The candle flames extinguished themselves in the same pulse. When he spoke, he did his best to keep his voice steady and deep.Īs quickly as it had appeared, the thick thrum of magic in the church dissipated. The air in the room felt thick, as if it were crowded with bodies.Īdrenaline coursed through Yadriel’s veins, and excited chills raced up his arms. To her credit, Maritza did her best to hide a look of disgust.Īs the deep red liquid mixed with the tequila, a gust of wind blew through the church. With a more steadied resolve, Yadriel unscrewed the cap and poured the chicken blood into the bowl. He tightened his grip on his Hydro Flask, the metal cool against his sweaty palms, as he exhaled through pursed lips. “Now, prisa!” Maritza said, waving him on impatiently. Maritza, on the other hand, had been offered every right of the brujx, but she chose to reject it. All he wanted was to be accepted-he wanted to be given his own portaje, treated like any other brujo, and given the same responsibilities. Yadriel admired her for her convictions, but he was also frustrated by them. Maritza explained that, even though she refused to use her powers, she still respected the diosa and their ancestors. In the dim light of the church, Yadriel could see her portaje hanging around her neck-a rosary of pink quartz that ended in a silver cross, but the concealed vessel remained empty. Sometimes our sense of closeness and connection to people has nothing to do with proximity.”

I think a lot of queer people experience people in their ‘real’ lives who let them down or don’t understand them, while the people who do make them feel seen aren’t tangible or within reach. “Meanwhile, the living and physical people in Yadriel's life keep failing him.

I wanted to use Julian being a ghost both as a metaphor for the isolation we often feel and for the communities we form long-distance over the internet in order to feel less alone,” he explains. I wanted to mirror that experience in Cemetery Boys. “Isolation is a killer in the queer community, and it’s important to find connections to keep you afloat when you feel alone. But, above all else, it seems that Cemetery Boys is about finding authentic connections with other people and feeling seen. Thomas notes that there are plenty of Easter Eggs are hidden within the book for Latinx kids and Spanish speakers that he is excited for his audience to read.Ĭemetery Boys is a book about fighting for oneself, knowing your worth, and embracing the things that make you different. Although the novel itself is beautifully Latinx, Thomas stresses that Cemetery Boys is not meant to be the Latinx novel, but a book that will “help normalize non-Latinx readers picking up diverse books written by people of color, about people of color-just like how Latinx kids have read, connected and fallen in love with many white stories intended for white audiences.”

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas