Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

101 reviews

melist6's review

adventurous challenging emotional funny mysterious sad fast-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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Sexism, and Racism

Moderate: Deportation, Transphobia, Death, Dysphoria, Murder, Violence, and Grief

Minor: Child abuse, Animal death, and Deadnaming

binreads's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad 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? Yes

5.0

The StoryGraph account actually recommended this book to me on tiktok!!

If i could give this a 1000000000000/10, I would. 

I've had this sitting on my shelf for a while and since it is spooky season, I thought it was finally the perfect time to read. I loved every second of it. The trans/latin experience and representation was so refreshing to read. 

I enjoyed the characters so much, the 3 musketeers, Yadriel, Maritza and Julian. Yad was endearing, Martiza was hysterical and Julien was the heart. The pacing was perfect, never felt too slow or rushed.

Spoilers ahead, beware!

Spoiler

  I'm kinda impressed with myself because I had a feeling Tio Catriz was bad halfway through. Mostly because I was thinking, why is this dude being overly nice? 

Especially when he caught sight of Yad's portaje, I knew something was up. Why wouldn't Catriz tell his own brother about Yadriel, wouldn't he be worried or concerned? If he really wanted to help Yadriel, why wouldn't he speak with him about it? 

Then he was always coming and going so much throughout the book. What I DIDN'T guess, until it was literally happening, was that he had taken Miguel and Julien. That ending was WILD!!!

I saw there's a sequel in the works and I'm super excited to read it!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Transphobia, Grief, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Racism and Deportation

merah's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious relaxing sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

the writing is absolutely incredible. 
I felt every single emotion while reading this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Racism, Transphobia, Body horror, Child death, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Medical content, Blood, Death, Murder, Violence, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Body horror, Deportation, Animal death, Animal cruelty, and Dysphoria

Minor: Car accident, Confinement, Alcohol, Cancer, Terminal illness, Fire/Fire injury, Vomit, Classism, Cultural appropriation, and Deadnaming

loads of knives, blades, cuts and stabbings

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death of parent, Grief, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Suicide, Deadnaming, Self harm, Torture, Bullying, Classism, and Racism

Minor: Abandonment, Car accident, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Deportation, Gun violence, Outing, Vomit, and Suicidal thoughts

anni_swanilda's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Grief, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Deadnaming, Dysphoria, Transphobia, and Violence

Moderate: Cursing

Minor: Racism, Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Child abuse, Deportation, Domestic abuse, and Physical abuse

chaotic_corvid's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.75

Nie spodziewałom się, że młodzieżówka może połączyć aż tak dobrze romans z wątkiem przygodowo-śledczym. Zwrot akcji nie jest w pełni przewidywalny ale są bazy by mieć swoje podejrzenia, niestety jedna postać drugoplanowa staje się przez niego trochę... słabiej napisana. Tak jak Yadriel jestem trans gejem i myślę, że gdybym miał te książkę w okresie gdy dopiero to odkrywałem to bardzo by mi pomogła w zrozumieniu siebie wcześniej. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Outing, Grief, Physical abuse, Xenophobia, Death, Dysphoria, Transphobia, Violence, Child death, Death of parent, Blood, Murder, Deadnaming, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug use, Misogyny, Torture, Deportation, Racism, Cursing, Homophobia, Cultural appropriation, Classism, Alcohol, Religious bigotry, and Animal death

fluffyfox's review against another edition

adventurous emotional lighthearted mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Murder, Blood, Death, Outing, and Transphobia

Moderate: Racism and Deadnaming

panic_at_the_bookshelf's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense 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

5.0

This book was just... wow! I am giving it 5 stars because this was such a pase turner and the representation was amazing. At first the mixture of English and Spanish words were a bit confusing but having those Spanish phrases there somehow helped me connect to the characters even more, even if that meant using Google translate. 

The trans rep... oof! So many relatable moments! I don't even know where to begin... 

Did I have a pretty big idea about how this would end and who was behind the missing people? Yup. Was I right? Yup. Do I care whether this was me being smart or the story being predictable? No, because the story was filled with so many important elements. From cultural backgrounds/traditions, found family, gender identity, dealing with prejudices just because of your background or because people are idiots... 

While there were plenty of darker or tensed situations, there was just enough humour to make me love as well. Which might be one of the many reasons why I loved the characters. They felt human! None were overly perfect or overly evil. If anything Cemetry Boys shows nothing is as black and white as you might thing. Nothing is as it seems.

I am not sure how Aiden Thomas did it, but I just found one of my all time favorite reads. I want to reread it already! 

How did Ariel say it in the Disney movie? I WANT MOOOOORE!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dysphoria, Death of parent, Transphobia, Grief, Murder, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Racism

Minor: Alcohol

_nutella52's review

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deadnaming, Death, Cursing, Death of parent, Deportation, Grief, Homophobia, Outing, Transphobia, Dysphoria, and Racism

Moderate: Alcohol, Body horror, Drug use, Blood, Car accident, and Gore

Minor: Cultural appropriation and Animal death

hobbithopeful's review

adventurous dark hopeful 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

5.0

This book was such a treat to read, I've been hearing about it forever, so to finally be able to read it after waiting A MILLION YEARS on the library waitlist was so worth it! (Seriously y'all, it was worth it!)
 Cemetery Boys follows Yadriel, a young trans brujo who just wants to be seen by his parents and community. When he tries to summon a spirit, instead he ends up with a ghost who refuses to leave. Julian is loud, brash, and refuses to leave until his unfinished business is taken care of. 
I loved everything about this story, it is so great to see books with queer Latinx representation. (So my review is deeply biased, apologies dear readers) 
Julian really grew on me, he was so charming and full of life. I went from rolling my eyes and being annoyed at him, to chuckling and smiling whenever he was on the page. All the food descriptions had my stomach growling! I actually went to go buy some pan dulce at the store after finishing the book. 

I highly recommend this book! Ghosts, gays, and romance! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Injury/Injury detail, and Death

Moderate: Homophobia and Transphobia

Minor: Bullying, Abandonment, Xenophobia, Child abuse, and Racism