Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

e-Audio, 13:48:14
Narrated by: Avi Roque 
Release Date: September 1, 2020
Published by: Macmillan Audio
Read from: October 29-November 2, 2020
Stand-alone
Source: Library 
TW: Being called the wrong gender, Transphobia in their family, Death of a loved one, death of a parent 
For fans of: Paranormal Romance, Paranormal, Stand-alone, Fantasy, LGBTQ+, Own Voices, Learning Disability Rep, YA, Strong Family Relationships

    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, described by Entertainment Weekly as “groundbreaking.”
     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.

*MY THOUGHTS*

I got this ARC in the mail and knew I wanted to wait a bit before reading it. I wanted to get to it while it was the spooky season. And it actually completely worked out in my favor. It was definitely the perfect spooky but cute romance book for me at the time.

Yadriel is trying to summon his cousin’s ghost when he gets the wrong ghost. Instead of his cousin he gets Julian, the school’s bad boy, whom Yadriel didn’t even know was dead. And then of course, Yadriel can’t get rid of Julian. They finally realize to get what they both want, they have to work together.

Of course, the first thing I want to talk about with this book is the representation. It was EVERYTHING. There’s Latinx, there’s a learning disability, and the main character is transgender. I loved seeing this queer love story unfold. And the fact that it was a fantastical, paranormal story just made it even better. And then listening to the author’s interview and learning that the narrator is also Latinx and Trans like the main character. That just made it so much better. The pronunciation, the relation to the characters, just everything. It was amazing.

I also loved the plot. During the author’s interview the author mentions that they got the idea from a writing prompt or something. I think that’s really cool. To use that prompt, write an entire book, and then hit the NYT Best Seller list with it? Like that’s downright amazing. The plot also surprised me because I’m not usually a ghosty book person. I don’t usually like ghost books, but this one was wonderful.

I say it was wonderful because it was filled with an amazing writing style. It was colorful and showed so much of the Latinx, Dia de los Muertos culture. I felt like I was in the cemetery, seeing all the things that were going on as Thomas talked about them. And all the food, and dancing in the kitchen… It was a lot more showy than I was expecting, and I loved that.

The characters were also really fun. I was really not into Julian when he first came up, but he grew on me, much like he did Yads. It was so cute to see the two of them go from not liking each other, to not being able to get enough of each other. Their romance was really cute. Idk how I would feel about getting close to a ghost, but I thought it was cute lol (I still would have been too scared of the ghost to even think of being with them.)

This book was everything. The romance was cute, the writing style was great, and the rep was down-right amazing. In the end it was something I wasn’t expecting to love as much as I did. I really hope there’s more where this came from.

Overall, I give this