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A review by hsinjulit
Late City Summer by Jeanette Bears
genre : historic sapphic romance (1942 & 1946)1.5 stars rounded down.
pairing : white sapphics
POV : dual 3rd-person (with headhopping)
location: New York City, NY, USA
indie? : yes
Nice concept but unfortunately the execution was not great. I appreciate that the author utilized the historical background of WWII among others and acknowledged the existence of queer people back then. Because of Bears’ effort as well as this one cute and sweet scene in chapter 14, I wanted to rate it higher. And yet the more I thought about the frustration I had with the writing, the less I could justify even a two-star rating. I considered DNF’ing it about 20% into the book and promptly stopped reading it for three months. Even though I eventually managed to plow through it, I did somewhat regret reading this book.
Let’s talk about why.
1. Questionable POVs: Basically headhopping, to the extent that I don’t always know what’s going on because I was confused over whose point of view I was in.
2. Flashbacks: Look, I don’t hate flashbacks in storytelling; I think it could be a powerful way of delivering interwoven storylines. However, the way it was done in Late City Summer ended up being a lot of concealing of information (which is a huge gripe of mine), and we didn’t know what was going on in the past timeline until very close to the end of the book. All the buildup through the entire story ended up being very anticlimactic once the 1942 event was concluded.
3. Italic thoughts: I think it was used too often that it wrecked the flow of the storytelling. My editing brain came up with a lot of alternative ways to write it in a less irritating way while I was reading. In addition, the emotions and thoughts of the characters changed so drastically within seconds all the time that I felt like I was being dragged all over the place. I feel the story I read and this left me very confused as to why the characters reacted the way they did.
4. Aversion of critical scenes: We didn’t get to see the pivotal scene. It was rehashed through other characters the next day and I cannot help but think that was just the easy way out.
5. Kate deserved better, because throughout the story, I kept feeling like Emily was taking advantage of her.
But hey, I love the idea of these women chasing their dreams in the 1940s. It was very disappointing as Late City Summer could’ve been an excellent book after several rounds of editing or told through a different media, say a film (the author is a filmmaker). I would say that if you don’t mind lots of flashbacks and headhopping, you might enjoy this.
content warnings: sexism, graphic sex, cheating
Buddy read with Gabriella; check out her review!
I received a digital review copy from Bold Strokes Books via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review.