Time for another round of Yvo’s Shorties! This time around two more Goodreads Choice Awards nominees belonging to completely different genres… Cemetery Boys is a YA fantasy with a Latinx trans main character which I now understand all the hype about. And I’ve enjoyed Ruth Ware‘s books in the past, so there was no way I could resist One By One for long… Sadly I ended up feeling underwhelmed by the story though.
Title: Cemetery Boys
Author: Aiden Thomas
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Romance
First published: September 1st 2020
Publisher: Swoon Reads
Finished reading: November 14th 2020
Pages: 352
“Why do you have to prove anything to anyone?”
“It{s just how it is, how it’s always been. In order for them to let me be a brujo—”
“You don’t need anyone’s permission to be you, Yads.”
I’ve been seeing Cemetery Boys mentioned a lot and as it was nominated in two Goodreads Choice Awards categories, I decided to see for myself what the hype was all about. And I must say that I definitely understand now why so many people rave about this debut! I haven’t seen many books with a well developed trans representation before, and to have a Latinx trans main character at that? Talk about a double bonus! I especially loved the building up of the fantasy/paranormal part of this YA urban fantasy, as it’s packed to the brim with Latinx culture and references to the Dia de Muertos celebrations. On top of this, we have a lot of diversity in the cast and I just LOVED both Yadriel and Julian. Sure, I wish some of the other characters would have been fleshed out beyond a few key characteristics, as some fell a bit flat for me… But the spark of Yadriel and Julian mostly made up for that. And I most definitely didn’t see those final twists coming! I liked how everything was wrapped up too and this is without doubt an excellent read for anyone who enjoys a well written YA urban fantasy that will both make you cry and bring a smile to your face.
Title: One By One
Author: Ruth Ware
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense
First published: September 8th 2020
Publisher: Scout Press
Finished reading: November 17th 2020
Pages: 384
“They think that life can’t touch them – just like I used to do.
Only now it has. Now life has them by the throat. And it won’t let go.”
Well well well, what do we have here? I guess it’s another unpopular opinion review to add to the pile. While I tend to have mixed reactions to Ruth Ware‘s books, I did love her previous two titles so I had high expectations her newest One By One would be another winner. Especially since I always love a good locked room mystery in the first place, and the blurb sounded absolutely brilliant… Sadly, somehow I ended up feeling quite underwhelmed by this story. It’s not a bad read perse, but it’s considerably slow and I found the whole thing to be rather boring most of the time? Not up to the point that I would DNF of course, but I never felt invested in the story either and there were a lot of parts that dragged for me. I also saw at least one of the big twists coming quite early on, which put a damper on things… And the whole Snoop stats each chapter were quite annoying. The dual POV is cleverly done to get a better perspective on what is going on and I really liked the setting, but I didn’t feel anything for the characters in play so it was more difficult to connect to them or care what happened. All in all not my favorite read of hers by far, but I know others who have loved it so don’t give up on my account.
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