Cemetery Boys

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-15

Chapters 16-20

Chapters 21-26

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Growth

The theme of change being unavoidable and growth being desirable recurs throughout Aiden Thomas’s Cemetery Boys, especially in the evolution of the brujx community’s traditional views and practices.

The brujx’ refusal to grant Yadriel his brujo quinces ceremony marks their initial rigid view of gender. The brujx community clings to their traditions and, as a result, people like Yadriel and even Catriz are pushed to the edges and rendered outcasts. Enrique—Yadriel’s father and the leader of the East Los Angeles brujx—epitomizes the traditional views held by the community. However, his faith and commitment to the supernatural powers the brujx have is stronger than his ideas about gender. When he discovers that Yadriel has been blessed by Lady Death as a brujo, Enrique sees the error of the community’s ways in their treatment of Yadriel and Catriz. He admits to Yadriel, “We were unfair to him, and you, Yadriel. It’s too late to go back and make things right with Catriz, but I promise to do everything to make sure nothing like that happens again” (280). In this moment, Enrique takes responsibility for the way the community shunned Yadriel and Catriz, and for how using tradition to justify exclusion weakened the community.

Enrique’s speech at the aquelarre reiterates the importance of growth. If they fail to grow with the times and their community members, the brujx will inevitably doom themselves to failure. He tells the living and dead brujx who are gathered together in the church, “Our traditions should grow and change with every generation. Just because we follow the ancient ways does not mean we can’t also grow” (290). This emphasis on the importance of growth highlights the fact that tradition and progress need not be antithetical to one another: “Growth isn’t a deviation from what we’ve done before, but a natural progression to honor all those who make this community strong” (290). Enrique’s decision to value growth, change, and evolution speaks to his desire to honor the brujx community and those within it.

Ultimately, the novel’s supernatural elements confirm this decision. Lady Death’s acceptance of Yadriel as a brujo and her blessing allow him to save the lives of four people. Yadriel’s sacrifice and miraculous actions speak to the importance of inclusion, of growing with the community rather than excluding those who are different.

Community and Chosen Family

The importance of community is vital theme that is threaded throughout the entire novel. One example can be found in Yadriel’s community of brujx: “Men and women who’d emigrated from all over—Mexico and Cuba, Puerto Rico and Colombia, Honduras and Haiti, even the ancient Incas, Aztecs, and Maya—all bestowed with powers by the ancient gods” (13). Though the brujx community is composed of a variety of different cultures and people, its members care deeply for each other, safeguarding and protecting their own from threats like deportation. But this insular kind of protection can also backfire. Because they are “fearful of the police and scared to seek out help when they needed it” (150), the brujx community “tried to band together and close their ranks” (150). For instance, the brujx search tirelessly for Miguel’s body when the police do not even bother to get an interpreter to communicate with his parents.

The brujx community is wary of external threats: “As a community that was already so close-knit and stuck to their own, it only exacerbated their fear of outsiders” (150). Unfortunately, however, sometimes the people the brujx see as outsiders are people they themselves have cast out: people like Yadriel and Catriz, who do not fit the community’s strict rules, or people like Maritza, who chafe against ideas that they do not agree with.

A different kind of community based on necessity is Julian’s group of friends—his chosen family. A group of teenagers who have no support system at school or in their respective families, they rely on each other instead. Most of Julian’s friends are queer, and some of them have been kicked out of their homes as a result: “Queer folks are like wolves. We travel in packs” (110). By travelling in a “pack,” Julian and his friends find acceptance, tolerance, and comfort. Through this, they feel a little less alone in the world. Like the brujx, Julian’s “pack” is strongly committed to safeguarding their own. His comparison of queer folks to wolves undergirds the role that a community plays in protecting and standing up for those within it. However, unlike the brujx, the found family does not judge its members—for example, Rio accepts teens sleeping in his small apartment without asking questions about why they need to be there. Similarly, Rocky offers judgment-free support to the trans members of the group. In the bathroom, she guards “the stall when Flaca used the girls’ restroom, throwing seething glares at anyone who so much as looked at Flaca the wrong way” (128)—an act Julian repeats for Yadriel later in the novel. As members of the same community, they provide each other with the invaluable encouragement and love they require.

Death as the Beginning

Death is a prevailing theme throughout the novel. While many religious traditions belief in an afterlife, to the brujx community, death is much more concretely just a change of existence, not an end. At the start of the novel, Thomas introduces the spirit of a young man who lives in the cemetery and his living girlfriend: “the two spent hours together in the cemetery, as if death had never parted them to begin with” (7). Through this couple, the reader begins to understand that brujx spirits return to their families every year for two days: On the Day of the Dead, “families stood together talking, laughing, and embracing. There were smiles, tears, and kisses. Parents who had lost their children, lovers separated by death, and friends long lost were brought back together in celebration” (286). The Day of the Dead is a celebration, a time for families to reunite with those they have lost.

However, Yadriel begins to see death in a different light when he meets Julian. As Julian is not a brujo, Yadriel knows that “For Julian, death was finite. When his dad died, he didn’t get to see him again. And now, Julian’s friends and his brother would never see him again, either” (169). Yadriel’s former ease with death is a privilege only the very small community of brujx have. When he sees firsthand the effects that “death being such a finality” (234) has on non-magical people, his view on death changes. Yadriel cannot bear the thought of losing Julian forever. He wishes that he could have more time with Julian—a realization that makes him truly acknowledge his grief over his mother’s death. Living in a community that is familiar, even comfortable, with death, means that Yadriel has been expected to calmly tolerate his losses. Now, he has the insight and ability to fully process what losing his mother at a young age meant to him—especially since she was the person who most accepted him in the community.