Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

4 reviews

thesunreads's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful 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? No

4.0

This book also heavily features ghosts/spirits, and passingly mentions possession. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Transphobia, Blood, Grief, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Violence, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Medical content, and Murder

Minor: Child death, Homophobia, Car accident, Deportation, and Deadnaming

cozyteareads's review against another edition

emotional funny inspiring lighthearted 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? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Murder, Transphobia, Violence, Dysphoria, and Child abuse

Moderate: Drug use, Abandonment, Drug abuse, Outing, Medical content, Grief, Death, Racism, and Bullying

Minor: Animal death, Abandonment, Car accident, and Physical abuse

kiwi_reads's review

adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

I loved this book! I read it in four days, and that's coming from a slow reader. I was so hooked from the first line! The writing is impeccable and the diversity is just what I was looking for. I loved the pacing and I fell in love with the characters before I was finished the fifth chapter!

Spoiler

The love story between Yadriel and Julian had me sobbing

This amazing story about love, family, and acceptance will warm your heartstrings. I cannot stress enough how good this book is and I hope whoever sees this will go read it right now. This is definitely at the top of my list for recs and I have no doubt it will stay there for a long time!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Abandonment, Blood, Homophobia, and Transphobia

Minor: Alcohol, Death of parent, and Drug abuse

sssssss's review

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

this book! this book... it’s so amazing, to start off with. I read it for the first time a few weeks ago and since then have already started my reread of it. I don’t even know how to put into words my love of this book. just please read it, you will not regret it (but check out the content warnings first!)

also the line, « no, none of us deserved julian diaz » 😭😭😭

also to add, the characters are so well-developed and each of them feel so real. even the side characters feel like they have their own distinct personality and the main  characters were well fleshed-out. the fears, wants and thoughts of these characters also are so realistic to their personalities. i just love this book 🥺😭😭. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Violence

Moderate: Transphobia, Child abuse, Death, Sexism, Cursing, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Torture, Deadnaming, Eating disorder, Drug abuse, and Mental illness

The suicidal thoughts spolier is for something Julian says early on in reference to how his brother is probably glad that he is gone. This isn’t necessarily an explicit suicidal thought but it’s the kind of thinking a lot of suicidal people can have. Additionally, it is mentioned at one point that the two parents of a dead/missing character go to the police to report them missing but the police begin to question them and it is mentioned the police wanted to deport them (they are latinx, I don’t remember their exact ethnicity/(ies). One of the reasons put for this was that they spoke very little english, and the police often respond to this with the xenophobic and racist reaction of wanting to deport them. The characters do not end up getting deported, luckily. At the end (cult tw) and major spoilers for the end of the book (scroll down to see a less detailed/spoilery tw of this)

Spoiler

there is a mention of the characters who were found alive in the old church having been part of a cult ritual as a police explanation. this could be triggering to some readers. additionally, while it is not necessarily a cult, there was a ritual used by a character that was going to kill 4 people. these people were found in time and the character performing the ritual dies instead, but this could also be triggering to some readers.

(cult mention) At the end, there are mentions of a cult in order to explain to people why something significant happened in the book. There are also mentions of a cult ritual. (minor spoilers)

Spoiler

There are an additional few scenes of a ritual taking place, although this ritual is not necessarily a cult ritual. One character dies, but the other characters end up okay.(injuries + stabbing mention)There are mentions of blood and stabbing, and a scene where a character gets a major stab wound. This character ends up okay.

Also mentioned parental abuse, though not explicitly shown. These mentions do not happen a ton but this book doesn’t shy away from being real, so just for a warning. At one point, (animal abuse slightly, but not done purposefully) it is mentioned how the failed healing of a cat caused the cat to be harmed forever. the cat is not in pain but their leg is mutilated. also a warning for slightly unsafe binder use. of course all binder are different but make sure to look up the safety measures for using a binder if you do use one, as this book had some points of the mc sometimes misusing it. there are some mentions of the binder causing them to feel in pain when they are running or something similar, but they are brief. finally, there are a few brief instances of deadnaming. we see yadriel’s hurt reaction and know his thoughts and feelings on it, and this could be triggering. yadriel’s dead name is never spelled-outhowever, so the dead-naming is handled gracefully.