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tysonburleigh 's review for:
Summer of Night
by Dan Simmons
So this is King’s “It” without anything that made that book a master craft. The number of parallels are dizzying, if I’m being honest, and I’m left wondering if that alone tainted my experience with this book. I can never be sure, but I don’t think so.
Overall, the prose is flowery but good. Some passages are beautiful. However Simmons has a tendency to overset the scene. Incredibly detailed descriptions of where things are and what is moving where really slows the pace to a crawl. Additionally, entire stretches of the book are just unnecessary. I could tell Simmons was trying to evoke nostalgic feelings of the summer freedom children experience, but 30 pages of kids playing baseball and swimming in a quarry is so extraneous.
Some characters were very good - namely Duane and Mike (also a name utilized in “It”). Harlen had his moments. I couldn’t tell you much about any of the others.
Some of the scary scenes were good. But by the end of it all it felt like nothing I read had anything to say. It was like a haunted house of “It” without any of the themes or depth. I finished the book feeling the same fulfillment of a bottom-shelf thriller but it was three times as long and without any of the thrilling pace.
I enjoyed it. I’d even read more of Simmons’s work. But this was just OKAY.
Overall, the prose is flowery but good. Some passages are beautiful. However Simmons has a tendency to overset the scene. Incredibly detailed descriptions of where things are and what is moving where really slows the pace to a crawl. Additionally, entire stretches of the book are just unnecessary. I could tell Simmons was trying to evoke nostalgic feelings of the summer freedom children experience, but 30 pages of kids playing baseball and swimming in a quarry is so extraneous.
Some characters were very good - namely Duane and Mike (also a name utilized in “It”). Harlen had his moments. I couldn’t tell you much about any of the others.
Some of the scary scenes were good. But by the end of it all it felt like nothing I read had anything to say. It was like a haunted house of “It” without any of the themes or depth. I finished the book feeling the same fulfillment of a bottom-shelf thriller but it was three times as long and without any of the thrilling pace.
I enjoyed it. I’d even read more of Simmons’s work. But this was just OKAY.