Cemetery Boy's Wisdom

I recently finished one of the season's new books, which was perfect to read this month which I have dedicated to magic (Because I hope magic will distract me from stressing about our nation right now.) 

As I wrote in my Goodreads review of the story:

This is proof of why we need new authors to bring their amazing voices to others. We need more Trans Latinx protagonists dealing with issues of identity, cultural acceptance, love, day of the dead, ghosts, and magic in the stories we love. We need more people to see themselves in the stories they read. We need more stories that are so successful as showing there is never a single story about a community. This is both an important book for us to all read while also being just an amazing story. It is always great when important books are so enjoyable to read. I recommend you read this book.

As I said in my review one thing which stood out from the story was how wonderfully it showed how there is never a single story for a community or a group of people. (Check out Chimamanda Adichie's classic Ted Talk on the subject of why this is so important)

An example of this is this description of the day of the dead that occurs towards the end of the story (Spoiler-free don't worry) which brings this idea of multiple stories into relief.

During Dia de Muertos, you could really see how the diverse cultures of the brujx came together in celebration. Ecuadorian colada morada -- a sweet, purple corn juice made with berries -- was passed around in plastic cups. Brujos from El Salvador brought honeyed pumpkin to share. The Haitian families always brought plenty of homemade beeswax candles for decorating ofrendas and tombstones. Andean t'anta wawa -- fruit-filled sweet rolls in the shape of babies ... ( p282-283 in my copy)

This diversity of stories is also shown for the LGBTQ+ community. Not only is the main character Trans and learning to be confident in who he really is but there is another character (who plays a smaller role) who also is trans which helps show a different perspective.  One of the many many reasons this story is so good is how wonderfully Aiden Thomas is able to organically create a really diverse community of characters along every spectrum you can think of: socio-economic, connection to family, acceptance by others ...

I really enjoyed this book and as I said at the beginning of this post this book highlights the need for new voices to write books about new experiences so that more and more of us all can see ourselves in the stories we read.