Reviews tagging 'Cancer'

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

15 reviews

madscientistcat's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Visceral, haunting, a queer gothic masterpiece.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death, Grief, Murder, Suicide, Alcohol, Classism, Cursing, Homophobia, Drug use, and Racism

Moderate: Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Gore, and Vomit

Minor: Cancer, Slavery, and Animal death

perkyanda's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

If you like horror dark academia mystery southern gothic chaotic bi energy death magic, all with a trans character who it literally does not matter is trans and who you can’t tell is trans til it just happens to come up, I cannot recommend Summer Sons highly enough. The only thing that could improve it are more female characters but then it couldn’t be a book that is largely about male relationships. And it has one of the BEST scenes with a female character who is otherwise unimportant I’ve seen in a long time.

And it’s spicy at points which was NOT expected in a, well, horror but not horror but horror ok mystery maybe maybe suspense? Is dark academia even a genre or just a sub genre or a blend genre I don’t fucking know book

And while I normally don’t actually love spice in normal books and was surprised at the level of detail it didn’t feel gratuitous it felt extremely relevant to character development bc repression and male friendship and sexuality is a big part of the book

Honestly this book is just a sweltering mess of OH MY GOD GO TO CLASS and DO YOU WANT TO GET YOUR DUMB ASS MURDERED TOO and IF YOU TALKED ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED which I guess is a big part of why it has to be about idiot boys instead of idiot girls, even though as an idiot woman I prefer reading about idiot girls. But anyway, these idiot dirt bag druggie boys are adorable and I want to give them all a good talking to. But hey really excellent book about male friendship and relationships and the blurry (ha!) line between homoeroticism and brotherhood. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Grief, Sexual content, Blood, Drug abuse, Alcohol, Death, Drug use, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Cancer, Classism, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, and Racism

Spicy

introverted_reads's review

dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

5.0

babe wake up and smell the petrol.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Death, Blood, Body horror, Gore, Murder, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Drug use, and Alcohol

Moderate: Vomit, Physical abuse, Racism, Terminal illness, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Homophobia, Death of parent, Cancer, Car accident, and Sexual content

Minor: Religious bigotry and Fire/Fire injury

gabertron's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Suicide, Grief, and Gore

Moderate: Murder, Violence, Homophobia, Drug use, Racism, and Alcohol

Minor: Cancer, Fire/Fire injury, and Child abuse

mollymawk's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.25

A wonderful book, slow and haunting. Had a hard time relating or caring about the main characters at first, their flaws raising my hackles, but they worked their way into my heart and I yearned for a happy ending, which, though bittersweet, I eventually got. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Grief, Murder, and Death

Moderate: Homophobia, Sexual content, and Racism

Minor: Cancer

theoldestbennetsister's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Goddamn 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Death, Grief, Gore, Alcohol, and Blood

Moderate: Homophobia, Murder, Racism, Violence, Classism, Vomit, Suicide, Cursing, Death of parent, Drug use, Body horror, and Child abuse

Minor: Religious bigotry, Transphobia, Cancer, Child death, Animal death, Car accident, and Kidnapping

zghutcheson01's review

dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

4.75

I really loved this book. It took me about 30 pages to get into it but once I did I couldn't put it down. Without spoilers, I do enjoy how this book came to a satisfying ending without frantically rushing to resolve all of the character issues. It let the book feel like a peek into someone's life and you know things are going to change but that the hardest part is over. The nurder mystery part isn't super compelling but I honestly think that's not the main point of the book which is the character development and exploration of the supernatural which it does really well.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gaslighting, Grief, Suicide, Violence, Racism, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Classism

Moderate: Confinement, Addiction, Cancer, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Domestic abuse and Transphobia

moonyreadsbystarlight's review

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

 I listened to the audiobook at the beginning of the year and then reread it in physical form. I fucking love this book. To see my initial thoughts, I do have a review up for the audiobook specifcially (Though I will copy/paste so that the reviews are visble on both editions).
 
 Upon reread, I was able to really dig into things that I didn't notice on my first read. I knew it was really queer then, but I really got a good look at how the queerness is woven into everything: into Andrew's perspective and so many themes.

The relationship between Eddie and Andrew is queer all the way down; not just queer as in not heterosexual, but queer as in defying labels -- ineffable -- both before and especially now that Eddie is a ghost. Looking at the haunting and lore around the curse, there is a lot (from my perspective - though I am not an expert on the genre) that gets turned on its head in a very queer way. Andrew is brought into the curse through his connection with Eddie, not through marriage or blood relation, but through a horrific twist on the idea of a curse passed on through bloodline. Another queer element is the blending of so many lines (making Andrew's surname - Blur - more than apt). Lines of relationships, of living and dead, of Andrew and Eddie themselves, of the themes of haunting and heartbreak and desire and suppression, of dream and wake -- I could probably go on but I will stop there.

 
 
 There's so much about this that is devastatingly tender while also being raw and terrifying and unsettling as hell. There are so many details about this that I don't know how to articulate. But I am so glad that I did a reread and I already have other things that I plan on looking for when I reread it again. 

ORIGINAL REVIEW: 
 

 I was fairly excited about this when it came out -- the promise of queer spooky shit that reviewers I trust were raving about. But I was concerned because this isn't a genre I frequently read. It absolutely did not disappoint. 

The first couple of hours, I was undecided. The characters seemed brash and unlikable (and the cheesy, wavering southern accent from the audiobook reader did not help). But at a certain point, the depth of the characters and the layers that were created in the story started to show and I was completely hooked. 

This is a spooky southern dark academia, certainly. But I didn't expect such rich things happening with the characters and other parts of the story. This is full of messy people making questionable decisions. That raw vulnerability of messy queers in lit fic was absolutely here, and more than that, it was tied in thematically. The specter is what you discover it is through the lore, but it is also very much the ghost of permanently unrequited love -- a shadow, the result of (of course) death, but also of the unspoken, the unlived -- the fear and dissociation of homophobia by way of toxic masculinity. 

This hits on other themes as well through the story, looking at corruption in academia and of wealth that is accumulated through death -- the (tied) legacies of white supremacy looking at old wealthy families and university. There is so much more I'm sure I could unpack given the time. 

Looking at the characters, while they were certainly unlikable, they were complex and that built as the story goes on. I ended up really loving them and wanting to dig more into their characters and know what makes them tick (which often resulted in me pausing to speculate on what their birth charts probably looked like). 

This is absolutely a book I intend on rereading and annotating, so maybe I'll wind up with an essay about it eventually, but this should be more than enough until then. This was such an incredible read and definitely surpassed my expectations. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Vomit, Death, Suicide, and Blood

Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, and Child abuse

Minor: Cancer

msradiosilence's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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? Yes

4.5

Tldr: Andrew is propped up by all the side characters, but god I love me a good ghost story and some beautiful prose.

Read my full review at: https://www.rainyreader.com/single-post/summer-sons

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Cancer, Death, Murder, Classism, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Violence, Animal death, Blood, Grief, Homophobia, Drug abuse, Gore, Alcohol, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Drug use, Terminal illness, and Toxic friendship

foreverinastory's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

4.5

What a ride.

Rep: white achillean-questioning male MC with anxiety, white queer male love interest, white queer polyamorous trans male side character, various queer coded side characters, Black male side character (sexuality not indicated).

CWs: Suicide, death, blood, grief, murder, drug use (smoking and snorting), violence, body horror (including haunting/possession), gore, alcohol consumption, homophobia/homomisia, sexual content, injury/injury detail, vomit, panic attacks, self-harm, cursing, racism (systemic and interpersonal), drug abuse, alcoholism, torture, toxic relationship, toxic friendship. Moderate: confinement, kidnapping, mental illness, death of parent, animal death, biphobia/bimisia, car accident, medical content/trauma, suicidal thought, suicide attempt, psychosis, cancer, fire, transphobia/transmisia, terminal illness. Minor: mentions of slavery. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Cursing, Torture, Toxic friendship, Blood, Alcoholism, Sexual content, Death, Murder, Suicide, Grief, Drug use, Violence, Drug abuse, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Homophobia, Alcohol, Vomit, and Self harm

Moderate: Death of parent, Animal death, Cancer, Medical content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Confinement, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Kidnapping, Biphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Transphobia, Car accident, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Medical trauma

Minor: Slavery