Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - Cemetery Boys

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Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

antijeffbozo_love2read's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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swimmingwolf59's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I really loved the world building in this book, it was an extremely cool setting!! I also enjoyed the mystery aspect of the book, and I'm happy that I was able to figure it out 😄 I also love Julian, my sweet child 🥹 But I didn't vibe with the main character very much and the pacing of the book was a bit slow for my taste. This is just a personal thing too, but I prefer when world building is slowly unfurled as the book goes on, so the info dump at the beginning of this book was a bit much for my tastes. Still an enjoyable read though!

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amy_in_the_city's review

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This was such an interesting premise, and I loved Yadriel! I'm not sure how I felt about Julian. While I liked how playful he was and how he protected those he loved, his anger issues were concerning. The scene where he

got upset threw a skateboard around his friends

felt like a red flag. I did appreciate that Yadriel set firm boundaries and told Julian that his violent outburst was unacceptable and wouldn't be tolerated again, but I would have felt better if we got some indication afterwards that Julian was working on his anger management skills.

The plot was very predictable. I guessed who the villain would be as soon as they appeared and by 10% into the book I had already guessed the villain's plan.

I still really enjoyed the book because I liked the side characters, Yadriel's character journey, and the main relationship overall.

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melancholymegs's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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bree_h_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I really wanted to like this book. And I had enjoyed it for the most part until the very end, which is why I think this feels so disappointing.

I thought the book had a pretty strong intro. It established the world effectively and did so in a way non-Latin readers could understand. I had a quick grasp on relationships and dynamics. I think the book ended up being a bit heavy handed in foreshadowing with this establishment of the world, but I still appreciated it and that there was foreshadowing.

I also really liked the complexity in the family dynamics. It didn’t feel like Yadriel’s family was villainised for not fully understanding him. It was upsetting, you understood Yadriel’s pain, and (at least with his father) you felt like he was TRYING. And when Yadriel revealed he had become a brujo how PROUD he was of Yadriel. It felt realistic and I appreciated that aspect. This also leant well to the story being told of Yadriel’s struggle as a trans teen, which was compelling and provided such great insight into what trans teens go through in trying to find comfort in their own body.

The biggest issue I had with the book was the romance. I had such a hard time buying into it, especially considering how short of a time the book takes place over. When it did fully turn to romance it felt sudden and like the story hadn’t properly built to it. I felt the book would have been better if it had been about forming a friendship instead of a romance. Especially considering how isolated Yadriel felt as the only noted “friends” outside his family were his cousin’s friends. This was only emphasised when in the ending there was a dramatic declaration that the Julian had feelings for Yadriel and all I could think of was the Sassy Gay Friend video for Romeo and Juliet. I had a couple other issues with the end, but they’re spoilers so I’ll refrain from sharing them.

Overall a book with a strong start that fumbled the ending.

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thebakersbooks's review

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adventurous emotional inspiring sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

5/5 stars — a poignant, heart-stopping story culminating in tragedy and joy

When I say I want more representation of marginalized groups in science fiction and fantasy, Cemetery Boys is case in point. Main character Yadriel is a gay, trans, Latinx boy, and the cast includes mostly other people of color, several of whom are also queer. The characters’ ethnicities, religions, genders, and sexualities play into the story, but they’re not all the story’s about. It’s hard to discuss this without seeming dismissive of the need for a range of good representation across genres, but there’s a place for both books that center the real-world struggles and triumphs of marginalization and books where those struggles and triumphs happen alongside ghost stories and magic. But what I appreciated most about Cemetery Boys was that while the difficulties of existing at the crux of several marginalized identities cropped up in the story, the main sources of pain/drama/angst came from fantasy sources that weren’t identity-centered.

Cemetery Boys also drives home a point that critics of fanfiction—and of fanfic writers, both past and current—repeatedly fail to understand. The point is this: it doesn’t matter if you know how the story’s going to turn out; even if you’ve seen it play out similarly a hundred times before and you see where it’s going, the author can deliver that conclusion in an emotionally satisfying way. I don’t know if Aiden Thomas has written fanfic (my money says yes), but even though I guessed the antagonist and some elements of the climax around halfway through the book, the ending contained plenty of surprises in its execution. It’s why we say “trope” isn’t a bad word—tropes exist for a reason, and they don’t always have to be used in surprising ways to bring a story to a brilliant end.

Frankly, the fact that the antagonist and end twist were guessable pretty early in the book might be my only critique of Cemetery Boys. This is one of my favorite books ever, nearly perfect from the standpoints of craft and pure enjoyment value. Like his protagonist, Thomas is trans, gay, and Latinx, so his understanding of the nuance of the ways those identities intersect shines through in Yadriel. Only part of that identity applies to me, but the realness of Yadriel’s moments of joy, pain, and awkwardness were validating—particularly to a younger and more confused version of me. Despite everything this book puts its characters through, it left me feeling hopeful.

So, the story: What starts out as Yadriel’s quest to prove to his family and community that he’s a brujo with all the abilities that implies becomes the perilous search for a killer who’s disappearing young Latinx people—among them, a boy named Julian. When Yadriel’s friend Maritza and Julian’s friend Luca volunteer to help in the search for Julian, things get even more complicated. Friendships form an enduring theme in Cemetery Boys—it’s clear when an author thinks romance is more important than friendship, and that definitely wasn’t the case here. Maritza and Luca are very different kinds of friends (one snarky, one soft) but both are ride or die when the safety of their loved ones is at stake. Similarly, family is both a source of strength and conflict in the story, but it’s never pushed aside by the writing or framed as second to *relationship drama* or anything else.

In fact, the romance in Cemetery Boys is, for all its angst and potential for tragedy, not a huge part of the book. In parts where it was the focus, I never found it overpowering compared to other plot events. Also, I thought the romantic relationship did a great job of avoiding insta-love territory. Yadriel initially finds Julian inconvenient and annoying and only slowly decides that he’s attractive. It takes even longer before any kind of rapport develops between them and that turns into romance. (Although, as romantic gestures go, scribbling out your crush’s deadname in his yearbook and writing his real name over it is up there.)

Thomas’ knack for creating real-feeling characters and gradually picking them apart leads to some absolutely gutting moments. Even though you can see the heartbreak coming, that doesn’t make it hurt any less when it actually happens! And I mean that as a compliment. Characterization may be one of the author’s strong suits, but certainly not the only one. The book is full of stunningly descriptive imagery, especially describing angry teenagers, churches, and Día de Muertos details like sugar skulls and marigolds. Although—or maybe because —it makes time to show detail and build elaborate character relationships, the pacing never lags in the second act, nor does anything feel rushed in the third. The emotional beats fall where they should, embellished by brutally raw dialogue and more of that gorgeous descriptive prose.

Let’s talk about gender-affirming worldbuilding for a second. The magic system in Cemetery Boys is described as being built around a gender binary: brujas heal living people who suffer; brujos guide spirits who are lost. The magic itself correctly identifies Yadriel as male, so when he tries to perform a female-only ability, it backfires, whereas the male-only one works. (Also, the binary-ness turns out to be partially a product of Yadriel as a narrator with a narrow scope of history: as Julian later points out, there must have been nonbinary brujx and others who didn’t conform to the narrow binary system in the past.) On this subject, the brujx’ knives or rosaries are used to indicate things about their characters—the style, whether they’re adorned with extra charms, etc., which is the kind of fun yet functional worldbuilding I love to see. Finally, I’d be remiss not to mention how the world and its magic are based on various Latinx cultures. I’m not Latinx, so I’m sure I missed some of the references/details, but I enjoyed the way traditions from various places mixed during Día de Muertos and among the brujx in general. And I liked how if there was a long or complex passage in Spanish, it's translated into English, but individual words—even those that weren’t obvious cognates, like sobrino—weren’t translated. People can Google that stuff if they don't know it and can't infer the meaning!

Random good parts that may not all make sense out of context but that I would be remiss not to point out
- an immediate, first-chapter indication that Yadriel is trans (I think he mentions his binder or something) without spelling it out super obviously
- the MC is a SHORT trans boy! Yadriel bemoans that he’s only “a little over five feet”
- “His dead name slipped from her mouth,” instead of actually using the old name is an excellent way of dealing with trans names.
- Julian’s intro is really cool! Definitely one of the most unique ways to introduce a love interest I’ve ever read.
- so nice that Julian, despite being introduced as an archetypical ‘bad boy,’ accepts that Yadriel is trans without any big deal, and thinks it’s messed up that others don’t treat Yadriel (in his own words) like a “real boy.
- “My tacos!” - Julian, finding moldy food on the ground.
- Tito, the spirit gardener who tended flowers all his life and continues to grow them in death—especially flowers for Día de los Muertas, which are his pride and joy.
- Maritza’s family’s pitbulls, Michelangelo and Donatello
- cempasúchil! Every instance where they were described sounded so pretty.
- the romance: “How could he possibly recover from falling for Julian Diaz?” and “Yadriel would happily let himself be consumed by Julian’s fire.”
- an actual non-forced, naturally incorporated meme: “I’ve been—dude, stop screaming—”

This book ripped my heart out and glued it back together wrong way out. That is to say: I give it my highest recommendation, particularly to young people likely to relate to Yadriel and/or Julian. The writing is stellar, the audiobook narration is excellent, and the overall package is absolutely worth your time. (I’d like to mention here that Avi Roque, a trans Latinx narrator, was a great choice for the storytelling and really made the characters come alive. This was apparently their first audiobook narration, too!)

Content notes: death of a loved one; repeated mention of death, dying, and grief; graphic depiction of death on-page; mention of shooting and stabbing; gangs; parental/familial abuse; youth homelessness; transphobia including misgendering and mentioned deadnaming, police profiling based on race

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mle11's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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lynxpardinus's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring

4.5

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bashsbooks's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

OMG I love this book! Yadriel & Julian are such great characters, loveable without being too perfect. Julian especially is an ideal bad-boy-softie character that I just adore. I also deeply enjoyed the amount of Spanish in this book (I feel like I learned some new words) and the drawing on Latin culture for the paranormal fantasy aspects. Bonus points for things not being completely hunky-dory for Yadriel as a trans person, but also for the narrative not being bogged down with only his struggles.

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