Reviews with content warning for Toxic friendship - Summer Sons

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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dreareads_'s review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

2.0

Oh, the scariest thing about this book was how miserable I felt while reading it.

What I liked:
- There were creepy (ish) moments,
- Some of the imagery was vivid,
- (I am not a gay man but) The discussion on accepting your queerness I guess was well done,
- Riley: I loved Riley, I wanted to protect Riley.
- It was honest about the racial dynamics of the south.

What I didn't like:
UGH. Where do I begin.

- Andrew: look I understand that he was being hunted, and going through a traumatic time but Andrew was legitimate not a good person. And he BARELY became empathetic towards the end. The lack of action from Andrew had me wanting to throw my book accross the room. I do not understand how this man had any friends. Even when we see him begin to grow it is not enough to make up for the misery that it was reading from his POV. I would not have a problem if he was meant to be unlikable, but Andrew is also presented as a "woke" white dude because he acknowledges his privilege. But even when he does, nothing changes. Not in the way he acts, nor on how the story moves forward.
- Eddie: the more I learned about him the les I cared that he was dead.
- Women: I don't know if the author knows women or hates women but the misogyny in this book was extensive. The female characters were either mean, bitchy, villanous, or non existence. Even the one good woman in the group had barely any personality and was mostly there to enhance Riley's story.

the professor being an ambitious, backstabbing, plagiarizing, racist murderer made sense but the fact that this was the only main female character in the story drove me crazy

- Pacing: the first 130 pages of this book are painful to get through. Nothing happens to advance the plot (except for multiple drag races) and we spend all our time with Andrew being a shit person. The second half gets somewhat better but not enough.
- Themes of Privilege: this book obviously wanted to tackle ideas of white privilege and classism but neither of these themes were deeply explored.
Race: We mostly had moments of Andrew realizing that POC were not present in the spaces he was and just feeling kind of bad about it. Other than West, the other two (three? was Del POC? I can't remember) characters of color were barely there to have any importance. The whole plot line with West and race in academia would have been much more impactful and interesting if we had spent ANY time at the university.

we then add that there is ZERO moment in which Andrew considers his own whiteness when accusing West of murder, it just really didn't work

Classism: We understand that Andrew is rich because Eddie left all his money to him. We also have multiple instances of Sam and Riley calling out his privilege and Andrew acknowledging it. And... that is all we get. He still treats his position in school with no regards, and faces 0 consequences. He really does nothing to demonstrate us that he is any different than Eddie in his relationship with money.
The story WANTED to deal with these ideas, but it was only at surface level and not very enticing.
- The mystery: It was okay. Took us too long to actually move forward though.

Yeah,
If you loved this book I am happy for you. I personally wish I could go back and literally pick up any other book.

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remimicha's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.75

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gcreed13's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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fanboyriot's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny lighthearted mysterious medium-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

Read For:
Ghosts
Chaotic Gays
Spooky Fantasy
Dark Academia
Fast Cars and Stupid Decisions

I read a review that said this was like a gay fever dream and that sums up a lot of it. The supernatural elements and the overall eerie atmosphere were really lovely. It was well written, however, the romance was kind of meh at first, by the end of the book it was better but it just felt like there could have been more development with Andrew and Sam. Overall, the ending was nice and I would definitely re-read this again.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ (5/5)

Release Date: 28, September 2021

POV: Third Person

Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Rep: Achillean MC, Trans Character, Queer Characters, Polyamorous MMF, BIPOC SC, MC with Anxiety

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