Cemetary Boys

Through this wonderfully spooky adventure involving a serial killer and Day of the Dead celebrations, I appreciated gaining a better understanding of what it is like to be a trans teen. The characters are rich and the story is full of gripping twists and turns. It is a great read.

A trans boy is determined to prove he’s a brujo to his Latinx family, summons a ghost who refuses to leave in Aiden Thomas’s paranormal YA debut.

Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can’t get rid of him.

Bestowed by the ancient goddess of death, Yadriel and the gifted members of his Latinx community can see spirits: women have the power to heal bodies and souls, while men can release lost spirits to the afterlife. But Yadriel, a trans boy, has never been able to perform the tasks of the brujas – because he is a brujo.

When his cousin suddenly dies, 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 not his cousin. It’s Julian Diaz, the resident bad boy of his high school, 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.

(The Purple Fantastic Steam Meter gives this a 2… though it could nearly be a 1. The focus is on the adventure and the possibility of romance rather than on the physical mechanics of sex – which it doesn’t go into at all.)

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