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merrittworthy 's review for:
The Summer I Ate the Rich
by Maritza Moulite, Maika Moulite
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Summer She Feed The Rich A Dead Billionaire's Teeth To Perform Magick.
I recieved an ARC of #TheSummerIAteTheRich from #Netgalley and Macmillan Audio in exchange for my honest review.
I came to this book after a long reading slump (see my comments on Where Shadows Meet) and was hoping for something truly interesting to help fuel my interest in reading again. What I got was a light magical-realism YA that read like a Free-form TV vampire show (but with magic and zonbi instead). Luckily for me, I love those shows even if they don't always have the best plot or writing.
The Summer I Ate the Rich held enough of my attention to get through it in a reasonable amount of time. Once I made it enough into the audio to bite into the story, it took me about 3 days to complete - a reasonable amount of time. The narration made it a lot easier to follow and added a bit of flair with multiple narrators for the different family members. It brought in accents and pronunciation of words I likely wouldn't have been able to hear in my own head had I been physically reading (there's both French and Haitian Creole in this book). This was a fun element that I think did a lot for the story.
The story itself fell a bit flat to me though. I liked the premise but being marketed as a YA I think made the story lose something it needed. It didn't go far enough, the problems were fixed far too easily with little real resistance, and ultimately I think the story readers were sold on in the synopsis was not exactly what they were given. That last point isn't on the authors, it's on the publisher. Reading through a lot of reviews it seems the let down (much like my own) comes down to not meeting the expectation that was set by that synopsis - which is a shame.
Maybe if you have a young reader who is into magical realism and urban fantasy, they may like this book. It provides a look at class and race relations in the US that's important for young adults to have perspective on -- especially when considering the current Healthcare crisis in the states. Is it the best book for that? No. But it's written with an influence of a real lived experience and that is a powerful driver.
I recieved an ARC of #TheSummerIAteTheRich from #Netgalley and Macmillan Audio in exchange for my honest review.
I came to this book after a long reading slump (see my comments on Where Shadows Meet) and was hoping for something truly interesting to help fuel my interest in reading again. What I got was a light magical-realism YA that read like a Free-form TV vampire show (but with magic and zonbi instead). Luckily for me, I love those shows even if they don't always have the best plot or writing.
The Summer I Ate the Rich held enough of my attention to get through it in a reasonable amount of time. Once I made it enough into the audio to bite into the story, it took me about 3 days to complete - a reasonable amount of time. The narration made it a lot easier to follow and added a bit of flair with multiple narrators for the different family members. It brought in accents and pronunciation of words I likely wouldn't have been able to hear in my own head had I been physically reading (there's both French and Haitian Creole in this book). This was a fun element that I think did a lot for the story.
The story itself fell a bit flat to me though. I liked the premise but being marketed as a YA I think made the story lose something it needed. It didn't go far enough, the problems were fixed far too easily with little real resistance, and ultimately I think the story readers were sold on in the synopsis was not exactly what they were given. That last point isn't on the authors, it's on the publisher. Reading through a lot of reviews it seems the let down (much like my own) comes down to not meeting the expectation that was set by that synopsis - which is a shame.
Maybe if you have a young reader who is into magical realism and urban fantasy, they may like this book. It provides a look at class and race relations in the US that's important for young adults to have perspective on -- especially when considering the current Healthcare crisis in the states. Is it the best book for that? No. But it's written with an influence of a real lived experience and that is a powerful driver.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Chronic illness, Death, Racism, Medical content, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Car accident, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Classism