Unapologetic Reviews

Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas was a book I very much wanted to love. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t even dislike it. But in the end, it left me curiously unsatisfied, not because of what it is, but because of what it almost becomes and never quite commits to. The story follows Yadriel , a trans boy from a Latinx brujo community , who accidentally summons the ghost of Julian instead of the spirit he intended to raise. Julian cannot be released. His body is missing. He does not remember how he died. On paper, this promises a supernatural mystery . In practice, the novel is something else entirely: a character driven, slice of life story that uses a mystery more as a framing device than as a narrative engine. There is a lot to admire here. The world building is rich and lovingly constructed. The brujx traditions , rituals, beliefs, and mythology feel grounded and coherent, giving the book a strong sense of place and cultural specificity. This is a world with weight behind it, not a thin ae...

Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy was marketed in a way that makes you expect something almost salacious. A teenage girl. An affair with her teacher. It sounds like the setup for a dark romance, or at least a scandal-driven story. This is not that book. I read it expecting drama, exposure, fallout. What I got instead was a quiet, uncomfortable, and very honest portrait of a girl who is trying to grow up while still desperately wanting to be a daughter. Waldo is seventeen at the beginning and eighteen by the end. She is raising herself. Her mother drifts from job to job, boyfriend to boyfriend, and her father has been absent for years. She waits to be seen. To be chosen. To be loved. And although at first it seems like she has given up on that hope, she really hasn’t. She still lives for it. She goes to school. She works. She manages her own life. But there is a constant emptiness under everything she does, a kind of hopelessness she never quite names. Then she meets her new creative ...