Cemetery Boys

Author: Aiden Thomas

Genre: Fantasy, young adult, LGBT, romance, paranormal, contemporary

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ [3.5⭐]

TW: misgendering, mentions of parental abuse, death of a loved one, mentions of transphobic parents, mentions of deportation, allusions of deadnaming (offpage)

Considering this is Thomas' debut novel, I'm impressed. That being said, I was left feeling like I wanted more from this story. I am definitely in the minority with my rating here, so feel free to take my review with a grain of salt!

In Cemetery Boys, bestowed by the ancient goddess of death, Yadriel and the gifted members of his Latinx community can see spirits: women have the power to heal bodies and souls, while men can release lost spirits to the afterlife. But Yadriel, a trans boy, has never been able to perform the tasks of the brujas - because he is a brujo.

Yadriel is so determined to prove to his Latinx family that he's a brujo that he ends up summoning a ghost - who turned out to be a different ghost than who he was expecting.

This story is extremely important: for trans, gay characters to be seen and heard, and to educate others on what trans, gay characters have to go through. I definitely learned a lot from this story, and I definitely recommend people to pick this up just for the characters alone.

However, the premise really made me go into this book with too high expectations. For one, while there is this mystery element of who caused the murders, the plot felt very obvious and underwhelming. Furthermore, the characters read younger than their supposed age (was it just me?). The writing style, especially the dialogue towards the end, felt a tad bit too cringe-y and young (back to the point of how the characters read younger than their age).

In terms of plot and characters, this was a more character-driven book. Perhaps since there was no constant rush in the plot, I found myself not inclined to pick it back up after I take a break from reading. That being said, I do look forward to Thomas' future work, because the potential here is immense.