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A review by carefulfearanddeaddevotion
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- 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
Julian Diaz, the sweetest dorkiest bad boy in all of fiction. <3 def my favorite character by far.
Liked all the characters, overall cute story and pretty visuals/mythology. The only things that made me enjoy it slightly less were:
1. the big twist was, in my opinion, super obvious from the veryyyy beginning. Buuuut I was more interested in the characters’ journey anyway, so it didn’t really matter so much
2. there was too much explaining re: the culture. Like at times it felt a little textbook-y. Like especially the translations of the Spanish directly after it was used (which I guess would be necessary to someone who doesn’t understand Spanish…)
3. Take this with a grain of salt because I’m not very familiar with Central American religion/mythology, but the gods/mythology referenced, are, to my knowledge, Mayan. The characters, however, despite all being Hispanic, aren’t all from that region. Half of them are from the Caribbean. Why did a Mayan god 1000 years ago extend the brujx power to peoples she had nothing to do with? Unless those other people married into the brujx, which might also explain the dilution of magic, but that also doesn’t make sense given that we’re told several times the brujx don’t like outsiders or straying from tradition.
Mhm…why do I always do this? I finish a book like “wow I liked that” and then when I start thinking about my thoughts as I was reading I come up with all these complaints lol. It’s still a fun cute book that I enjoyed but obvi it isn’t perfect
Liked all the characters, overall cute story and pretty visuals/mythology. The only things that made me enjoy it slightly less were:
1. the big twist was, in my opinion, super obvious from the veryyyy beginning. Buuuut I was more interested in the characters’ journey anyway, so it didn’t really matter so much
2. there was too much explaining re: the culture. Like at times it felt a little textbook-y. Like especially the translations of the Spanish directly after it was used (which I guess would be necessary to someone who doesn’t understand Spanish…)
3. Take this with a grain of salt because I’m not very familiar with Central American religion/mythology, but the gods/mythology referenced, are, to my knowledge, Mayan. The characters, however, despite all being Hispanic, aren’t all from that region. Half of them are from the Caribbean. Why did a Mayan god 1000 years ago extend the brujx power to peoples she had nothing to do with? Unless those other people married into the brujx, which might also explain the dilution of magic, but that also doesn’t make sense given that we’re told several times the brujx don’t like outsiders or straying from tradition.
Mhm…why do I always do this? I finish a book like “wow I liked that” and then when I start thinking about my thoughts as I was reading I come up with all these complaints lol. It’s still a fun cute book that I enjoyed but obvi it isn’t perfect
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, and Murder
Moderate: Death of parent, Body horror, Misogyny, Deadnaming, Blood, and Transphobia
Minor: Deportation and Child death