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Cemetery Boys: To the Future

One of the reasons YA as a medium feels so repetitive is because the corporate heads are so afraid to take risks in regards to its characters. To a sadly large number of publishers, if the protagonist is not a white girl (or sometimes boy), then that book is doomed to obscurity. Thankfully, more books are starting to be published that would have been seen as risks just a few years ago. These books are pushing the medium of YA forward and prove that it doesn’t have to be about cookie-cutter white teenagers. One of these novels is Aiden Thomas’s Cemetery Boys.

Cemetery Boys is a book that surprised me with how well-written and lovable its characters are. It’s so rare to find a book where each character’s voice and style is so defined and prominent. If the book didn’t differentiate who was speaking, it would still be easy to tell who the dialogue belonged to because of how unique these characters are and how they had their own voices. Thomas does a fantastic job of describing the setting as well- such a fantastic job that it felt as though his world was alive. The characters in the novel are also extremely animated, making a wide variety of facial expressions and having all sorts of unique vocal tones and reactions.

It’s unfortunate when YA novels (or any form of media, really) try to incorporate diverse characters, but how they are written feels forced. This often happens with Spanish-speaking characters and how they switch from Spanish to English. However, with Cemetery Boys, the Spanish and English alternation feels natural. It’s obvious that Cemetery Boys is a story that Thomas is writing out of love and a desire to represent his experiences. Everything, from the detailed descriptions of LA and the Brujx traditions to Yadriel struggling as a transgender Brujo came from the heart and feels so real.

Cemetery Boys is one of the many stories that show that there is a change occurring in YA. The days where a story is only publishable if it stars a white protagonist are slowly being left in the past. Just a few years ago, it was unfathomable for a book like Cemetary Boys to be published. Cemetery Boys is a book about a trans, queer boy trying to navigate the very conservative world he lives in. It is a book about Latinx experiences. It is a book about love. It’s a book about taking risks. Cemetery Boys is not a stereotypical YA book and it’s proud of that. Like its protagonist Yadriel, the novel doesn’t let outdated institutions hold it. It is forging a path for itself and other novels like it, so that, one day, a novel like Cemetery Boys being released by a major publisher will be a common occurrence.

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Response to “JK Rowling's Transphobia Wasn't Hard to Find, She Wrote a Book About It”



Harry Potter is a series that I, like many, have a complicated relationship with. It was a series that defined my childhood. The books were my friends when I didn’t have any. I grew disillusioned with them when I had a friend who was hopelessly obsessed with them because I was tired of hearing about them. Harry Potter left the forefront of my consciousness until JK Rowling showed her true colors. I honestly think a lot of the reason for this was due to becoming a wannabe hipster when I was a teen. By the time that phase in my life was over, I was already disgusted by what I learned about Rowling. Not only that, but I realized that the books were, as Ursula K Le Guin put it, “rather mean-spirited”. Rowling approached serious issues without the seriousness that they deserved. House elves enjoyed being enslaved and to suggest the contrary (as Hermione did) would get a character mocked out of the room. Rowling acted as though Voldemort was the only problem and that the Wizarding World would function perfectly without him when, in reality, Voldemort took advantage of the institutions that were supposedly so lawful. When Voldemort is finally defeated, these institutions aren’t changed to prevent another Voldemort. After all, for Rowling, the system can’t possibly be corrupt. Only people are. The system is inherently good, even if bad people can take advantage of it. Because stability is more important than change. If one isn’t disadvantaged by these institutions, it doesn’t matter that they’re inherently corrupt.

With the evidence of fake activism and lack of sympathy for the little guy, it makes sense that Rowling would write a book putting down aspiring authors and minorities. Rowling, as evident by her writing and tweets, only cares about issues when they affect her. There is a romanticisation of the poor, yet a serious lack of any effort to help them. Harry must suffer for the good of the wizarding world, despite having many people who love him who would be willing to take him in. Minorities are only used as tokens. They are characters that are included to make the books seem more diverse, yet have no real impact on the plot. It makes sense that someone who believes that people must suffer for the good of others and treats minorities as tokens would patronize them and see them as lesser. To those like Rowling, minorities and the poor are tools that are used to lift others up. They exist to serve their purpose: making the world easier for others.

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Tyler Johnson was Here: A Reflection

Tyler Johnson was Here is a book that needs to be read. It’s a book that reminds white readers of how difficult it is to be a POC in America. From the first chapter, where Marvin and co. nearly get shot by a police officer, it’s made clear that the novel isn’t trying to pull any punches. It’s showing the reader just how terrifying it is to be black in America. It’s something that white readers wouldn’t even think about. The police are not a threat to white people. Even I, as someone who gets a chill down my spine when I see a police car or officer, do not feel this dread. My fear is one of an anxious delusion. While there is a threat of a cop abusing their power to take control over me, it’s a threat that is much less prevalent or real for a black person. In the end, I am one of the people the police favor (on the outside at least). I’m a “white woman”, the classic damsel in distress. I am one of the people that cops can use as an excuse for killing an innocent black person. They were just trying to protect the “good civilians” AKA an innocent white woman or a white man with, in their eyes, infinite potential. Potential to become an “upstanding citizen”, like them. 

In the novel, it shows just how little police value black lives. Black people are automatically considered “thugs” and as “being up to something”. In contrast, white people are almost glorified by the police. Even though they all live in the same neighborhood, the value is automatically placed on white people. 

The novel also builds its world amazingly. The reader is able to know what music Marvin likes, the smell of the school building, the outfit almost every kid wears, and much more. Coles sculpts a world that is extremely immersive with his amazing descriptions. That makes the fear and tragedy in this book that much more real and heartbreaking. 

The book ends with an important message. It’s important to not let grief take over your life, but at the same time, it’s also important that Tyler’s memory lives on. Otherwise, the racists that tried to extinguish Tyler’s flame will have won.

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Mockingjay

I never finished reading Mockingjay when I was a kid. I think a large part of the reason was because it was a bit too difficult for me to grasp. Katniss becoming such a vulnerable character scared me a lot when I was 11 years old. I wasn’t ready for the reality of trauma, especially it affecting the protagonist of a young adult novel. 

Watching the Mockingjay films as an adult was nice in that I finally got some closure. The movies are really well done. Jennifer Lawrence is a phenomenal actress. I know that’s kind of like saying that Celine Dion is a great singer, but it’s true. The scene where Katniss comes back to 12 after Prim dies and takes out her anger on Buttercup was disturbing, and not just because it involved throwing china at a cat. 

The set design in the film was also amazing. The scenes where Katniss and co. were in the Capitol were gorgeous. These buildings were oppressive. The sky was dark. It really felt like I was in a dystopia. 

As a political science student who is currently taking a class all about toppling dictatorships, it was very interesting to see how the rebellion played out and what they used to inspire hope in the people. It was also interesting how what Peeta was saying while controlled by the Capitol, essentially that violence would lead to more violence, would have been true under Coin. A lot of revolutions are often succeeded by similar despots, just with different facades. It was interesting to see Mockingjay tackle this and it shows how seriously the novel takes its audience.

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Holes: How to Take a Young Audience Seriously

Louis Sachar is a writer that knows children. From his Wayside School series to Holes, each of his books that I read captivated me as a child. I reread them over and over. Sachar’s novels are wacky. They have names that are puns, unique storylines (such as a kid getting a tattoo, Ms. Mush’s grotesque lunch, and a floor of a school in another dimension), and, most importantly, they take their readers seriously. The wackiness in Sachar’s novels don’t undermine its readers’ intelligence or coddle them. Instead, he uses these elements to enhance his stories and challenge his readers’ understanding of reality. 

Holes, while not as zany as the Wayside School series, still uses elements signature to Sachar’s unique style of storytelling. There’s the unique premise of boys having to dig holes that are exactly 5 feet deep with a 5 foot circumference, the charming names (Mr. Sir, X-ray being Rex in Pig Latin), and, of course, the yellow-spotted lizards. While Holes attracts readers with its unique premise and Louis Sachar’s signature style, it contains themes that stick with its audience and cement it as a childhood staple. 

The novel is about kids who the system is against, whether that be due to racial or class discrimination. In the end, the adults, the ones who control society and prey upon the discrimination these children face, are the ones who end up getting punished. 

The novel’s three intertwined storylines are all important for advancing the message. The origin story of Kate Barlow in particular is one of the best story arcs I’ve read in children’s literature. It helps introduce the reality of racism and mob mentality to kids while also showing them that history is often rewritten to suit the majority.

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Annie on my Mind: A Beautiful Journey of Love Self-Discovery

Annie on My Mind is a special book. It’s a book about love in its purest form. A love that, despite the obstacles it faces (both internal and external), is able to persevere and come out stronger in the end. 

Annie on My Mind is perhaps one of the best examples of young adult romance I have ever read. A large amount of romance written for this audience treats them like children, using tired tropes as plot devices, irritating misunderstandings to drive the plots, and characters that are more two-dimensional than the paper they are printed on. The protagonists often have no reason for being in love with each other. Often, they do simply due to “love at first sight” or a prophecy or something else inorganic. I enjoy a cheesy romance about love that is destined or driven by some supernatural force every once in a while, but when that’s the bulk of a genre, it gets very annoying to read very fast. 

Annie on My Mind has the protagonists start out as friends, which makes sense given that the two girls are closeted and don’t realize (or are too afraid to acknowledge) their sexual orientation. By having these characters begin their relationship as what seems platonic, their friendship is able to develop naturally, leading into a romantic relationship that seems inevitable. Annie on my Mind presents one of the few literary romances that I would say is truly healthy. The girls built their relationship from the foundations of love, not lust like in so many of Annie’s contemporaries, and that is extremely obvious. The two respect each other. They get into fights, but through these fights, the girls are able to resolve misunderstandings and learn more about each other. Annie and Liza, while they are deeply in love with each other, don’t fall into the traditional romance novel trapping of being codependent. While they feel like they can’t go a second without each other, this is due to the rush of a first love rather than the two having an unhealthy relationship. This is made evident by the two having success in college despite not having talked since the summer.

Annie on my Mind is a truly great novel. It shows the beauty of first love and how strong love can be. It is also a tale of self-love and acceptance. Someone who enjoys well-written characters and romance and would like to see characters who grow and change should definitely consider reading Annie on My Mind. It’s a book that despite being written almost 40 years ago, is still relevant and will continue to be an evergreen story for years to come.

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The story of the ugly duckling was never about the cygnet discovering he is lovely.  It is not a story about realizing you have become beautiful. It is about the sudden understanding that you are something other than what you thought you were, and that what you are is more beautiful than what you once thought you had to be.

Blanca & Roja by Anna-Marie McLemore (via miraclerizuin)

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Blanca and Roja: A Dream-like Tale of Othering and Togetherness

When I was younger, I loved to read. I loved the feeling of being transported to another world that a book could give me. As I grew older, though, I fell out of love with reading. I just couldn’t feel the magic of a book anymore. When reading Blanca and Roja, I relived those mornings as a 10 year old where I reread Harry Potter before going down for breakfast.

Blanca and Roja uses the novel format as a way to transition seamlessly between character perspectives. This, along with the novel’s subject matter and the language McLemore uses to tell the story, give Blanca and Roja a dream-like feeling. This allows the reader to become immersed in the story being told and truly feel what is happening in the novel.

Blanca and Roja is loosely based on the fairy tale “Snow-white and Rose-red”. It stars two girls, Blanca and Roja del Cisne. Their family suffers a generation-long curse that forces one of its daughters to become a swan. This often leads to division and conflict among the daughters of the del Cisne family. Blanca is the one who is favored, by seemingly everybody. The señoras, her family, and her community see her as the “good” sister. Blanca is seen as the delicate, sweet del Cisne girl. Roja, on the other hand, is seen as the “witch”. She is the one that is going to lose and become a bird. The reason for these vastly different reputations of the sisters is due to their features. Blanca, like her name implies, is very fair and has blonde hair. She mentions numerous times how she is so close to looking like the other girls in her (predominantly white) community and often experiences self-hatred directed at her latina features. Roja is very obviously latina, with her darker skin and almost black hair. 

By having the sister who is more “ethnic” be deemed as the witch and the one who almost passes for white be the “princess”, McLemore is commentating on numerous colorist and bigoted tropes in our society. One can draw parallels to how evil witches in fairy tales are based on stereotypes of Jewish women. These stereotypes also coincide with other identities, like women of Latina descent. The darker and less stereotypically white woman is always seen as evil. She is a corrupting force. The blonde woman is the innocent one who must be protected.

McLemore also shows how people of different identities are otherized and seen as mystical, like how boys believe the del Cisnes grow drugs in their garden. However, there are other gardens in the story (like the Holts’ and the Ashbys’ apple orchard), yet there is no mention of boys perusing these gardens for drugs. 

The story ends in a gorgeous way, proving that these two sisters did not need to be pitted against one another. By working together, Blanca and Roja were able to dispel this curse. This shows that people who are different don’t need to be pitted against each other. The real enemy is not the one who is favored by society, but, rather, the society that devalues ethnic traits in the first place.

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― seanan mcguire, every heart a doorway

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Every Heart a Doorway: A Unique Take on Portal Fantasy and Characterization

Everyone wants to escape their boring, mundane lives. This is especially true of teenagers. The magic of childhood has worn off and now the world is boring and depressing. Why not escape to another one? 

The idea of finding oneself in another world is one that has been explored for many, many years across a multitude of different mediums. From Alice in Wonderland (arguably the progenitor of such stories) to countless other books, movies, TV shows, anime, etc., it has been made clear that this trope of being whisked away to a world involving all things fantastical and magical is here to stay.

Every Heart a Doorway is Seanan McGuire’s approach to what happens to these protagonists after their adventures in another realm. Oftentimes, stories about people who go to parallel worlds and universes end when they come home. The reader rarely is privy to how the protagonist acclimates to their original society after going through so much in their new world. 

McGuire approaches this topic in a very real and thoughtful manner. After all, once someone goes to another universe, gets used to a completely new way of life and has a multitude of character-developing experiences, it would be odd to expect them to return to their previous selves just by leaving that strange world. There are two approaches the children in McGuire’s universe have after coming back to our world. They either adjusted to their world so well that going back to their original one leaves them traumatized or their new world was so traumatizing that, upon coming back, they have what essentially amounts to PTSD. Either way, being whisked away to a completely new universe leaves these children with some sort of mental trauma, which makes sense given that the human brain isn’t equipped to handle these odd worlds.

One interesting thing to note is that the world’s severity doesn’t determine the reaction these children have to it. A horrible world doesn’t necessarily leave one never wanting to go back, as is shown with Jack and Jill, twin girls who were whisked away to what is essentially a Victorian horror novel, and their longing to go back. Therefore, it can be inferred that a world that should be “fun” or “amazing” could leave some children traumatized and never wanting to return. This shows that it’s the children’s personalities and mental states that determine their reaction to their new world and not the world itself. 

McGuire builds a unique space where these children can interact with one another. The stories these children have to tell are extremely interesting and would make great novellas of their own, proving how great McGuire’s ability to captivate an audience is. 

Nancy, the protagonist of Every Heart a Doorway, is a girl who recently returned to our world from a world similar to the Greek underworld, with pomegranates and a lord of the dead. Through Nancy, we get to see just how traumatizing it is to readjust to the mortal world. A world whose rules and structures Nancy had to unlearn is thrust upon her, shocking to her after finding a world which was her perfect fit. Nancy is a great protagonist as, given her necessity to become a statue and fade into the background, she almost takes a backseat to the action. While Nancy is the story’s protagonist, she as a character never focuses the spotlight on herself, which allows the reader to learn more about the other children, their stories and their trauma. 

The aforementioned Jack and Jill are the most interesting characters in the novel. The identical twins are whisked away to the same world, a world full of horror, death, and violence. However, despite being transported to the same world and being identical twins, the two find different things in it. What they find corresponds to their desires, with Jack desiring to be an intellectual and to experience the world on her own terms and Jill desiring to be the center of attention, solely belonging to someone. These represent the two’s discontent with their lives. Their perfectionist parents designate Jill as the tomboy and Jack as the prissy, feminine daughter. Despite the world of the Moors being violent and horrific, the two long for it as it was the only place that allowed them to be themselves. Jack was able to have her intellect nurtured by a guardian who, despite having her do dangerous things and subjecting her to grotesque sights, seemed to genuinely care about her. Meanwhile, Jill was able to live out her fantasy of being the center of attention and being able to fit a stereotypical view of femininity. Jill’s desire to be the center of attention and her love and longing for her master leaves her with very little rationality, which lets the reveal at the end of the novel make a lot of sense. 

All in all Every Heart a Doorway was a fantastic and fascinating read. While I wasn’t able to articulate everything I liked about the novel in this blog post, I enjoyed so many aspects of it and am definitely interested in reading the second novel Down Among the Sticks and Bones. Given how one of my favorite parts of the novel was the characterization of the twins, I can’t wait to see what happened before they returned “home”.