Review by thereadinghammock - Cemetery Boys

thereadinghammock 's review for:

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

4.5

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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: Complicated

One of my 2025 goals is to read through more of my physical TBR, especially borrowed books, and this one was one that's been on my list for what feels like ages. Yadriel, Julien, and Maritza were a great trio working together to help Yads get the recognition as a brujo he was so desperately craving, solve the mystery of Julien's murder, and figure out what happened to Yadriel's cousin after he went missing.

Yadriel and Julien's exploration of their feelings for each other, the importance of family of every kind (by blood or of your own making), and learning to trust and believe in yourself rather than wait for the approval of communities that might be too stuck in their own ways to fully accept what's right on front of them was a lovely parallel to watch them both grow through all that together and using each other to ground themselves was sweet.

I was so sad to be right about Tìo Catriz being behind the disappearances and being blinded to the rage he had for being overlooked for so long. I totally get feeling up against the brick wall of a community that stuck in its ways, and it was clear he had been trying to get them to be more open minded to literally anything before resorting to summoning Bahlam, but still not cool to resort to murdering everyone.

Content Warnings