Reviews tagging 'Body shaming'

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

12 reviews

lunep's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Blood, Transphobia, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Death of parent, Medical content, Physical abuse, Deportation, Xenophobia, Deadnaming, and Child abuse

Minor: Body shaming, Classism, Bullying, Grief, Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Car accident, and Abandonment

tangleroot_eli's review

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

I spent the whole epilogue of this book crying. Then I just laid there staring at the sky, not really thinking anything, just... being. This is a beautiful book, and I'm so, so glad to have read it.

Spoiler

And, you know, at first "everyone lives" felt like a pulled punch of an ending. Surely, in a book literally about priestexes of death, someone has to die for everything to work out. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that, no. Thomas chose the exact right ending. In a world where queer and trans characters, especially those who are also people of the global majority, die more often than they live, and where, let's face it, real life isn't working out much better for queer and trans people, a book where the queer characters not only live but triumph and flourish and show the cishets a thing or two? Yeah. That's exactly the ending this book needed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Blood, Death, Murder, Transphobia, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Deadnaming, Animal death, Dysphoria, and Medical content

Minor: Body shaming and Fatphobia

nordicat's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Transphobia, and Deadnaming

Moderate: Blood, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Murder

Minor: Body shaming, Car accident, and Bullying

owlieali's review

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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 and Transphobia

Moderate: Body shaming, Death of parent, Death, Grief, Racism, Violence, Abandonment, Deportation, Classism, and Fire/Fire injury

kalmia31's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? No

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body shaming, Gore, Violence, Deadnaming, Murder, and Outing

theirgracegrace's review

emotional inspiring 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? Yes

4.5

An astounding book with no shortage of heart-wrenching teen drama. Yadriel is a brujo, one of the male members of a necromantic tradition stretching back to pre-colonial Central America. He is also transgender and accidentally falls in love with the first spirit he raises, Julian. With the backdrop of a mysterious death in the brujo community and the possibility that Julian's death is linked, I literally burned the midnight oil to read the end of this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Blood, Transphobia, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Medical content, Cursing, Grief, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexism, Stalking, Misogyny, Bullying, Confinement, Dysphoria, Injury/Injury detail, Outing, Torture, Violence, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Racism, Body shaming, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Religious bigotry, Suicide, Animal cruelty, Car accident, Deadnaming, Deportation, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Colonisation, Alcohol, and Vomit

cluckieduck's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Classism, Emotional abuse, Sexism, Blood, Body shaming, Cursing, Death, Bullying, Child death, Deadnaming, Grief, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Transphobia, Kidnapping, Misogyny, and Murder

Minor: Drug use and Alcohol

recycled_personalities's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

Genuinely such a good read. It was really comforting queer representation and that definitely made me happy. It’s a LITTLE slow at the very beginning but please don’t make the mistake of giving up on it! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Gore, Abandonment, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Car accident, Child abuse, Child death, Classism, Cursing, Deadnaming, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, Homophobia, Dysphoria, Gaslighting, Grief, Kidnapping, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Outing, Physical abuse, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Transphobia, Violence, and Xenophobia

fromjuliereads's review

adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious reflective 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

4.0

I really enjoyed this book! I loved the Spanish and the Latin culture and holidays brought into the story. It was so amazing to read. And I really liked the characters! I will admit that I saw the twist coming, it was kind of predictable. But that didn't take away from my enjoyment at all. Perfect read for the autumn season, especially October and Día de los Muertos. 

Definitely check the trigger warnings though!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Racism, Torture, Transphobia, and Violence

Minor: Alcohol, Body shaming, Car accident, and Gun violence

The deadname isn't printed, but there is mention of deadname being used. Definitely some blatant transphobia on the pages as well.

emily_mh's review

emotional hopeful slow-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

4.0

This book definitely shone in how real the characters and their relationships with one another felt, as well as how rich and descriptive the writing was, especially when it came to showing Latinx religion and culture. However, for about 60-70% of this book I wasn't really looking forward to picking it back up when I put it down for the day. I think this was because the pacing of this portion of the book was VERY slow (due in part to repeating information), and in the beginning it was quite info-dumpy. For this reason, I was looking at giving this a 3.5 stars but the ending really got to me.

While the initial conflict of the ending felt anticlimactic,

Spoiler

the resurrection conflict totally gripped me

. The ending also had me completely taken by Yadriel and Julian's relationship and how fiercely they loved each other. Finally, I found the epilogue really moving. These three elements cemented this book as a 4 star. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Transphobia, and Blood

Moderate: Death of parent, Grief, Deadnaming, Racism, Murder, and Violence

Minor: Body shaming, Animal death, Cursing, Alcohol, Drug use, Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Car accident, Body horror, Vomit, Ableism, and Medical content