Cemetery Boys

Cemetery Boys Book Review by Aiden Thomas 

In true Halloween fashion, I decided to pick up Cemetery Boys to get me into the festive mood, along with pumpkin spice everything, Harry Potter movie marathons, and sweaters I don’t need as southern California is still a million degrees. Currently on the New York Times Bestseller’s List, Cemetery Boys is author Aiden Thomas’ debut novel about, you guessed it, boys in a cemetery. 

Although, in a way, the title is a tad deceiving as the book contains much much more than boys loitering in graveyards and lying next to mausoleums (anyone catch the reference?). In fact, said boys don’t spend much time in the cemetery at all. 

But I digress. 

The short novel starts off and surrounds our main character Yadriel, a Latinx youth from East Los Angeles that is struggling with the death of his mother, the looming festivities of Dia de Muertos, getting his family to accept his true gender and name, the sudden disappearance of his cousin Miguel, and you know, the casual summoning of a hot dead boy with too much energy and a wicked smile that makes Yadriel feel like he’s on fire. 

But it doesn't matter because the boy Yadriel summoned on accident, Julian Diaz, resident bad boy extraordinaire, is dead right? He’s just a ghost. 

Or is he?

Yadriel and Julian, with the help of Yadriel’s best friend Maritza, spend the few days leading up to Dia de Muertos in hot pursuit of what happened to Julian in the hopes that it will reveal Miguel, allow Yadriel to finally convince his family and his community that he is indeed a brujo, a male servant of Lady Death, the Goddess of their lives and religion which allow them to speak to spirits and perform other magical abilities like healing and even raising people from the dead. 

Yadriel is convinced that if he finds Miguel and severs Julian’s spirit ties, sending him to the afterlife, his father and the rest of the brujx will have to see him for what and who he truly is after years of being denied and called the wrong name and gender. 

However, Yadriel quickly finds himself way over his head as Julian turns out to be the most annoying, most hot-headed, most alive spirit he’s ever met. Not to mention that he’s developing feelings for him, feelings which soon are returned. 

Yadirel is then faced with a bigger dilemma: does he lose everything he’s wanted-acceptance from his father and his community and his true place as a brujo, or Julian-the dead boy he’s fallen for?

In what is probably the most frightening thing of all-cliffhangers-I won’t give away the ending this time people. You’ll have to read Cemetery Boys to find out. 

What I will do though is give you my breakdown on this very sweet, very young, fictional novel that is quite honestly the furthest thing from being spooky. 

Firstly, the best and most wonderful thing about this novel is representation. Trans, gender fluid, and intersex characters are still wildly bereft in the young adult fiction world, especially as main characters, so a new novel with the main character being trans is wholly welcomed and appreciated. 

Yadriel is an anxious, but relatable sixteen-year-old with problems that many of us face: fear of isolation, desire to belong, and feeling like an outcast. It was so relieving and enlightening to hear from a character and experience the challenges and emotions they faced while attempting for the world to understand and accept them for who they were. 

In addition to Yadriel, you had other representation in terms of the Latinx community, other trans characters, gay characters, foster youth, homeless youth, and even small side delves into veganism and much bigger issues like deportation, medical care, and runaway children. 

This book was short, but man did it pack a punch in terms of the social issues it revolved around and introduced into its story. 

In addition to the wide cast of characters with myriad backgrounds and circumstances, the focus on Latinx culture in particular was very strong and very saturated. Throughout the whole novel you have characters speaking Spanish, a plethora of food specific to certain Latinx cultures, and the sometimes heavy handed explanations of certain customs and traditions unique to Yadriel’s community and ancestors. 

On the one hand, I really enjoyed this. I love it immensely when authors bring in their own background to further expose readers to different cultures and customs, especially as it pertains to the main character and their experience. 

However, oftentimes in Cemetery Boys it came across a little too burdensome. It was like I was reading a pamphlet on Dia de Muertos instead of a young adult novel. I wholehearted understand Thomas’ vision and goal of Latinx inclusion, but the way it was written was not always seamless.

 It often dragged me out of the book and irritated me when the flow of the story was interrupted for a whole page so that Dia de Muertos could be described, or so paragraphs of Latin foods could be listed out. 

Once again, I love this representation, but the writing could sometimes be a little too chunky and repeatedly it was too long and too obvious for it to come across seamless and natural. 

Speaking of natural, the biggest criticism I probably have of this book is that it comes across much younger than presented. Even though Yadriel and the other characters are sixteen, they often felt much more immature to me, especially with how the story unfolded and Thomas’ writing as a whole. 

This is not itself a criticism, but I would definitely recommend this book for much younger consumers than it is currently targeting. 

As a teacher, I could see this book being recommended for middle school in order to teach children about trans youth, the importance of acceptance and love, and of course, for the representation that is abundant throughout the novel. 

I personally think this would be too juvenile for high school and above. 

I certainly found it juvenile as a 26-year-old-woman. 

Once again, this does not mean it’s not enjoyable. I still enjoyed the book and had an overall good time reading it. But it also means that there were several parts that I found predictable, exaggerated, or as I said before, heavy handed in how certain aspects of the novel were displayed and organized. 

The plot for instance, was laughably easy to predict. I think I had the entire ending down when I was about ⅓ of the way through with the book. Does this make it a bad read? Of course not. But books that have unpredictable endings or that manage to surprise me end up leaving more of an impression on me as a reader .

In addition, often the way Yadriel and Julian, especially Julian, would react was very childish in my opinion. Simply how they processed emotions, handled their problems, and dealt with high-stakes situations were very reminiscent of characters much younger than they were. 

Most of all however, the juvenile feeling of this book I would attribute to the writing. Thomas is definitely not a bad writer, but nothing about it came across as young adult to me. Some scenes were a bit cheesy, but the writing itself was very easy, uncomplicated, and very straightforward. 

There were some scenes I felt like were not dealt with enough (aka Yadriel losing his cousin and thinking about it once or twice and the whole Julian running away and Rio being like meh, Julian is Julian). Some scenes just seemed....odd and out of character and others needed to be expanded upon more. 

I want to reiterate that these are NOT BAD THINGS. 

Overall, I found the novel very cute, very refreshing, and a wonderful addition to the literature world. All of Thomas’ characters are likable, the representation is amazing and nuanced, even if it is a bit arduous in certain parts, and the story is interesting and action-packed, keeping readers on their toes and never bored with what is going on. 

As a whole, Cemetery Boys is quite honestly a lovely little read that is perfect for the Halloween season. You might not be frightened, but you will get a cute story, some very welcome representation, and wholesome relationships and themes that, while simple, are not to be overlooked or underrated. 

Recommendation: Put on Hocus Pocus, light your pumpkin scented candle, make yourself some tea or hot cocoa, snuggle up with a blanket (either because it’s actually cold where you live or because you have the AC on like me) and delve into Cemetery Boys for some lighthearted fun, some magic, some ghosts, and of course, a whole heaping of good feelings where love wins and the world is a better place for it. 

Score: 7/10