#54: Aiden Thomas, Cemetery Boys

[kareila]

This was a well-timed read, set during the week leading up to the Day of the Dead festivities at a Latinx cemetery in East LA. It manages to be both creepy and cozy as it follows a trans teenager named Yadriel who yearns to prove himself to his family, a coven of healers and necromancers who are the last practitioners of a heavily gendered form of pre-Aztec magic. Yadriel, who is too pure to live, ends up accidentally saddled with the annoying ghost of one of his classmates, Julian, as he investigates the sudden mysterious death of his cousin Miguel. When Yadriel is unable to release Julian's spirit to the afterlife, they end up spending a very intimate few days together, with predictable results. It's a very sweet story, but I didn't think it quite earned its fairy tale ending.