This book, as far as representation in literature goes, is phenomenal. It's about time a trans hero was put front and center! A gay romance that's not between secondary characters. A rich focus on the different Latinx cultures in America. And a spotlight on the homeless youth crisis in America. All great ingredients for a book.

But this book AS A BOOK falls flat. It doesn't commit one way or the other as a paranormal adventure or a paranormal coming-of-age/romance, so neither genre really gets its due. Instead, the book is mostly a slice-of-life story, and it gets pretty boring: They go to someone's kitchen, they go to school, they go to another kitchen, they go to school, they have every opportunity to ditch routine and follow magical-murder-mystery clues or have a manic-pixie-moment and carpe diem around LA... no, we stop in another kitchen. Boring.

The reveal at the end was both advertised from hella far away (hmm, jealous uncle, yes, I've watched The Lion King, too), and totally trippy. Yadriel, the alleged protagonist, is a passenger in this story, and has almost no agency in resolving the conflict; instead, a devil-jaguar punishes the wicked, and Yadriel watches in horror, unable to protect anyone.
Come to think of it, Yadriel doesn't have much of a character arc, either. Yadriel's coming-of-age already happened, he knows who he is and came out to his family already, past tense. He only serves as a vehicle for us to get to know Julian. Yes, he overcomes his prejudice against Julian, but "pride and prejudice" doesn't seem to be an underlying theme which links all the plots. Wanting to be Seen, perhaps, is the theme? But then, linking a trans hero and a serial killer by theme, and saying they might both have been led down this path if they hadn't earned the validation of their peers, is WAAAAAY problematic! I could keep puzzling, but I think the pieces just don't fit together. Yadriel's coming-of-age story, Julian's wolf pack of queer homeless kids, and a murder-mystery on Dia de Muertos, are given unequal gravitas, and fight with each other rather than braid together.