On the bright side, he had actually summoned a real-life spirit.
On the not-so-bright side, he had summoned the wrong one.
Finally, I got my hands on this book! It was getting a lot of hype even before it came out, and I basically put it on my TBR the moment I learned of its existence. But there are so many books and so little time, so I've only finally bought it very recently—and Pride Month seemed like the perfect time to delve into it.
I'm sometimes apprehensive about reading books that get a lot of hype. What if I don't like it when everyone around me does? Does that mean there's something wrong with my taste? In this case, there was no cause for anxiety:
Cemetery Boys gripped me from the very first page. One of my two favorite things was the setting. All the complex, multi-cultural mythology it's built on, all the spirits—oh, how I liked the spirits here! The descriptions of the cemetery, the church, the aquelarre were all highly engrossing and made the setting come alive in front of my eyes.
The other thing I loved even more was the trans rep. It's very obvious that this is an #ownvoices book: everything Yadriel goes through is so extremely relatable. There was that one episode with the eternal question of "which bathroom to use" that made me chock up a little, even though it absolutely wasn't written as a tearjerker moment, because
yes, this. And so many others, too, especially when Yadriel interacted with his family and some of them were clearly so well-meaning, but also so unintentionally hurtful. I loved that Yadriel wasn't the only trans character in the book. I loved that along with his struggles, we also saw him receive wholehearted acceptance and support. I especially loved how easily Julian accepted Yadriel's gender and proceeded to almost aggressively champion him throughout the entire book: "Why do you have to prove anything to anyone? No, there's no way you're the first trans brujo. Yes, you deserve to be accepted for who you are without jumping through hoops." Honestly, I loved Julian, for this and so many other things. For a character who spends most of the book literally dead, he's so vivacious and alive and bright.
One more detail about the trans rep here, an author's choice that I really, really loved: even though Yadriel gets deadnamed several times, we never learn what his deadname is. The fact is mentioned; the name itself never appears on the page. And that, I feel, is the absolute best way to handle this matter. Yes, the character gets deadnamed by others within the setting, but never by the author and, consequently, never by the reader. It doesn't matter what name Yadriel's parents put on his birth certificate when they didn't yet know they had a son, not a daughter. That's not his name. He's Yadriel, and that's the only name he is called in the book, and I'm so grateful for that.
The central supernatural mystery plot was highly compelling, and I admit I didn't see the final twist coming, although in retrospect, there were some clues. I was just so focused on all the other parts of the book that I totally missed them. Which is a good thing, because I was in for a nail-biting surprise. All of the supporting characters were really interesting in their own ways and, for the most part, very well-developed. I do wish some of them got just a little more screentime. Even though Maritza was present in all of the key scenes of the story, I still feel like I didn't get enough of her in some way. I wish we could have spent more time with Julian's friends, too, as well as Rio.
I guess that's the reason I'm giving this book 4.75 stars instead of 5: even though I enjoyed it immensely, there were some small details that made me feel like this story could be told a little bit better, a little bit more fully. The characters thing that I mention above is one such detail. Another is the presence of occasional infodumps that broke the flow of the otherwise very well-crafted story for me. However, all of those didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the book, and I'm looking forward to reading more by Aiden Thomas!
