the moon to build a base camp over a five year period, Juli sees an opportunity to create a future away from painful memories and a trashed planet. She’s accepted to the group that will undergo rigorous training to determine the final crew.
The friendships that Juli slowly starts rebuilding after having shut herself off for so long are handled realistically. The way Munoz writes about endangered animals and beach cleanup will strike a cord with anyone concerned about the environment. Her handling of racial discrimination is spot-on. And the poetry that Juli writes is truly spectacular.
My only quibble— the ending seems a little out of sync with the rest of the story’s pacing.
But don’t let that keep you from getting to know Juli.

[Jasmine Shouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book hit me hard in so many ways. As a military veteran turned Florida resident who lost a family member recently and who also loves animals and writing, so much of what Juli deals with resonated deeply. I don't often enjoy second person narrative, but this was so well done in that Juli is speaking to her deceased twin sister as she's struggling to move on.

Okay, and the ENVIRONMENTAL aspect? How absolutely terrifying to see a glimpse of what could easily be our future, but it's so devastatingly necessary. And I really loved the poetry interspersed throughout to show a glimpse of what Juli was writing and more insight in how she was feeling.

The only hang-up for me is the way it ended. Not the very end, but the part right before that. It felt...off? Though I did enjoy the lessons she learned along the way, especially regarding her found families.

Anyway, this is an absolutely incredible sci fi read. Definitely will read more by this author.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an advance review copy from NetGalley for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I didn't realize how much I was gonna enjoy this book.

The plot is definitely sad and melancholic, there are lots of themes mentioned that can be triggering for a lot of people. And yet the writing is somehow hopeful?

I'm not sure how this is possible, but I ended up feeling more positive than negative after reading this. And I felt I really needed that.

In short, this is a high school drama peppered with lots of additional things like grief, environmental decline, space exploration, class etc.

The book reads a bit like a diary with lots of internal monologue, but it also doesn't get boring. Things are constantly happening and even if they seem mundane they are still meaningful. It was also nice to have a hopeful protagonist. I think through it all, the main character held onto her hope and that really touched me. Actually, quite a few things in this book have stirred up emotions in me.

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished Gloria Muñoz’s debut, and I don't know what i should do now. This is more than just a book and it's a soul-searching experience captivates you when you least expect it. Our female lead, Julieta Villarreal is an aspiring writer, a self-described Latina goth and then she's drowning. In addition to dealing with the devastating loss of her twin sister in a hit-and-run, she is also attempting to determine her place in the world while navigating the crushing weight of the climate disaster in her crumbling Florida home. Juli's voice is sincere and completely memorable. Her journal poems are interspersed with the story. So, you'll get the impression that you are actually inside her head thanks to this dual structure, sharing both her moments of hope and her deepest fears. The poetry is lyrical and a perfect window into her creativity and grief. It is simply stunning. This is the best YA climate fiction you've ever read. Forget about what you thought you knew, just read this book.