This book was absolutely amazing. I had such a great time reading it and I just wanted to bundle Yads and Jules up and protect them as much as possible.

We meet Yadriel, known as Yads, just a few days before Día de Muertos (The Day of the Dead). Yads is a brujo in a family of brujx and yet feels like an outsider because his family and community cannot accept his gender or who he is. Yadriel is transgender and because of this, his father and community have decided there's no way he's a brujo. This means that despite what his mother wanted before she died, and as much as Yadriel wants it, they will not let him have the traditional ceremony where he is introduced as a brujo to the community, or let him participate in the traditional ceremony in which Lady Death grants him his powers to raise and release the dead.

To prove to everyone they are wrong and that he is a real brujo, Yads and his cousin Maritza perform the ceremony themselves. That very night, their cousin Miguel is killed and everyone in the community feels it. Yads is convinced that now that he's been granted his powers by Lady Death, all he needs to do is find Miguel's body, release his spirit, and find out what the hell happened to him. Doing that will have to make his father and family accept him as a brujo once and for all. The only problem is, in trying to raise Miguel from the dead, Yadriel summons a different spirit: Julian.

Julian has no idea how he died, is shocked to find out he's dead, and wants to know what the hell brujx are. Once he gets over the initial shock, he tells Yads that before he'll let him release his spirit, Yads has to help him make sure his friends are okay. Yadriel has other things to worry about, but what if helping Jules is the answer to all his problems? After all, if he can release Julian's ghost, then his family will have to accept him right? And what if Jules death and Miguel's disappearance are related? Yads may not be happy about it, but if he's going to prove himself, he's going to have to help Jules.

Both Jules and Yads characters were so well written, that I couldn't help but fall in love with them. Both of them have their own identities and struggles, which are explored throughout the book. One of the things I loved the most was that they didn't start out liking each other. Julian's character is so head strong, angry, and full of life that he's a force of nature. Yadriel is a force of nature in his own right, but his personality is a bit more toned down that Julian's. They're forced to remain together and even though they're so different, there's something so easy about their interactions and conversations. Those initial connections only help their relationship to grow as the story continues. The way that Jules didn't even bat an eyelash when he found out Yadriel's transgender was amazing because a lot of what Yadriel is experiencing is related to the fact that his family can't accept him. And yet here is this stranger, who doesn't even think twice.

The other great thing about this book was the cultural elements of it. This book is about cultural identity and meshing what you know and learned with who you are. The magic, the culture, the characters themselves....I'm so glad I was able to read this and I definitely think everyone should pick this up.

Sidenote, can we get a story about Maritza because I LOVED HER.

Go grab this book when it's released on it's new release date: September 1st! And be sure to add it to your Goodreads. And guess what? IT'S OWN VOICES!!