Summer Sons

Summer Sons Book Review by Lee Mandelo 

I was so excited for this one. 

It checks off almost everything I love: dark academia, troubled boys, southern Gothic, queer romance, and a murder mystery. 

What’s not to love?

Turns out there’s plenty. At the same time though, there’s a plethora I do adore. 

Summer Sons is a book by author Lee Mandelo that centers around a boy named Andrew, a 23-year-old student at Vanderbilt that is trying to prove that his best friend Eddie’s suicide is a murder. 

Bracketed by mysteries and engulfed by grief, Andrew inherits a house, a roommate, an estate, and more money than he knows what to do with. 

No matter what the authorities, the cops, or others say, Andrew refuses to believe Eddie’s wounds are self-inflicted. 

Eddie wouldn’t do that to him. Eddie wouldn’t leave Andrew. Which means the only plausible explanation is that Eddie’s so-called end is the work of someone else. 

The novel becomes a murder mystery. Andew is trying to seek out answers surrounding his best friend’s untimely demise while also struggling to stay afloat in his American Studies program and interrogate the supposed new friends that Eddie had made before he died. 

The premise hooked me right from the beginning, but the genre put a falter in my step.

The book is labeled as horror. 

As integral as the murder mystery element, there’s also a running plot point of Andrew and Eddie bonding over a traumatic childhood experience in which they fell into a sinkhole and were forever cursed after. 

Andrew is possessed and stalked by a haunt, a skeletal creature that now resembles Eddie and always leaves Andrew worse for wear. 

As Andrew is trying to solve Eddie’s murder, he’s also seeking answers about his own ghostly possession, the one that continues to tie Andrew and Eddie together beyond the grave. 

As someone who dislikes horror, I didn’t find this book very scary. If anything, the horror elements are actually the most well done bits of the story. 

Mandelo crafts suspense and anticipation well, and any time a haunt, possession, or nightmares ensued, Mandelo created a perfectly ominous tone that raised the hair on my arms in an enjoyable way. 

It was never so over the top that my cowardice made me close the book. I wouldn’t label this book as horror and that’s saying something for someone who considered Stranger Things too scary to watch. 

Gothic, certainly. Suspense and creepy, absolutely. Horror, however, is a little too strong for this particular novel. 

It’s always very evident when authors follow the writing advice of: write what you know. To some extent, I think Mandelo did just this and it shows beautifully. 

His interpretation of the South, of local folklore, and curses and bloodlines was by far the most detailed and well-written elements of the story. I loved these aspects and found them both original and compelling. 

It’s Mandelo’s characters I have issues with. 

Andrew as a main character is frustrating beyond belief. 

I know that he’s grieving. I understand he’s grappling with loss and huge life changes and mainly in denial. 

However, Andrew pushes every single person away that wants to help him and hardly changes. From beginning to end, Andrew is a very stagnant character. He’s apathetic, distrusting, closed-off, and quite honestly, just kind of a dick. 

Once again, I understand he’s going through a lot. However, he tells himself that he needs to get to know Eddie’s new friends from Vanderbilt, to infiltrate the group so to speak, and yet, when someone like Riley, Eddie’s old roommate and Andrew’s new one, tries to talk to Andrew, Andrew completely and utterly shuts him down. 

It’s frustrating as a reader to have a main character tell himself something over and over again and never act on it. 

Additionally, in a very Raven Cycle-esque influence, the book has street racing and lots of fancy cars like Hellcats and Supras. For Mandelo, Andrew street-racing with this new masculine “pack” is his way of bonding with the others. 

I’m sorry, but no. 

Racing cars is fine and having something in common to form a friendship is great. But it’s not a stand in for actual character and relationship progression. Without actually getting to know these other boys, Andrew simply races them, drinks with them, does drugs with them, and once gets into a fight at the pack leader’s house. 

That is the so-called bonding that we get as readers. 

The book is labeled as a slow-burn romance, but I would replace that label with a nonsensical-romance instead. Andrew and Sam (the pack leader and Riley’s cousin) have no discernible reason—as far as I could see—to actually like each other. 

Other than having a dick-measuring contest with their cars, they had no actual emotional or impactful conversations that left any kind of impression on me as a reader. The romance is stilted, shallow, and happened out of nowhere.

It’s almost like Mandelo was two-thirds the way through the book and realized that he wanted a queer awakening and made it happen. I wanted more from Andrew. I wanted more from all the relationships. 

The ingredients were there, but it was either cut short or the scenes that did take place weren’t utilized properly. 

I read this book in six days. Despite my complaints, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The murder mystery is intriguing, the emotions and backstory are thought-provoking, and the writing is beautiful. Mandelo is an amazing writer. I fell in love with his diction, his cadence, and his descriptions. 

However, it also made this book disappointing because it could have been better. 

It’s like when you watch a good TV show and you feel bitter because it had all the elements to be great, but it was squandered (like any live-action movie ever made). 

Summer Sons has elements of that. It’s a great, compelling read with so much promise, but falls short of what I wanted. 

Recommendation: I was advertised that this book was a mash up between The Foxhole Court and The Raven Cycle. As an avid lover of both of these series, I say this advertisement is phooey. I see hints of how people could see a resemblance to The Raven Cycle, but Summer Sons is its own beast.

 If dark academia, car racing, and toxic masculinity seems like a mix you would like, Summer Sons should be your next paranormal thriller. If not, I would argue that there are better novels out there in each of those categories that will suit your needs better. 

Score: 7/10