Reviews

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

allierose2's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Ok, so, the final hundred or so pages of this absolutely slapped. The climax and resolution were a real masterFul work (tense, scary, sexy, mysterious!) that I absolutely ate up. But the pacing up to that point was a real struggle.  I think the effort to get across the claustrophobic, grieving, spooky ambiance was somewhat effective but ultimately overdone at the outset. Felt like we struggled to find our feet in what became a very interesting story. Not sure I’d recommend this one out but think I’d read more from the author to see if Mandelo pulls it off more effectively in another story. 

mushroom_fairy_in_the_woods's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

The beginning was super slow and it took me a while to get into it.
Reminded me a little of the raven boys. 
I didn't really like the main character.

bit it was very funny when he said he was straight. Sure buddy. Suuuuuper straight

but he was kinda pitiful too. 

minervacerridwen's review against another edition

I tried reading Summer Sons for my book club, where other people had recommended it. The book is written well enough that I made it 100 pages in, but it just contains everything I don't actually want to read about: college setting, substance abuse, irresponsible driving, too many mentions of

vomit

for my emetophobia, and characters I didn't find loveable. Combined with a plot that unfolds very, very slowly, I couldn't bring myself to keep reading.

icarianoceans's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

annisofia's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

priceliketag's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

neilcitos's review against another edition

emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

potterpav's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

this might be one of those very rare cases where i rate a book 5 stars and the longer it goes from the time i finished reading it, the more the stars drop. i saw someone describe this book somewhere (goodreads, maybe?) as "the raven cycle if the main character was noah czerny", which is the main reason why i bought this book, but after reading it, i couldn't disagree more. its more "the raven cycle if the main character was adam parrish", but even then it feels so different to TRC. this book made me feel crazy. i adored the first half more than the second, but the entire thing just feels like someone poured testosterone all over this book like gasoline and struck a match. it feels like blistering just below the skin, boiling hot and shaking until it bursts and you're standing, shivering from adrenalin. i love reading abt (toxic) masculinity and repressed homosexuality, so this was great! it is THE southern gothic book, queer too (yippee!) and so enticing its insane. i haven't read a book this enthralling in months, i couldn't put it down and read 60% of it in a day. the writing style takes a LONG time to get used to, to the point where by the end i was still a bit lost, but its fast and has gorgeous characters. this book will not be for everyone, but it was definitely for me. if i had to describe it in three words it'd be vertigo, threesomes and horny, which is insane considering its probably gonna be the best book i've read this year. what a blessing it was for me to read this book, like fate.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Blood, Body horror, Gore, and Grief

Moderate: Homophobia

i was going to put

incest

in the content warnings, but i actually have no clue if it actually was ... the entire book i was like okay, yeah sure,

they are constantly referred to as siblings, as brothers, as more than siblings, as more than cousins

but then i was like am i just being stupid? is it all metaphorical? also wtf was all the stuff about

andrew's childhood assault in the caravan or whatever when the ghost like... assaulted him? why did we never go back to that? does that count as sexual assault, and should that be tagged or was it not??

i feel like a lot of the less obvious themes of this book are so hard to tag because it's super unclear what actually happened and what didn't. anyway

atomicbritt's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Drug use, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Death

Moderate: Homophobia, Sexual content, and Racism

endotheline's review against another edition

4.0

I really liked this.

It started off a little slow but it picked up the pace and caught my interest pretty quickly.  I appreciated the exploration of grief and horror and violence.  I especially appreciated that it was horny and gay.  And most importantly, I have not stopped thinking about the line "Is there anything in this scenario that feels heterosexual or well-adjusted to you?"

So yeah, I really liked this.  I wish I had more to say but I guess I need to let this book simmer in the back of my mind for a bit longer.

Rating: 4/5