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A review by jsimpson
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Genuinely freaky, frightening, and messed up.
I'm going to come back and write a full review, as i read this as part of my Summer Horror series, but putting down a few initial thoughts while updating my status and ranking. Most notably, this book is the most egregious example of a novel that needs a trigger/content warning. Mostly, it's a kids on bikes/coming of age/bildungsroman mostly about a group of young boys (and the occasional girl) trying to solve a mystery over the course of a summer. It mostly nails that cozy Stephen King vibe. And then, out of nowhere, one character - Mink, the town drunk - drops like, no exaggeration, 27 n-bombs in like two pages.
Now, I love naturalistic dialogue, don't get me wrong. And I'm under no illusions what life and racial relations were like in 1960 when this takes place. But this is **jarring**, just really ugly and unnecessary. And before the "it's an older book, they didn't know better" crowd comes in - this came out in 1991. We absolutely knew better by then and had for some time.
Luckily, it's only 2 pages out of like 600 and it doesn't take long to get through. Whether or not it's worth overlooking is going to be entirely up to you.
Otherwise, it's an utter fantastic horror novel that's well worth a look! I'm excited to read the rest of the series now!
Full review to follow on Forestpunk.
I'm going to come back and write a full review, as i read this as part of my Summer Horror series, but putting down a few initial thoughts while updating my status and ranking. Most notably, this book is the most egregious example of a novel that needs a trigger/content warning. Mostly, it's a kids on bikes/coming of age/bildungsroman mostly about a group of young boys (and the occasional girl) trying to solve a mystery over the course of a summer. It mostly nails that cozy Stephen King vibe. And then, out of nowhere, one character - Mink, the town drunk - drops like, no exaggeration, 27 n-bombs in like two pages.
Now, I love naturalistic dialogue, don't get me wrong. And I'm under no illusions what life and racial relations were like in 1960 when this takes place. But this is **jarring**, just really ugly and unnecessary. And before the "it's an older book, they didn't know better" crowd comes in - this came out in 1991. We absolutely knew better by then and had for some time.
Luckily, it's only 2 pages out of like 600 and it doesn't take long to get through. Whether or not it's worth overlooking is going to be entirely up to you.
Otherwise, it's an utter fantastic horror novel that's well worth a look! I'm excited to read the rest of the series now!
Full review to follow on Forestpunk.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racial slurs