stefanie aus frei
To heal and support one another in this life and the next Imagine: You are hanging out with a guy whom you want to help checking out his friends are okay, because there had been an attack against his group. Sounds easy, unless said guy is dead, only you can see his spirit, and his friends are slightly bewildered why you constantly talk and look the other way at, to them, nothingness and who you are, by all means. Absolutely not my usual genre, YA and fantasy, but I loved it. Maybe because it was all set within the very real world, apart from a few special features. Yadrial’s Latinx family are East LA brujx, the women are brujas (literally “witches”, but it is impolite to say so), some sort of healers, the men brujos, responsible for leading the dead/dying over to the after life. That is as far as fantasy goes, and I was fine with it, I mean, doctors, nurses, priests, end-of-life care, not so alien, uhm? No spoiler: that will be exactly the sort of jobs some of the women will choose, while the men will rather work within the community. Now Yadrial should have had his quinces, his ritual initiation, when he turned fifteen. He was denied – being a trans boy and also gay already stressed the traditional ways of his family and community, who would often still call him by his deadname. His only confidants were his mother, who died last year, and his cousin Maritza, sort of an outsider herself: being vegan, she refuses to use her healing powers as they demand the usage of animal blood. Yadriel is determined to prove himself with the aide of Maritza, and sets out to perform the brujo ritual on his own. He will get a chance when his cousin Miguel dies and neither body nor spirit can be found. But the spirit summoned turns out to be Julian Diaz, the school’s bad boy. And he is not yet willing to go, but wants to check in with his friends. As I said, I loved it. There is wit and humour to the writing, there is friendship, the love story is not an annoying one like to me most of YA or romance (not “oh my knees melt” all of the time, it develops slowly, almost against the persons’ will). Especially the topic of Yadriel being trans is developed cleverly – you first get to know him, soon learn how he is being kept low by his family, and while you sympathize only then read why. I loved how author Aiden Thomas has developed the ending of the book: tying all loose ends together, not escaping to “oh, now let’s introduce some new magic to solve this”, but leaving no plotholes instead. And that’s only his debut? Wow. I am glad that a challenge made me discover this and go beyond my usual reading. “May we never fear death but remember we live on in the love we nurture in our time on earth. May we heal and support one another in this life and the next”. 5 stars.
