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horrorbutch 's review for:
How to Survive a Summer
by Nick White
Disclaimer: I received an e-copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Will has tried really hard to forget everything that happened in his teens. But when a new horror movie comes about, he soon realizes that parts of his life are reflected in it and he goes on a journey to reclaim his past.
This book partly deals with the horrors or conversion therapy and the experiences of 16-year-old Will, but also with Will as a grown up traveling back home to deal with it. It also deals a great deal with family.
Will isn't really a likable character. This can definitely be partly ascribed to his traumatic past, but mostly he just doesn't feel very alive. The jumbled storyline and the constant back-and-forth certainly strengthened that impression for me. So I had a hard time feeling something for Will.
I really liked his relationship with Zeus, but it could definitely have been explored much better. It is probably one of the best relationships in the book (except for Will and his mother), but it is still quite shallow and takes a backseat in the story. Most of the other relationships are even less fleshed out, even those in his childhood. Now I know part of this is planned, but it really didn't help to make the side-characters seem more like people.
The most interesting part of the book is definitely Will's time at the camp, both during that one summer and in the now-time, where he realizes how much has changed and yet stayed the same. It was definitely 16-year-old Will who felt most alive and whose emotions I could understand the best. Torn up from the death of his mother, the loss of his best friend, the disapproval of his father and placed in the hands of two people who tell him they can cure him.
Trigger warnings for homophobia (obviously), the f slur, the q slur and the t slur (used against a trans man) and child abuse. There's also one instance of sexual assault where an older character tries to force himself onto a teen, but "comes to his sense" before anything really happens (it was gruesome to read), as well as the use of ableist words and incest jokes by a side character.
My biggest problem is certainly the fact that the story sometimes veers off course quite a lot and when you're then thrown back into the action so to speak, it is hard to follow along with all the new information you just received.
All in all this story was interesting and the premise definitely interested me, but sadly neither the main character nor the writing could really pull me in as far as I would have liked.
Will has tried really hard to forget everything that happened in his teens. But when a new horror movie comes about, he soon realizes that parts of his life are reflected in it and he goes on a journey to reclaim his past.
This book partly deals with the horrors or conversion therapy and the experiences of 16-year-old Will, but also with Will as a grown up traveling back home to deal with it. It also deals a great deal with family.
Will isn't really a likable character. This can definitely be partly ascribed to his traumatic past, but mostly he just doesn't feel very alive. The jumbled storyline and the constant back-and-forth certainly strengthened that impression for me. So I had a hard time feeling something for Will.
I really liked his relationship with Zeus, but it could definitely have been explored much better. It is probably one of the best relationships in the book (except for Will and his mother), but it is still quite shallow and takes a backseat in the story. Most of the other relationships are even less fleshed out, even those in his childhood. Now I know part of this is planned, but it really didn't help to make the side-characters seem more like people.
The most interesting part of the book is definitely Will's time at the camp, both during that one summer and in the now-time, where he realizes how much has changed and yet stayed the same. It was definitely 16-year-old Will who felt most alive and whose emotions I could understand the best. Torn up from the death of his mother, the loss of his best friend, the disapproval of his father and placed in the hands of two people who tell him they can cure him.
Trigger warnings for homophobia (obviously), the f slur, the q slur and the t slur (used against a trans man) and child abuse. There's also one instance of sexual assault where an older character tries to force himself onto a teen, but "comes to his sense" before anything really happens (it was gruesome to read), as well as the use of ableist words and incest jokes by a side character.
My biggest problem is certainly the fact that the story sometimes veers off course quite a lot and when you're then thrown back into the action so to speak, it is hard to follow along with all the new information you just received.
All in all this story was interesting and the premise definitely interested me, but sadly neither the main character nor the writing could really pull me in as far as I would have liked.