4.5

“That friendship was a muted fraction of the real thing, the marrow-thing, that tied them together…he couldn’t find a label that fit where he needed it to go. Maybe instead, just a hard stop: he was yours.”

Andrew and Eddie were best friends, bonded more deeply than brothers until Eddie left Andrew behind to start his graduate program. Six months later, only days before Andrew was to join him, Eddie dies of an apparent suicide. He leaves Andrew a horrible inheritance: a roommate he doesn’t know, friends he never asked for, and a gruesome phantom. As Andrew searches for the truth of Eddie’s death, he uncovers a family history soaked in blood and death and gets tangled with the backstabbing academic world where Eddie spent his days, as well as the circle of hot boys, fast cars, and hard drugs that ruled Eddie’s nights, the walls Andrew has built against the world begin to crumble, letting in the phantom that hungers for him.

I had a feeling that I was going to love this book. I loved the cover, the synopsis sounded so good, and everyone compares it to The Raven Cycle. And no surprise, I LOVED IT SO MUCH!!

If you love The Raven Boys, you'll probably love this too. There are so many similar vibes between them, the atmosphere, the writing. To be even more specific, Summer Sons is kind of like The Dream Thieves but on drugs. And it makes sense that they are so reminiscent of each other because Lee Mandelo is a fan of TRC. They wrote an essay on Tor.com about the series, and I highly recommend it!! It put into words so much of what I love about the series.

Everything about this book was amazing to me. The writing style is so beautiful, descriptive, and atmospheric. There were times where I had to look up words in the dictionary because I had never seen them in a book before, and I loved that.

The entire book is a slow burn. It has a slow burn romance, the plot progresses slowly, but it's so intoxicating. I never wanted to stop reading it; I needed to know what was going to happen next.

I didn't expect how much of this story would be an exploration of grief. Books that grapple with death and grief are some of my favorites, and I loved how those themes were explored here. Eddie's death leaves Andrew with a literal ghostly emptiness; he's haunted by the ghost just as much as he is haunted by his grief.

Summer Sons also examines how toxic masculinity has infected these characters. Just as with grief, it haunts some of them. This is more of a coming-of-age story than an actual ghost story; it's more about Andrew coming to terms with himself and everything around him than all of the magic and mystery

I did have a few issues. I think the main antagonist was predictable, and the first half was maybe too slow? But I enjoyed everything else so much that it definitely didn't impact my feelings toward the book. I can't wait to reread this soon.

Also, this book completely changed my favorites of the year list because before I read it, I had at least an idea of my faves, but now I have to rethink everything because it has to be there.

CWs: death; grief; mentions of suicide and self-harm; violence and gore; drug use; sexual content.