Blog Tour: Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Cemetery Boys
Aiden Thomas
Published by: Swoon Reads
Publication date: September 1st 2020
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult

A trans boy determined to prove his gender to his traditional Latinx family summons a ghost who refuses to leave in Aiden Thomas’s paranormal YA debut Cemetery Boys.

Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can’t get rid of him.

When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his true gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free.

However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school’s resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He’s determined to find out what happened and tie off some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave.

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Author Bio:

Aiden Thomas is a YA author with an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. Originally from Oakland, California, they now make their home in Portland, OR. As a queer, trans Latinx, Aiden advocates strongly for diverse representation in all media. Aiden’s special talents include: quoting The Office, Harry Potter trivia, Jenga, finishing sentences with “is my FAVORITE”, and killing spiders. Aiden is notorious for not being able to guess the endings of books and movies, and organizes their bookshelves by color.

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My Review

I read this book twice. And... Oh. My. Gosh. This is one of my favorite books of 2020 full stop. This may be one of the few good things that came out of 2020 as far as I'm concerned. I feel kind of strange reviewing this book because while I do belong to a marginalized race, I am not Latinx, I am not trans. I am a black woman. I cannot speak to the trans experience or the Latinx experience. 

I had so much love for Yadriel. Again, I can't speak to any of his feelings or experiences, but I can say that I sympathized with him in a way that felt so strong and so raw that there were moments when I had to put the book down and walk away before running back to it to see what happened next. In many books there can be an erasure of parents or adult figures but we were able to spend quite a bit of time with Yadriel's family (except his brother, I wish we had seen more of him). 

Julian was such a shining star in the book. I think it would have been very easy for Julian to be a flat, boring character. He wanted to check on his friends, then we wanted to figure out how he died, he was kind of a "tough street" kid, and that could have been it. He could have been a modern twist on the Fonz. But he was so much more. He was tough, he was sensitive, he was goofy, he was chatty, he had a temper, he was a lover. Julian took my emotions on a roller coaster that I didn't want to get off of. 

The magical aspects of the book were really well done. I recently read a book and it took a good 4 chapter before I had any idea what the author was talking about. Aiden (I say the authors name like I know him) did such a fantastic job of explaining the magical abilities of brujo's  and bruja's, showing us what it all meant, and beautifully integrating it into Yadriel's family and culture (to the best of my black american understanding). 

Yall I actually started reading this book for a second time because it was that good. I also want to make a plug to the Hey YA Podcast. Aiden Thomas was interview, talked a bit about Cemetery Boys and gave us a teaser of his next books which I'm already obsessed with. 

Do yourself a favor. Read this book. Thank me later. 

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