Thank you to Netgalley and Flux Books for the ARC!

Usually when I write reviews for a book, I do so almost immediately after I finish the book. I want to get all my thoughts out before I forget anything, and it always seems like a better idea to do that while it's all still fresh in my mind.

I finished Surrender Your Sons a few hours ago, and I still don't think it's quite sunk in yet. This book is by no means an easy read. It's an adventure story, but with a huge undercurrent of abuse and trauma targeting queer kids. I can't even really call that an undercurrent. It's a huge part of the plot. It's probably more accurate to say it's a story about queer kids surviving and fighting back against systematic abuse. With a side of adventure. The setting of this book is very cinematic, and I would love to see this made into a movie.

Anyway, back to the plot. Connor, our hero, is a gay teen who has recently come out to his mom. It didn't go well, to say the least. When the story starts, Connor is spending the summer before his senior year of high school working for Meals on Wheels, and sneaking off to see his boyfriend Ario, who is leaving for college in the fall. He also spends as much time as he can with Ricky Hannigan, his favorite Meals on Wheels customer. Connor's goal is to survive the summer without too much interference from his mom or Reverend Packer, the community leader, and a man who Connor's mom basically worships.

Ricky dies and leaves behind a Playbill from the musical South Pacific with a cryptic message for Connor written on it, and before Connor can figure anything out, his mom ships him off to Nightlight, a conversion therapy camp hidden in the jungle of a Costa Rican island. Connor quickly realizes that Nightlight is dangerous, and Ricky was trying to warn him that something sinister is going on, which is when the real adventure begins. I don't want to spoil the plot, so you'll have to read it yourself to find out what happens.

It took me over a month to read this book, which is almost unheard of for me. But like I said, this book is hard to read. And in between when I started this book and finished it, the world as we all know it changed drastically. For a while I wasn't in the mood to read about kids fighting against abusers and pretending to change their identities to essentially stay alive when it seemed like the world was falling apart around me. But I finished it today, and I'm so glad I did. Between all the trauma that these teenagers suffered because of who they are there was a strong message of hope. Connor decided to fight back against the injustice of Nightlight and inspired the rest of the kids not to give up.

What really hit me about Surrender Your Sons is that although it's presented as an adventure story, for some kids it is terrifyingly real. Conversion therapy is a real thing, and some of the comments that the kids in the story hear are things I have heard myself. Things that no kids should ever have to deal with, but things that are all too real in the everyday lives of queer kids. Adam's book brings those things to light, and that, in my opinion, makes this an extremely important book. I've read so many books with queer characters, but none quite like this. This one will definitely stay with me awhile.

I hope that with the current state of the world that this book is still published in September, but no matter when it comes out, READ IT! Thank you to Adam Sass for writing this book, and thank you to Flux for publishing it. There was a time in the not-so-distant past that a book like this would have never found a publisher, so I'm glad that it is getting the chance to be widely read.