Reviews with content warning for Transphobia - Summer Sons

This was a good book in so many heartbreaking ways. Though it took me a little time to get into it, once the story was underway I was hooked.

This is self-aware Southern Gothic at its finest; the horror elements felt folkloric, and the racism and classicism played an important role in the way the story developed.

The overwhelming part of reading this book - especially with such a good narrator - is the grief. This would not be a comforting read for those dealing with loss, as the ghoul both is and isn’t Eddie. The parody of affection is wrenching, as is Andrew’s slow realization that he and Eddie had been in love but too scared/repressed/unaware to act on it.

I don’t think I understand why Eddie kept Andrew at arm’s length when he moved to Nashville, except that he wanted to explore something that Andrew did not.

Sam’s character was fantastic in his depth; drug dealer, street racer, but caring cousin and emotionally mature lover. His acceptance at the end, giving Andrew a fresh start … oh, heartbreaking but believable given the trauma they went through.

I did kind of call the professor was the bad guy at the beginning, and the pacing did feel a little slow at the onset. But otherwise, this was a haunting, emotional rollercoaster with some beautiful writing.

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laguerrelewis's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

This book is oozing in atmosphere. Lee Mandelo has a way of describing things that cuts right to the heart of the image, transporting you into the story. This skill is employed to great effect in this creepy, tragic southern gothic. A story about haunting, inheritance, personhood, and love in all its fucked up forms, this is a great tale to raise the hair on your neck an leave you with a lot to consider.

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corruptednatz's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Fantastic book! Is it me or was every character hot in this book? They way the main character was observing each male character had me feeling some way 😂

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wardenred's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Is there anything in this scenario that feels heterosexual or well-adjusted to you?

Well, this was a trip, and I loved practically every minute. It's a messy story of grief and codependency, and while Andrew isn't the most likable MC I've ever met, to put it mildly, I also found him incredibly relatable. To tell the truth, no character in this book was 100% likable (Riley came closest?), but plenty of them made me feel for them and kept me intrigued. Sam in particular was a great character to follow throughout the story as he revealed more and more of himself, like piling back layers of an onion. And West's subplot, although rather small, was one of my favorite things about the book. And then there's Eddie, who exists in the plot purely as a memory full of contradictions, never to be resolved.

The writing style here really stuck with me. It's incredibly... sensory? Tactile? There's sure a lot of emphasize on bodies—Andrew is constantly aware of his own muscles and bones, and everyone around him—and physical sensations in general. It was interesting to see how the author focused on all the physicality and through that brought emotions to life. I'm usually the opposite, both in how I write and how I perceive the world, and I'm also not a super visual reader, but the prose here really pulled me into the story and the setting and made me experience some scenes as though I were watching a movie.

As for the plot, if I had to describe the story in one word, I'd pick "liminal." Andrew spends pretty much the entire thing stuck between things. The past and the present/future. His memories of Eddie and the true legacy Eddie left him. The orderly cut-throat academic world and the wild freedom of nighttime drives with the bad crowd. The sunlit summer in the real world and the cold land of the ghosts. Grief has a way of trapping you in the moment, in that empty page between chapters, especially when you're grieving someone you had a weird codependent relationship with, doubly so when they abandoned you even before they died, and Mandelo captures the feeling masterfully while also crafting a great southern gothic horror story. There are so many nested secrets here, the mystery Andrew investigates and the one he keeps from the reader, as well as the things he doesn't understand about himself that everyone else does. Also, I'm torn between wanting a sequel, because I so much want to know how Andrew and the people around him fare now that his amber bubble is burst and the next chapter begins, and being completely, utterly, 100% satisfied with the final scene.

For all of my praise, however, there are aspects of the book that won't let me five-star it. For once, the story is incredibly masculine. That in itself isn't a flaw; such stories have their place. But literally all the women in the plot only exist to drive the male characters' storylines further, in a variety of ways. They're pretty much all more plot devices than characters, tools that resolve plot questions, trigger events, or bring forth necessary revelations while exhibiting zero character traits that aren't 100% relevant to their role in the plot. That's a stark and unpleasant contrast to the way more nuanced handling of male characters, and it didn't sit well with me. Like, come on. This has good trans rep, this has decent poly rep that compares and contrasts healthy and unhealthy dynamics in a throuple, but somehow female characters get this odd treatment? Why?

Another part I wasn't fully satisfied with was the dark academia aspect. The academic parts of the book were so often pushed to the curb or just briefly summarized without proper focus, and considering how crucial that part of the story turned out to be for the main plot resolution, that was just... weird. Finally, for me it felt like the author went overboard with all the substance abuse. At some point, all the mentions of drugs and alcohol started feeling like they were just there to make the story darker and edgier.

PS: I'm kind of convinced that Lee Mandelo had my favorite Placebo song (Kings of Medicine) on repeat while writing this, because if not, then how?

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dagsywagsy43's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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