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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.
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
fuchs_galaxis's review
adventurous
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
4.5
Oh my God this book is so good. I devoured the audiobook in about a day.
Different ways to describe it:
Different ways to describe it:
- Dukes of Hazzard but gay and haunted
- Someone read The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater and went "this could be gayer and scarier"
It's spooky and visceral and filled with unrequited longing, gay panic (the queer kind not the murder kind), and fast cars. So fucking good.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, and Drug use
Moderate: Alcohol, Self harm, and Murder
Minor: Child abuse and Vomit
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
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
nickoliver's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
It took me quite a while to finish this book. I think I was a little bit in a reading slump that exacerbated the slowness with which I read it. But for the most part, it was due to the slow pace and the writing, which was a bit challenging for me as a non-English native speaker sometimes.
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it at first. Especially the first half talked around a lot - the scenes kept repeating, the supernatural was confusing, the plot stagnated, the characters infuriated a bit. It was hard to convince myself to pick up the story again, knowing the main character would slog through life and not really acknowledge the problematic nature of others (mainly Sam for a very long time). And for a while, all that was happening was Sam pressuring Andrew to come out with him, a lot of alcohol and drugs, and car races. However, I have read a review (this one by Chai) where they talked about how this was kind of justified, since it emphasised Andrew's aimlessness and his grief. He’d just lost the most important person in his life and was utterly lost; how was he supposed to care about anything but finding out properly what happened? But still, it didn’t make for an enthusiastic reader.
Thankfully, after a while, things started to come together. While it was fairly predictable where the mystery surrounding Eddie’s death was concerned - the villain was easy to clock as the villain quite early on, to the point where I almost convinced myself it couldn’t be them because that was way too obvious and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to even expect a plot twist-, amusingly enough, I was way more invested and cared for the characters a lot more and suddenly had little trouble turning the pages (for a while at the beginning of the week, I literally read about twenty pages a day; later, that was tripled).
Like I mentioned above, the supernatural elements were a bit confusing. I understood the majority of it, but a lot of the time, I didn’t understand them while they were happening. And some parts I still don’t. It’s like I understood the overall theme of it, but if you asked me details about what exactly happened when Andrew was dealing with the revenant and being shown memories and waking up in deer carcasses or with slit wrists, I wouldn’t be able to explain it to you. That was a bit frustrating at times, since it was a pretty big part of the story.
My favourite thing about the book was the way Andrew grappled with his sexuality. At the beginning of the book, he wasn’t aware that he liked men and that he'd been in love with Eddie. Or rather, he seemed to have suppressed it so hard he wasn’t even aware that’s what he did. But when he went to Nashville to try and find out what happened to Eddie, it turned out that everyone thought he and Eddie had been a couple, and in all the six months he’d been there alone, Eddie’d never bothered to correct anyone. And that opened the dam inside of him - once he was made aware of it, it spilled out of him and he couldn’t put it back.
It was just written about so well! So much about his past explained why he and Eddie never went there, why it went unacknowledged. There was also a character named Del who added an interesting insight into their relationship. She was Andrew’s ex-girlfriend but had also been with Eddie at the same time as well. At one point in the book, she confronted Andrew about it and basically told him that they’d used her as a way to be with each other without having to be upfront about it, and that she thought if Eddie hadn’t died, they would’ve figured it out eventually. Hearing the way she and others talked about them was absolutely painful . It was a case of what-ifs, a whole lot of impossibilities. Andrew’s grief about losing Eddie and simultaneously realising what he’s lost along with him was raw and articulated so devastatingly, it made my insides clench with heartache.
I also appreciated that Eddie wasn’t painted as this perfect boy who would’ve made Andrew happy for the rest of his life if they’d gotten together. There were a lot of things said about him that made me side-eye him a little, which I didn’t like at first, but then I realised I kind of did? He wasn’t the perfect victim that was written about in a almost otherworldly way. I do think they would’ve been together for probably eternity, just because their connection dated so far back, but it wouldn’t have been a picture perfect relationship. I do sometimes feel like I wanted a little bit more of Eddie - maybe some flashbacks that would’ve shown me more of their dynamic, since that was the part that caught me off-guard a little sometimes -, but it didn’t bother me all too much.
There was a little romance between Andrew and another male character, which I really wasn’t on-board at first; this other character had a lot of (implied and shown) racist and homophobic friends, which was something that was never really addressed once the romantic interest was explicitly there. But surprisingly, I did warm up to him. I also liked the way their relationship was built up, because it wasn’t all too obvious from the start that he was going to be a romantic prospect? At least not obvious to me, because he wasn’t really on my radar for that. In any way, he was mostly just a means to an end at first and read as just really bad news, and while the start of their romance was a bit sudden, it didn’t completely come out of the blue. It was just a lot more subtly built up than in other books.
The side characters were fascinating and fleshed-out. There was Riley, Sam’s cousin and Andrew’s roommate, who helped with the latter’s quest for answers and had himself a penchant for the supernatural. He was also trans, and I honestly loved the way Mandelo wrote about that. It was just things like a noticing of top surgery scars, hints that Riley used to have a different name, that he'd shown up on Sam's doorstep with a shaved head. That was it. There was never a big deal made out of anything, no “A-Z of Being Trans”, no Riley explaining himself in big fat letters so that even cis readers will understand what was going on. It was so nonchalantly that I even convinced myself for a short while that I interpreted Riley as trans but that that wasn’t actually what Mandelo implied.
The villain of the story was interesting, because they weren't so obvious at first. At the contrary, the first time they showed up, I even complimented the tactful and kind way they talked to Andrew. Like I mentioned above, it was fairly in-your-face later on, but it wasn’t at first, and they weren’t acting like a villain in an obvious way even later on. You knew they were based on subtle things like the way they treated certain people, and their disgustingly racist family history , not simply based on their actions. They weren't going around using slurs or behaving ugly or reciting obvious villain monologues.
An aspect of the story I really appreciated was the criticism of racism in academia (especially for a book that’s adjacent to dark academia a bit). There was a side character named West who was supposed to mentor Andrew. He’d been at the school for almost seven years and his dissertation kept getting rejected. It was very obvious that it was due to racism, especially once you learnt about Troth’s family and her house being a former plantation home , but you still had Andrew not really grasping that. He never reacted to the few quips West made about it, and Riley fought with him for seemingly no reason (really, even to the end, I’m still not sure why they didn’t get along). And when Andrew suspected him of murdering Eddie, it was always pretty obvious that it wasn’t Eddie West had a problem with but Troth and the way they treated him, but Andrew overlooked that a lot. It was frustrating, but it was also realistic, and honestly, it did stop the story from being a white saviour trope, so that was probably good? After all, at the end of the book, West worked on getting justice himself, he didn't have Andrew or Riley fight his battles for him.
Overall, this was a bit of a challenging trip and a half. The characters were infuriating at times and the book was pretty repetitive and slow for like, at least half of it, but I loved the way it explored internalised homophobia, masculinity, and coming to terms with being too late. It made me feel very raw and emotional at times. Also, while I gave the book 4.5 stars at first, I bumped that up to 5 stars because I literally didn't stop thinking about it for the rest of the entire year (for context, this was the very first book I read in 2023).
I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it at first. Especially the first half talked around a lot - the scenes kept repeating, the supernatural was confusing, the plot stagnated, the characters infuriated a bit. It was hard to convince myself to pick up the story again, knowing the main character would slog through life and not really acknowledge the problematic nature of others (mainly Sam for a very long time). And for a while, all that was happening was Sam pressuring Andrew to come out with him, a lot of alcohol and drugs, and car races. However, I have read a review (this one by Chai) where they talked about how this was kind of justified, since it emphasised Andrew's aimlessness and his grief. He’d just lost the most important person in his life and was utterly lost; how was he supposed to care about anything but finding out properly what happened? But still, it didn’t make for an enthusiastic reader.
Thankfully, after a while, things started to come together. While it was fairly predictable where the mystery surrounding Eddie’s death was concerned - the villain was easy to clock as the villain quite early on, to the point where I almost convinced myself it couldn’t be them because that was way too obvious and I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to even expect a plot twist-, amusingly enough, I was way more invested and cared for the characters a lot more and suddenly had little trouble turning the pages (for a while at the beginning of the week, I literally read about twenty pages a day; later, that was tripled).
Like I mentioned above, the supernatural elements were a bit confusing. I understood the majority of it, but a lot of the time, I didn’t understand them while they were happening. And some parts I still don’t. It’s like I understood the overall theme of it, but if you asked me details about what exactly happened when Andrew was dealing with the revenant and being shown memories and waking up in deer carcasses or with slit wrists, I wouldn’t be able to explain it to you. That was a bit frustrating at times, since it was a pretty big part of the story.
My favourite thing about the book was the way Andrew grappled with his sexuality. At the beginning of the book, he wasn’t aware that he liked men and that he'd been in love with Eddie. Or rather, he seemed to have suppressed it so hard he wasn’t even aware that’s what he did. But when he went to Nashville to try and find out what happened to Eddie, it turned out that everyone thought he and Eddie had been a couple, and in all the six months he’d been there alone, Eddie’d never bothered to correct anyone. And that opened the dam inside of him - once he was made aware of it, it spilled out of him and he couldn’t put it back.
It was just written about so well! So much about his past explained why he and Eddie never went there, why it went unacknowledged. There was also a character named Del who added an interesting insight into their relationship. She was Andrew’s ex-girlfriend but had also been with Eddie at the same time as well.
I also appreciated that Eddie wasn’t painted as this perfect boy who would’ve made Andrew happy for the rest of his life if they’d gotten together. There were a lot of things said about him that made me side-eye him a little, which I didn’t like at first, but then I realised I kind of did? He wasn’t the perfect victim that was written about in a almost otherworldly way.
There was a little romance between Andrew and another male character, which I really wasn’t on-board at first; this other character had a lot of (implied and shown) racist and homophobic friends, which was something that was never really addressed once the romantic interest was explicitly there. But surprisingly, I did warm up to him. I also liked the way their relationship was built up, because it wasn’t all too obvious from the start that he was going to be a romantic prospect? At least not obvious to me, because he wasn’t really on my radar for that. In any way, he was mostly just a means to an end at first and read as just really bad news, and while the start of their romance was a bit sudden, it didn’t completely come out of the blue. It was just a lot more subtly built up than in other books.
The side characters were fascinating and fleshed-out. There was Riley, Sam’s cousin and Andrew’s roommate, who helped with the latter’s quest for answers and had himself a penchant for the supernatural. He was also trans, and I honestly loved the way Mandelo wrote about that. It was just things like a noticing of top surgery scars, hints that Riley used to have a different name, that he'd shown up on Sam's doorstep with a shaved head. That was it. There was never a big deal made out of anything, no “A-Z of Being Trans”, no Riley explaining himself in big fat letters so that even cis readers will understand what was going on. It was so nonchalantly that I even convinced myself for a short while that I interpreted Riley as trans but that that wasn’t actually what Mandelo implied.
The villain of the story was interesting, because they weren't so obvious at first. At the contrary, the first time they showed up, I even complimented the tactful and kind way they talked to Andrew. Like I mentioned above, it was fairly in-your-face later on, but it wasn’t at first, and they weren’t acting like a villain in an obvious way even later on. You knew they were based on subtle things like the way they treated certain people, and
An aspect of the story I really appreciated was the criticism of racism in academia (especially for a book that’s adjacent to dark academia a bit). There was a side character named West who was supposed to mentor Andrew. He’d been at the school for almost seven years and his dissertation kept getting rejected. It was very obvious that it was due to racism, especially once you learnt about
Overall, this was a bit of a challenging trip and a half. The characters were infuriating at times and the book was pretty repetitive and slow for like, at least half of it, but I loved the way it explored internalised homophobia, masculinity, and coming to terms with being too late. It made me feel very raw and emotional at times. Also, while I gave the book 4.5 stars at first, I bumped that up to 5 stars because I literally didn't stop thinking about it for the rest of the entire year (for context, this was the very first book I read in 2023).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Death, Racism, Slavery, Drug use, Grief, Homophobia, Murder, Sexual content, Suicide, and Violence
Minor: Transphobia, Death of parent, Car accident, and Child abuse
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
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
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:
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use, Vomit, Death, Suicide, and Blood
Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, and Child abuse
Minor: Cancer
shayna_hadassah's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
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? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Gore, Murder, Blood, Death, Drug use, and Sexual content
Moderate: Homophobia and Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Transphobia, Child abuse, and Homophobia
moonyreadsbystarlight's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
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.
UPDATE: Reread
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.
UPDATE: Reread
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Violence, Blood, Death, Drug use, Sexual content, and Vomit
Moderate: Homophobia, Child abuse, and Racism
Minor: Cancer
lilifane's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
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
5.0
There are soooo many things that I hate in this book. Alcohol and drug use, cars, violence, a huge amount of gore and some more... but I still loved it to pieces! I didn't hate those things here. The writing was so exceptional and immersive that I felt all those things, and they made sense. (FYI: The writing was also quite difficult to get into, be prepared to look words up a lot, but it's worth it to let the prose sink in.) For me, it was the perfect book with the perfect (slow) pacing and timing and perfectly imperfect characters. The story is so wild and unexpected that I had no idea where it was heading for about... 80% of the book. The character work is phenomenal. I would do anything for these characters. I love them so much.
There was one thing I was expecting from the story and I got it, but so much more of it and in an unexpected way. And there was one (huuuuuuuuuuuuge) aspect of the story I didn't expect at all. And it was fantastic in my opinion. But I would understand if it's not for everyone...
I could write so much more about this book, list all the things I loved about it. But what made the reading experience so good in the first place was the fact that I had no idea what was coming.
Quick shoutout to the acknowledgements which gave me life.
Lastly: Please check trigger and content warnings before reading. There are some really hard topics at the center of the story.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Death, Drug use, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexual content, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Vomit, and Cancer
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Car accident, Death of parent, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, and Medical content
perpetualpages's review
challenging
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? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
CWs: death and grief; mentions of suicide and self-harm; blood, gore, vomit, graphic injury, and graphic violence; drug use and inebriated driving; some homophobic slurs; brief reference to child abuse; and some graphic sexual content
I feel like I was destined to love Summer Sons, because it's a southern gothic take on dark academia with a side helping of queer ghosts. On the surface, this book has been pitched as "The Secret History" meets "Fast and the Furious," which is accurate to some extent, but in all reality, this story is a profound and visceral exploration of toxic masculinity and the inherent violent tradition of whiteness.
Dark academia, as a subgenre, is aimed at exploring the corrupt underbelly of academic institutions, privilege, and excessive wealth. When we're considering dark academia stories set in the U.S., that disproportionate privilege and power is inherently tied to whiteness, and yet few dark academia stories truly dive head-first into exploring the implications of that intrinsic connection. Summer Sons stands apart in that it throws the reader right into the middle of this messy, chaotic, traumatized, reckless group of characters and names their toxicity for what it truly is. And though it doesn't much reckon with the reality that generational wealth and privilege—particularly that kind sanctioned by and tied to the institution of academia—is built off of the suffering and labor of marginalized communities, that fact is addressed in the story, which is also really important and something that many dark academia books fail to do.
Toxic masculinity is, at is core, a perpetuation of loneliness, isolation, emotional illiteracy, distance, avoidance, disassociation, and detachment. Not only are these ideals and practices preserved in the tradition of whiteness, but they are bartered by men and masculine-identifying people in exchange for access to masculine power and masculine spaces. By that understanding, it's clear to see that toxic masculinity might manifest in very specific ways within queer men, and most dangerously in white queer men, who can levy their relative marginalization as a justification for perpetuating toxicity, harm, and even violence.
Summer Sons examines how toxic masculinity has infected these characters, to the point of literally haunting and possessing some of them, and the plot pushes them to the breaking point in order to see just how far they're willing to go in order to avoid their unresolved traumas. In this book, the ghosts or spirits are referred to as "revenants," spiritual entities that feed off of violence and blood in order to gain power. As the revenants lurk on the periphery of Andrew's consciousness, it's clear to see that they represent the dangerous hold trauma has on his life. As they gain power and begin to claim more of his body, energy, agency, and awareness, he becomes more and more terrified, simply because ceding control—in any measure, or any sense—is a white man's worst nightmare.
At its core, this story really interrogates the willful assimilation into toxic masculinity in hopes of gaining acceptance. Even though Andrew is essentially being haunted by his not-quite-friend/not-quite-lover to the point where everyone around him *knows* it, he still goes to great lengths to hide it and to avoid drawing attention to it. Not only is this indicative of his internalized homophobia that he's wielding against himself, but it speaks to how men and masculine-identifying people have internalized the message that asking for help is equivalent to weakness. And it also speaks to a larger phenomenon of isolation that is created and upheld by white masculinity. Whiteness itself, in America, is not a culture. It is not a heritage. It is not a unifying identity that is conducive to community. And that lack of community is the true weakness that keeps men isolated.
In the words of Alok Vaid-Menon: "[This] is the collateral that men are told [to pay]. 'Keep quiet. Don't sensitize yourself to anything. Shut up. Don't have any personality beyond what is marketed to you. Don't display any vulnerability, and you're going to get power.' But that kind of power is loneliness...White cis straight men don't have community. They have hyper-isolation and they have hyper-disassociation that they mistake as personality. In relinquishing that false project of power, [people] are allowed to be vulnerable, and vulnerability is the basis of community."
That conflict is a huge part of what makes this story so fascinating, because there's an irony to how Andrew suddenly finds himself in what would seem like a community of Eddie's university friends who have an established dynamic and rapport, and yet he is more alone than ever. And yet he insists on separating him further and making himself *be* alone so that he doesn't have to relinquish any power by coming off as "strange" or "weak." It's an intimate look at how he is intentionally and willfully hurting himself just so that doesn't put a target on his back and lose his place within this friend group. He's only able to start making any progress, emotionally and logistically, once he starts opening up and actually giving the people around him chances to see what he's really dealing with and who he really is.
And as with most ghost stories, Summer Sons is really about trying to find some semblance of peace, a way to satiate the revenants and be rid of them, which is a really powerful message when you look at it through this metaphorical lens of revenants representing trauma, toxicity, abuse, and violence. It's a story that centers a character who is essentially saying, "I will not let this control my life. I have to let go of the things that are hurting me if I want to survive. I know there is a better way to live than this." That idea is tied together with the connection between revenants and the unresolved mystery of what truly happened to Eddie, and I think the story is even more memorable for it.
I think it's also interesting how the story is able to explore the underside of toxic masculinity by really reveling in the dark, deep, complicated emotions that Andrew keeps hidden away. The irony is that he is a deeply emotional person grappling with grief, love, internalized homophobia, fear, and uncertainty, even though he goes to great lengths to repress those things. The angst, the posthumous yearning, the slow-burn homoerotic tension in this story are truly god-tier, and it's the teeming richness of this hidden emotional landscape that ultimately leads the book to a place of hopefulness in regards to masculine relationships. The connections between the characters are more authentic, honest, and open by the end of the story, and the characters are celebrated as being stronger for it, even though they may still have a ways to grow.
The one thing that kept this from being a five-star book for me, personally, was the pace of the plot and the development of the mystery itself. This story is extremely aesthetic and compelling, but it feels, at times, like the mystery element gets lost or forgotten. Just over the halfway mark, I realized that while I was completely invested, I hadn't learned anything more about Eddie's death that I couldn't already gather myself from the synopsis or from the first twenty pages. It takes a very long time for Andrew to make any significant progress in figuring out this mystery, which is the center of the story, and that made me question where the story was going at times.
I also struggled a little bit with the world-building elements, because the origins of the revenants aren't revealed until almost the end of the book, and I think the story could have benefited from exploring that earlier. It was also a bit difficult for me to grasp the mechanics of the revenants—what triggers them, how to break their hold, what they want, the limits of what they're able to do, etc. By the end, I had a much better (if still imperfect) grasp on the dynamic between humans and revenants, but again it took a long time to get there.
But those two things were not huge deal-breakers for me, and I can still say with certainty that this is going to be a story that stands out to me when I look back on my reading in 2021. It's dark, it's twisted, it's angsty, and the fact remains that it is not one to be missed.
I feel like I was destined to love Summer Sons, because it's a southern gothic take on dark academia with a side helping of queer ghosts. On the surface, this book has been pitched as "The Secret History" meets "Fast and the Furious," which is accurate to some extent, but in all reality, this story is a profound and visceral exploration of toxic masculinity and the inherent violent tradition of whiteness.
Dark academia, as a subgenre, is aimed at exploring the corrupt underbelly of academic institutions, privilege, and excessive wealth. When we're considering dark academia stories set in the U.S., that disproportionate privilege and power is inherently tied to whiteness, and yet few dark academia stories truly dive head-first into exploring the implications of that intrinsic connection. Summer Sons stands apart in that it throws the reader right into the middle of this messy, chaotic, traumatized, reckless group of characters and names their toxicity for what it truly is. And though it doesn't much reckon with the reality that generational wealth and privilege—particularly that kind sanctioned by and tied to the institution of academia—is built off of the suffering and labor of marginalized communities, that fact is addressed in the story, which is also really important and something that many dark academia books fail to do.
Toxic masculinity is, at is core, a perpetuation of loneliness, isolation, emotional illiteracy, distance, avoidance, disassociation, and detachment. Not only are these ideals and practices preserved in the tradition of whiteness, but they are bartered by men and masculine-identifying people in exchange for access to masculine power and masculine spaces. By that understanding, it's clear to see that toxic masculinity might manifest in very specific ways within queer men, and most dangerously in white queer men, who can levy their relative marginalization as a justification for perpetuating toxicity, harm, and even violence.
Summer Sons examines how toxic masculinity has infected these characters, to the point of literally haunting and possessing some of them, and the plot pushes them to the breaking point in order to see just how far they're willing to go in order to avoid their unresolved traumas. In this book, the ghosts or spirits are referred to as "revenants," spiritual entities that feed off of violence and blood in order to gain power. As the revenants lurk on the periphery of Andrew's consciousness, it's clear to see that they represent the dangerous hold trauma has on his life. As they gain power and begin to claim more of his body, energy, agency, and awareness, he becomes more and more terrified, simply because ceding control—in any measure, or any sense—is a white man's worst nightmare.
At its core, this story really interrogates the willful assimilation into toxic masculinity in hopes of gaining acceptance. Even though Andrew is essentially being haunted by his not-quite-friend/not-quite-lover to the point where everyone around him *knows* it, he still goes to great lengths to hide it and to avoid drawing attention to it. Not only is this indicative of his internalized homophobia that he's wielding against himself, but it speaks to how men and masculine-identifying people have internalized the message that asking for help is equivalent to weakness. And it also speaks to a larger phenomenon of isolation that is created and upheld by white masculinity. Whiteness itself, in America, is not a culture. It is not a heritage. It is not a unifying identity that is conducive to community. And that lack of community is the true weakness that keeps men isolated.
In the words of Alok Vaid-Menon: "[This] is the collateral that men are told [to pay]. 'Keep quiet. Don't sensitize yourself to anything. Shut up. Don't have any personality beyond what is marketed to you. Don't display any vulnerability, and you're going to get power.' But that kind of power is loneliness...White cis straight men don't have community. They have hyper-isolation and they have hyper-disassociation that they mistake as personality. In relinquishing that false project of power, [people] are allowed to be vulnerable, and vulnerability is the basis of community."
That conflict is a huge part of what makes this story so fascinating, because there's an irony to how Andrew suddenly finds himself in what would seem like a community of Eddie's university friends who have an established dynamic and rapport, and yet he is more alone than ever. And yet he insists on separating him further and making himself *be* alone so that he doesn't have to relinquish any power by coming off as "strange" or "weak." It's an intimate look at how he is intentionally and willfully hurting himself just so that doesn't put a target on his back and lose his place within this friend group. He's only able to start making any progress, emotionally and logistically, once he starts opening up and actually giving the people around him chances to see what he's really dealing with and who he really is.
And as with most ghost stories, Summer Sons is really about trying to find some semblance of peace, a way to satiate the revenants and be rid of them, which is a really powerful message when you look at it through this metaphorical lens of revenants representing trauma, toxicity, abuse, and violence. It's a story that centers a character who is essentially saying, "I will not let this control my life. I have to let go of the things that are hurting me if I want to survive. I know there is a better way to live than this." That idea is tied together with the connection between revenants and the unresolved mystery of what truly happened to Eddie, and I think the story is even more memorable for it.
I think it's also interesting how the story is able to explore the underside of toxic masculinity by really reveling in the dark, deep, complicated emotions that Andrew keeps hidden away. The irony is that he is a deeply emotional person grappling with grief, love, internalized homophobia, fear, and uncertainty, even though he goes to great lengths to repress those things. The angst, the posthumous yearning, the slow-burn homoerotic tension in this story are truly god-tier, and it's the teeming richness of this hidden emotional landscape that ultimately leads the book to a place of hopefulness in regards to masculine relationships. The connections between the characters are more authentic, honest, and open by the end of the story, and the characters are celebrated as being stronger for it, even though they may still have a ways to grow.
The one thing that kept this from being a five-star book for me, personally, was the pace of the plot and the development of the mystery itself. This story is extremely aesthetic and compelling, but it feels, at times, like the mystery element gets lost or forgotten. Just over the halfway mark, I realized that while I was completely invested, I hadn't learned anything more about Eddie's death that I couldn't already gather myself from the synopsis or from the first twenty pages. It takes a very long time for Andrew to make any significant progress in figuring out this mystery, which is the center of the story, and that made me question where the story was going at times.
I also struggled a little bit with the world-building elements, because the origins of the revenants aren't revealed until almost the end of the book, and I think the story could have benefited from exploring that earlier. It was also a bit difficult for me to grasp the mechanics of the revenants—what triggers them, how to break their hold, what they want, the limits of what they're able to do, etc. By the end, I had a much better (if still imperfect) grasp on the dynamic between humans and revenants, but again it took a long time to get there.
But those two things were not huge deal-breakers for me, and I can still say with certainty that this is going to be a story that stands out to me when I look back on my reading in 2021. It's dark, it's twisted, it's angsty, and the fact remains that it is not one to be missed.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Gore, Grief, and Violence
Moderate: Drug abuse, Sexual content, and Vomit
Minor: Child abuse, Homophobia, Self harm, and Suicide