Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. I’ve attempted it several times but have been unable to connect with the characters.

"Ronnie handed us more shots, and I took another down. It started to come back up, but I took some deep breaths and held it in. For dinner we went to a fish place near the bay, and Ian and I shared the cheapest dish they had. We squeezed into Sam's truck and drove back into the guts of San Fran. He parked a few blocks from his place, and we walked the rest of the way, passing a street littered with homeless kids. They played bongos and sang off-key and mouthed off to passersby. One kid about my age played a guitar with the words "My other guitar is a syringe" written on it in black marker. That one got to me.

They reached out for us and begged us for change and told us we were bitches and all that crap, and I did everything I could not to let them touch me. Not to be swayed by their siren song, and as Sam unlocked and opened the door, all I could picture was Jerry Garcia's dead body lying in Buena Vista Park surrounded by yuppies taking pictures - close-ups of the syringe hanging out of his arm - and selling them as "art." This wasn't the Summer of Love. The Summer of Love was dead. No, this was the Summer of Crud, and it was layered so heavily all over me no amount of scrubbing would ever wash it off."

Raw and skin-crawlingly gritty, The Summer of Crud is a tale of late-/post-college ennui, mental and physical illness, drug and alcohol abuse, and acute self-loathing, with a strong dose of "with friends like these, who needs enemies." While the story itself was tough to take in and the characters were generally terrible people, the writing was well-done and the story had a steady pace, never staying in one place for long and pulling the reader along on Danny and Ian's journey. It was a quick read, too - just a couple of hours.

I am attracted to stories involving musicians and young people trying to find their way in the world, so I thought I would enjoy this. However, the foul language that permeated the book (whilst I was only about 10% into it) prevented me from reading further. Therefore, I did not finish the book, nor did I publish a review anywhere...except for my brief opinions here. This book just wasn't for me, yet I am grateful for the opportunity to have been granted access to read. it. Thank you once again.

This book had its moments, but there were too few for the length of the story. Many of the scenes were similar, so it seemed repetitive. It would have been better pared down to anthology short story length. In fact, to me it felt like it was originally a short story, with filler added to puff it up to novella length. I liked the very beginning of the story, but it slowly turned into eating cardboard.

"Summer of Crud" is one of those books that sounded more interesting than they actually are. It took me quite a while to get through it. There was just a lot about that either annoyed me or bored me. It definitely could have been better but it's a bit of a let down.

DNF at 20%. I couldn't connect with the characters. I couldn't understand their friendship

I have quite conflicting thoughts about this book... I get it, but at the same time, I don't. The main character struggles with some pretty serious issues and the book has a lot of drugs, drinking and swearing (which I personally don't mind reading about). I think I failed to see the deeper meaning of it all through all the crud. I would recommend this book for readers to try out- it does have some gems in it in relation to mental health.

Thank you to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review "The Summer of Crud" by by Jonathan LaPoma. While the story did have interesting aspects to it, it didn't fee like their was a real plot to it. Danny never should have went on the trip with Ian. Ian is a terribly toxic friend who has no respect for Danny. Danny is going on a road trip the summer before he starts as a teacher. The main idea was interesting to me but I just really hated how everything was about drugs and pot. Not really my cup of tea. Reading about Danny made me anxious.

Summer of Crud is a coming-of-age story that takes place on a road trip across America. It makes reference on a few occasions to the Beats and in fact appears to be an attempt to update Kerouac’s On the Road for the 21st century. However, while not a terrible novel, it certainly is no modern classic.

Our protagonist is one Danny Wolinski, a college graduate who’s set to become a teacher, but who is in the grip of a debilitating depression. He takes off for Mexico with his abusive friend, Ian Perez, a poor man’s Dean Moriarty. Together, they speed across America, going from party to party, bar to bar, pizza place to pizza place. They are constantly drunk or high, usually at odds with one another, and always low on funds.

Danny slowly tells his life story, or part of it, at least. He’s a musician who’s unable to write songs. In the past he was in a successful band but hated that people liked him so much when he really hated himself. Now he’s on the road with his horrible, impatient, bullying best friend, and he likes the abuse he gets. He sees no future except for this trip, which in itself has no clearly defined aim.

Not only is Danny musically constipated, he has an anal fissure that ruptures every time he goes to the bathroom, and so he is not just in mental turmoil but near constant physical pain. In the beginning, this is merely alluded to, but soon it becomes a recurring feature – we are treated to a graphic description of every one of our hero’s bowel movements. As with the drinking and bickering, it all becomes a bit tedious and annoying.

Kerouac’s muse, Neal Cassady, was no saint but we were, in Kerouac’s novels, given deep and insightful descriptions of him. In Summer of Crud, our cheap Moriarty stand-in is ever present, yet we never really get to know him. Ian is an asshole who sometimes is nice, and that’s about it. We never scratch the surface and explore why he might be that way.

Jonathan Lapoma’s modern road novel has a decent premise and some interesting moments, but the dialogue is stilted, the story repetitive (even though, thankfully, short), and the characters rather one-dimensional. It diverges from the genre in a few places but otherwise is rather derivative. The ending, also, is a disappointment, but I shan’t give any spoilers here.

Oh dear.

For me, The Summer of Crud by Jonathan LaPoma had so much promise. I am looking for a book in the New Adult genre to blow me away and I have yet to find one. I had all my fingers and toes crossed that The Summer of Crud would be it. That finally I would have found a book to give me that satisfied book feeling.

It turns out that The Summer of Crud was not going to be the book to make me feel that way.

Jonathan LaPoma is a good writer. I am not saying that he isn’t but for me something just didn’t connect. The scenes of drug taking were gratuitous but not really offensive which is fine. I love road trip movies so hoped I would love this road trip book. I just found myself shouting at the protagonist Danny because he was letting his friend, Ian, push him all over. I couldn’t empathise with Danny’s situation.

Overall, The Summer of Crud just had me wondering what really the point of it all was.

The Summer of Crud by Jonathan LaPoma will be available from the 20th February 2018.

For more information regarding Jonathan LaPoma (@JonLaPoma) please visit www.jonlapoma.com.

"They thought I was dirty. They thought I was weak. I was stronger than any of them; I was holding up the weight of the world."

Oh, good lord, the ennui. This must be what stereotypical grandmothers mean when complain that kids these days have no problems and are depressed about nothing. A depressing but fortunately brief road trip story about two 22 year old with the maturity of 14 year olds — they see the coolest parts of the country, smoke everyone's weed for free, they're supposedly broke but never seem to starve or ever run out of money for long. That sounds... awesome, and yet they never stop complaining. I'm not trying to be unsympathetic, I know you don't have to have a heartbreaking, obvious reason to be depressed, which the Danny, the main character, clearly is. He was kicked out of a band. He's got some substance control issues, but the kind characters have when the author doesn't do a lot of drugs themselves ("And then I smoked some more weed and I saw some colors. But oh no, opium is too close to heroin, I feel guilty now! I'm living on the edge because other people at this party are doing cocaine!") The bathroom stuff was really gross to read about, but the one part where I did legitimately feel for him. His "friend" Ian is a poorly fleshed out asshole — one minute he's like "your songs are so deep man," and the next minute (and most of the time) is absolutely terrible. It is observed he only treats Danny this way, but why? I might have given this book an additional star if just once Danny had told him to go to hell. The ending felt like the author just got tired of writing or hit his deadline or something. I picked this book because I liked the cover and did not have to wait for publisher's approval, but I don't think I'd read another book by this author again.

I wasn't a huge fan of this book. It was all over the place in what it was trying to convey. The characters were unlikable and I don't think anyone could relate to any of them. Which is pretty much a requirement for any book that's trying to be a coming of age, or trying to "find yourself" type of book. Most of the dialogue seemed predictable, stereotyped, unnecessary, or a combination of all three. I feel like it missed the point it was trying to make, if it had one at all.

For a more detailed review: www.theliasblog.com/2018/01/23/book-review-the-summer-of-crud/

DNF @ 40 %

I tried multiple times to get into this story and just couldn't. I pulled this off NetGalley read now.
The book starts with two young men out of college taking a cross country road trip, both seemingly for very different reasons. They make stops along the way, all of which were haphazard and didn't seem to fit into the story in enough detail. The two MC's constantly bickered. Danny had bathroom issues which I didn't read far enough into the book to see where that stemmed from. It reminded me of a toddler refusing to use to potty. I digress. I am sure this book may appeal to a different audience, it didn't work for me. I like the author but this story was far too tangential and I couldn't see reading anymore of the book to see if it pulled out of the total spin it was in.

**Arc from NetGalley and Publisher ** in exchange for an honest review

Though The Summer of Crud is short, MAN is it deep! This narrative is chock full of harsh observances of human nature and insecurity. The main character Danny gives us some excellent internal monologuing throughout the book, filled with his insight of what it's like to be living on the other side of social acceptance. Plagued by anxiety, depression, physical ailment, and an aggressive best friend, Danny struggles with himself and the rest of the world, the two being seemingly opposing forces.

I simply adore the raw flow-of-conscious narrative of this story. This is one of those books that is so full of incredible quotes that rather than sharing a few I might as well just give anyone a copy of the book and say "Here, read this; I really love it."

Being as short as it is, this book is perfect for me because I could just pick it up anytime the urge takes me and read it again in half a day. The Summer of Crud is like The Perks of Being a Wallflower's grungy older brother. And if that doesn't make you want to read this book then I don't know what will!

This is the second book I have read by this author, and I was disappointed with both of them. The author has a great deal of talent, the subject matter is just not interesting. Binge drinking is not a lifestyle.

It contains language I'm not fond of, very abrubt and sharp - which actually takes off the potential of this book.

The Summer of Crud is disturbingly deep, hypnotising. I suspect this is the sort of writing that is book club worthy. I couldn’t stop reading it even if I wanted. It details the road-trip of a 22-year old, soon to be a teacher, on a journey that he hopes of encountering inspiration that will bring out the song stuck within him. The word ‘details: verb’ is underrated - the lead character’s (Danny) every waking moment in this journey is narrated.

The journey exposed a myriad of issues such as drugs, homelessness, prostitution, promiscuous parties, alcohol, etc, but these aren’t the reasons why I described it as disturbingly deep. It’s disturbing not because I found myself alienated from the lead character, nor am I drawn to him, only indifferent. Jonathan LaPoma wrote it such a way that it reveals the sort life that some people lead, and in such a way that makes me go “Oh, okay” instead of “Seriously, Danny? You drink beer to sleep and wake up to it?”. The word ‘party’ in this book has ceased to mean ‘a social gathering where you’re entertained and have fun with other people’, and more towards the dark and depressive meaning, which is ’people who get together to use booze, drugs, and sex to escape reality’.

I couldn’t appreciate this book to the fullest because of two reasons. Number 1; there are plenty of references to music in here. I streamed some on Youtube while reading and it was a nice experience. Number 2; I’ve never been to the US so references to places during this trip probably meant less to me than those who’ve actually been there. However, I still enjoyed Jonathan LaPoma’s writing very much.

The Summer of Crud explored a lot of really interesting themes about early adulthood that I found really interesting, and LaPoma discusses mental illness and sexuality. This is something that a lot of young adults are dealing with, and I think it's a good conversation to have in a book, especially among men.

But this book in the end wasn't for me. Personally, I'm just not into the kind of music that Danny and his friends are in. I'm fine with the occasional party scene, but this book was party scene and drinking and drugs, over and over and over again and it tired me. I'm usually not bothered by language either but there was just so much swearing that it was difficult to read. I felt like I was left hanging at the end.

First of all, I want to say that this book was not bad. The main character was indeed funny, and the trip itself full of exciting moments. This book is about a young man that just finished college, and he is questioning certain problems in his life while travelling. This is worth reading on a Saturday night when you do not feel like going out, as it is a fast and a fine read.