Reviews with content warning for Suicide - The Summer That Melted Everything

Incredible book. I can’t believe this was a debut. Tiffany McDaniel particularly writes sibling love and relationships well - these parts hit the biggest emotional spots for me and I will definitely be reading more by her

I also thought it was an interesting incorporation of the devil scare stuff from the 80s. I basically only know about that from books set in the 80s, but it does seem to come up a lot

There were places where I hated Sal myself, particularly when he shot Granny (I know it’s a mercy kill but I have a really hard time with dog death justified or not) and when he explained what he’d said to Grand. I know he’s just a kid and didn’t mean for that to happen, but I somewhat irrationally blamed him in part for the death of a character I particularly loved.

The final scene with Sal was absolutely brutal and made even more tragic in light of the possible backstory that was revealed later. I don’t understand how Autopsy defended the mob, even if he did believe in representation for all. Tbh I doubt the court would have allowed it anyway given his relationship to Sal

I appreciated the ambiguous ending and thought it matched the tone of the book well

Vibes: To Kill a Mockingbird and A Prayer for Owen Meany

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anonymous_user's review

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

3.25

This book made me cry and was very heavy. Definitely check content warnings before reading, I was not fully prepared. The book seriously seemed to include just about every trigger/trauma that ever existed, which felt gratuitous at times. I did think it was well written and engaging, and I cared about Sal and the narrator and Grand. But

the ending was extremely sad, and I felt like there were a lot of unanswered questions about how Sal knew things. And the reveal at the end about his kidnapping felt a little bit rushed/out of the blue. Also, I felt like there wasn’t really much lead up to the narrator being queer,

and sometimes the jumps between his future/old self and the main timeline felt confusing. Most of the future timeline could’ve been left out in my opinion. But maybe that’s also partially because I read this book very quickly in preparation for a book club. Other reviewers make very valid points about

it feeling messed up that the conclusion of the book is essentially absolving the white perpetrators of the lynching and treating Sal as a “magical minority” trope instead of a little boy. Also it didn’t sit right with me that the narrator chose not to end his friend’s suffering but to be a “hero” killing the bad guy…

The relationship between Sal and Grand leading up to his suicide was heartbreaking and hit a bit close to home for me.

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