A review by scoobierubie
Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

challenging dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

To explain first, I think that Summer Sons was a 4 for me namely because it took a while to build up steam. The author really enjoyed languishing in their own metaphor, and while it worked most of the time and led to some beautiful descriptions and visuals, in the beginning they felt the need to describe a lot of the minutia of interactions to the point where it slowed down, in my eyes, both the characterization progress and the progress of the mystery. I can’t fully explain where this book clicked for me? But about halfway through it really sharply picked up steam and I was hooked from there to the end. The ending portion was truly so good and so emotionally cathartic and interesting that I can’t give this book below a 4, but at the same time the struggle I experienced getting into it in the beginning isn’t erased simply because the author stuck the landing. I would recommend this book? But recommendations will always come with the caveat of “give it time to get going.” 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Blood, and Suicide

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail

To explain the injury detail:

at the end of the book, a character is cut pretty deeply across their eyelid and needs surgery because of the damage to their eye. I personally get very squeamish when things happen to people’s eyes and this scene made me tense up but it’s not graphic about the condition of the character’s eye specifically, it’s just implied via the injury when the eye was closed.