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A review by fearnerd
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons
4.0
Summer of Night is a coming of age horror novel that often gets mentioned in the same breath as King's It and Robert Mccammon's Boy's Life as the subgenre standouts. I have yet to read Boy's Life, but I have read It. Summer of Night's inclusion with It is certainly warranted as the book delivers plenty of childhood nostalgia for simpler times (1960 for this book) when kids got to really enjoy summer by riding their bikes everywhere, playing baseball, camping out, and other activities two decades before satanic panic and predators around every corner. However, there is an evil lurking in the book's town of Elm Haven that will reveal itself to our group of 11 to 12-year-old characters.
I can understand why a lot of people cherish this book as it feels like a blend of the great American novel with a horror story. There are plenty of chapters where the book's kid characters are just doing kid things. I found this charming but also tedious and boring at times. If you lived during the '60s, it might resonate more with you, just like the '80s and '90s resonate more with me. But these moments often felt like detours or distractions from the bigger story of what was happening in the town. I can understand Simmons padding his story this way as King does it all the time as well.
When the horror does come, Simmons does it quite well, and the book's closing chapters are exciting and tension-filled, though it's funny to picture 12-year-olds battling the town's evil with guns and molotov cocktails. The '60s were different, I suppose.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of 5. Fear Nerd says, "Check it out!"
I can understand why a lot of people cherish this book as it feels like a blend of the great American novel with a horror story. There are plenty of chapters where the book's kid characters are just doing kid things. I found this charming but also tedious and boring at times. If you lived during the '60s, it might resonate more with you, just like the '80s and '90s resonate more with me. But these moments often felt like detours or distractions from the bigger story of what was happening in the town. I can understand Simmons padding his story this way as King does it all the time as well.
When the horror does come, Simmons does it quite well, and the book's closing chapters are exciting and tension-filled, though it's funny to picture 12-year-olds battling the town's evil with guns and molotov cocktails. The '60s were different, I suppose.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of 5. Fear Nerd says, "Check it out!"