Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

11 reviews

dodgeremerson's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Body horror, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Death, Self harm, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Alcohol, Gore, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Confinement, and Murder

Moderate: Homophobia, Cursing, Medical content, Physical abuse, Classism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Drug use, and Drug abuse

Minor: Religious bigotry, Car accident, Transphobia, and Death of parent

beepsies's review

adventurous dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Drug use, Blood, Homophobia, Sexual content, Violence, and Grief

Moderate: Classism, Racism, and Cursing

Minor: Suicide, Torture, Medical content, and Racism

At one point, the main character sleepwalks and is found covered in

rot from laying in/on a dead stag

. It's small, and the story doesn't dwell on it.

wardenred's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Racism, Gore, Drug abuse, Self harm, and Alcohol

Moderate: Medical content, Suicide, Violence, and Homophobia

Minor: Transphobia

bootsmom3's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Confinement, Grief, Suicide, Violence, Murder, Racism, Self harm, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Gore, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Sexual content, Alcohol, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Mental illness

Minor: Vomit and Slavery

remimicha's review

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, Murder, Body horror, Toxic friendship, Grief, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Violence, Drug use, Death, Torture, Suicide, Blood, and Homophobia

Moderate: Classism, Racism, Car accident, Animal death, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, Death, Medical content, and Eating disorder

bookenbee's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Vomit, Body horror, Suicide, Violence, Self harm, Murder, Sexual content, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Drug abuse, Death, Cursing, Classism, Animal death, Colonisation, Homophobia, Sexism, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical content, Kidnapping, Gore, Death of parent, Terminal illness, Mental illness, and Drug use

Minor: Toxic friendship, Animal death, Racism, and Alcohol

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

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. 

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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

jlsblnk's review

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Murder, Death, Death of parent, Addiction, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Car accident, Cursing, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, and Sexual content

cheelogreen's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Sexual content, Murder, Medical trauma, Kidnapping, Grief, Death, Body horror, and Blood

Minor: Cursing, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Homophobia, Medical content, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Outing, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Religious bigotry, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Torture, Transphobia, and Vomit