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A review by sindri_inn_arsaeli
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
tense
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? No
4.75
A coworker recommended this title to me, and kept pushing it up my reading list until I had to read it. Fast paced, great characters, GREAT exposition on the world building, I'm so glad he did! My only personal dip in how I'd rate it comes from my general complaint with pretty much all books in the genre, which was also why I didn't read it sooner: I tend to be fairly picky about YA books, because the "being a teen" part of these stories often feels like it's more important than the main plot of the story, and I can no longer relate I suppose. Case in point, I come from the genres of adventure, fantasy, and mystery, so I was definitely ready for the missing artifact to be a major plot point, and I expected a search to happen at some point. In my usual fantasy fare, the potential impeding catastrophe would supercede any concerns for things like school, but in a magical realism YA book like this, school and what socially happens there is more important. There were also some background details that could have been a product of YA fiction, or could have been just a young author, as I'm less familiar with this genre it was harder to tell - background characters had a tendency to feel like they were waiting around for the main characters to perform any actions, and how there was no description of time passing unless the moment was about the main characters. Towards the end, the boys wake up in the morning and go shopping, and with very little other action described, it's suddenly dusk.
A few SPOILERS to follow up some nice foreshadowing (I'll try to keep them vague):
I liked that I really didn't start to suspect the villain until right up to the end. I only had about a chapter or so to think, "oh no, is it going to be this character?"
Towards the very beginning, knowing that the book was going to include teen romance, I didn't think I was going to like what I suspected the outcome to be between a ghost and a living person. I expected an ending that was overly contrived that would make me roll my eyes. But while I did guess the main fact of the ending, the way it played out fit so much better with the rest of the story than I had been expecting, and I ended up really enjoying it!
A few SPOILERS to follow up some nice foreshadowing (I'll try to keep them vague):
I liked that I really didn't start to suspect the villain until right up to the end. I only had about a chapter or so to think, "oh no, is it going to be this character?"
Towards the very beginning, knowing that the book was going to include teen romance, I didn't think I was going to like what I suspected the outcome to be between a ghost and a living person. I expected an ending that was overly contrived that would make me roll my eyes. But while I did guess the main fact of the ending, the way it played out fit so much better with the rest of the story than I had been expecting, and I ended up really enjoying it!