I really tried so hard to like this book. I think I struggled most with who the intended audience would be. The story revolves around male graduate students that get drunk, take drugs, start fights, and race cars all while having to get past the casual use of homophobic slurs. It was so incredibly juvenile I found myself rolling my eyes frequently throughout the first portion of the book. All the while there was supposed to be a ghost story about Andrew’s dead best friend going on. I felt like this book wasn’t sure what it wanted to be and came off completely obnoxious and unenjoyable for me at least. I genuinely couldn’t stand a single character and felt like the writing lacked depth.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC of this book!

What an awesome read! This book not only provides for academia vibes but also explores grief and codependency. This book was so atmospheric and just a delight to read. Can't wait to see what Mandelo writes next!

Andrew and Eddie were best friends. When Eddie dies Andrew in his grief seeks to find answers into the death of his friend. Between the ghosts and the legacy that Eddie leaves him can Andrew escape or will he be consumed as well? I spent much of this book confused because I couldn't tell if Andrew's grief clouded his judgement or if the mysterious happenings around him were parts of his grieving process. I enjoyed this story so much it was a tragic tale with a real mystery and supernatural presence that kept me guessing from page 1.

2.5 Stars

This book follows Andrew who moves to Nashville following the apparent suicide of his best friend, Eddie. Andrew inherits Eddie's fortune, house, car, and also his roommate.
Months pass as Andrew searches for the truth of Eddie's death and uncovers much more than he bargained for.
I enjoyed the LGBT+ aspect of the story and how Andrew learned about himself along the way.
The setting was atmospheric and the car racing was a unique side story.
However, the plot of this book did not move fast enough. It took about 60% before the book went in an interesting direction. The "phantom" aspect of this story was lost on me most of the time and I did not know what was happening.

The ending was also lackluster. The "reveal" did not shock me.

The nitty-gritty: Despite a couple of intriguing mysteries and an atmospheric setting, Summer Sons ended up being a disappointing read.

The description and early blurbs for Summer Sons promised a queer, spooky, Southern Gothic ghost story, and the creepy cover made it even more appealing to me. And while it’s unabashedly queer and creepy and atmospheric at times, unfortunately it just didn’t work for me. 

Andrew was supposed to join his best friend Eddie in Nashville to attend Vanderbilt University, but before he can make the move, Eddie is found dead of an apparent suicide. Andrew arrives at the house Eddie was living in—the house they were going to share—only to discover that a student named Riley is already living there. Heartbroken and overwhelmed by Eddie’s death, and the fact that Eddie left Andrew his seven million dollar inheritance, Andrew is convinced that Eddie would never take his own life, and that there must be another explanation.

With the help of Riley and his cousin Sam, Andrew begins to dig into Eddie’s last moments, hoping to learn the truth. But when an angry spirit who appears to be Eddie starts haunting him, his investigation takes a terrifying turn. 

Where to start. I’m afraid this is going to be a mostly negative review, which I know is unusual for me. The story has so much potential to be great, but it falls short in many ways. I loved the idea of a malevolent ghost, and the author really nails the feeling of danger every time Andrew is haunted by Eddie’s spirit. Despite their relationship when Eddie was alive, Eddie's ghost seems angry and even ends up physically hurting Andrew. There’s a feeling of claustrophobia during these scenes that really creeped me out. However, for a book pitched as a ghost story, there really isn’t that much page time with Eddie the spirit, and I would have loved more.

One of the ongoing mysteries involves a traumatic event that happened to Eddie and Andrew when they were kids. Mandelo refers to this event in brief, tantalizing spurts, but doesn’t reveal what actually happened to the boys until the end, and even then his explanation was rather vague and unsatisfying. The result of this event leaves both boys with the ability to sense and see ghosts, and I thought that was such an intriguing idea. But like many of the better elements in this story, it just wasn’t utilized enough.

I had hoped for more of the “dark academia” trope too, and sadly that element fell flat as well. Andrew is expected to take up Eddie’s unfinished research into local Southern folklore, and when he arrives he’s expected to show up to classes, do the work, and have regular sessions with Eddie’s faculty mentor, Dr. Troth. While there was an interesting mystery involving Eddie’s missing journal and research notes, Andrew is much more focused on finding these items—as well as Eddie’s missing cell phone—than actually going to class. He blows off his advisor meetings and classes, and really, who can blame him? He’s trying to figure out who murdered his best friend!

Unfortunately, the story has many elements that didn’t really interest me, and less of these and more of the ghost would have made it better in my opinion. What are these elements? Street racing, lots of drugs, lots of alcohol, lots of sexual tension (and I do mean LOTS), gender identity and sexual orientation issues and plenty of angst. Most of the characters are male, so the testosterone is off the charts. A couple of female characters round out the cast but they don’t do much: a token girlfriend, Andrew’s ex who’s pissed off at him about something (and is only in the story, as far as I can tell, to help Andrew figure out his sexuality), and the evil professor Dr. Troth. I didn’t understand why the street racing element was even needed. I feel like it was added to make the characters seem “bad,” along with all the drinking, drugs and sex.

All of these negatives would have been ok if the pacing and writing had been better, but here’s where the story really fell apart for me. Summer Sons is slow. And I mean it develops at a snail’s pace. The fact that it took me three weeks to finish also tells you something. I found I was forcing myself to read it, and I almost DNF’d it several times but in the end decided to push through. There are bursts of excitement and danger scattered throughout, but in between those moments are excruciatingly slow and repetitious sections that killed all those thrilling scenes.

And I’m sorry to say that Lee Mandelo’s writing did not work for me at all. The story is overwritten and flowery and frankly, confusing as hell. Many times I got hung up on sentences that didn’t make any sense and pulled me out of the story. Now I know I read an uncorrected proof, and it’s entirely possible some of these have been edited by now, but I doubt that’s the case. Here are a couple of cringe-worthy examples: 

Their delicate dance of implication and tradition remained alien to him, and it pulled the air out of the room.

and

The question flew into the wall of Andrew’s privacy like a bird into glass and dropped dead.

I haven’t even touched on the characters, and to be honest, I’m sort of ready to end this review. Let’s just say that I didn’t like any of them, even Andrew. I did appreciate what Mandelo was trying to do with gender and sexual identity, but it became the focus of the story, and that just wasn’t the story I wanted to read. Many readers seem to love Summer Sons, so I suppose I might be the odd man out, but ultimately this wasn’t the right book for me.

With thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.

I found it at times hard to keep track of the storyline. This made it hard to genuinely enjoy the book. Lots going on and overall, it was good. I did it as an audiobook and this could be why?

I had to DNF this book. It's disappointing because I've been looking forward to this book for months and was so thankful for being given an advanced ebook copy from Netgalley and the publisher of Summer Sons. As much as I tried, and I even bought the audio book to help me continue, I just could not get into this story. Because I could not finish it, I am giving it 2 ⭐.

Eddie and Andrew are childhood friends that have an unbreakable bond. They do everything together up until Eddie leaves to start his graduate program. After 6 months Andrew is notified that Eddie has committed suicide and has left him a home with an unknown roommate and more questions than answers. He cannot accept Eddie's death as a suicide and begins to retrace his steps by spending time partying with his friends and looking into the research project he was working on. Andrew's life begins to unravel as a mysterious entity with slashed wrists starts to appear.

I really liked the concept and the setting of the story. It had some really creepy elements and the repressed feelings that Andrew had were also an interesting part of the story. The ending felt a little flat to me. I was hoping for a little more.

This book is going on my "pandemic DNF- return to someday" list. It's definitely a me-not-you sort of DNF, as I just couldn't focus on the story despite the fact that it is quite well written and up my alley.

I seem to be in the minority here but something about this didn't work for me. I just could not get into the writing style. This did not feel like horror to me, even though there were depictions of ghosts and other "horror" type things. I just felt a little detached because of the writing style.

Thank You So Much Tordotcom for this ebook! 😘

Andrew and Eddie are the best of friends! They are more like brothers!
Eddie left to go-to Vanderbilt.
Andrew was to join him in Nashville a few months later.
Now Andrew is dead from an apparent suicide!
Eddie wouldn't kill himself.... So Andrew sets out to find the truth.
He is determined to find out what happened. So he retraces his steps.

Summer Sons intrigued me from the very beginning.
Its spooky, dark and beyond errie!
It’s a thrilling and fascinating read the whole way through.
This beautiful cover is one pro....
But Lee Mandelo does an outstanding job making his characters come straight to life!
I simply adored every aspect of it: the writing, the angst, the pace, the characters!
This is one book you should read!

Well, I really enjoyed this one.

I just tell you that I was much more into the drama and the relationship than I was into the horror/paranormal aspect of it. Don't get me wrong, that was good - it's just that I really needed our main character to find himself and some semblance of happy.

The Gothic feel of the piece is well done and our boys are so, so dangerous in so many ways.

Well written and made me very, very anxious!

This book has everything I love: dark academia, an unsolved murder with a paranormal mystery, complex characters you can’t help but love, and a creepy, atmospheric setting.

Summer Sons follows Andrew, who travels to Vanderbilt University to investigate the apparent suicide of his childhood best friend Eddie. Torn apart with grief, Andrew knows that Eddie couldn’t have done that, and continue’s Eddie’s PhD research on local folklore in order to figure out what happened. But with the revenant Eddie haunting him, will Andrew be able to solve the mystery before it consumes him?

I loved this book so much. It was the exact dark, weird, slowburn horror that I adore. Andrew was an equally compelling and frustrating main character, but I really felt with him as he processed the loss of his best friend and the unresolved feelings between the two. I also adored the paranormal elements of the book and thought it was really unique. I definitely need to look for more southern gothic books because this was so so good.

Side note but I think this would be really good for fans of The Raven Cycle that are looking for similar dark paranormal vibes. This book reminded me a lot of the Dream Thieves and is the first time I’ve been able to find something similar to my favorite series.

Overall this was a perfect mixture of dark academia and southern gothic and I highly recommend picking it up this fall!

Thanks so much to Tordotcom and NetGalley for the digital review copy!

Not sure what I can say that hasn't already been said: this book is sweaty, delicious, terrifying, unputdownable.

The deeply descriptive prose and lush setting of this book draw you in until you can almost smell the burnt rubber of a street race and feel the oppressive heat of summer.
I did struggle with the characters a bit because while they’re very well-written they’re also mostly terrible people and I had a difficult time identifying with Andrew at all. I also felt like the writing at times was too heavy with metaphors and it detracted from what was actually going on in the story.
Overall I feel like this was an intriguing, slow burn, atmospheric gothic mystery that I would definitely recommend to anyone who is looking for a good ghost story.

This books writing is unlike anything I've ever read. Mandelo has incredible story telling skills. As well as amazing plot development. I loved this book!

I don't normally give out a five star rating for a book unless its both technically perfect AND hits some key points/feelings that are often indescribable for me personally. The fifth star, for me, is something that is deeply personal and so I never argue when another reader and I are on the 4/5 split. So I struggled a bit with what to give this one. It is a technically perfect work of art. Stunning prose; full characters who feel like real, breathing people; rich, complex relationships; and a story that manages to be beautifully atmospheric while not sacrificing pace all come together with a tight, fitting ending.

This book is everything it promises to be and more and I genuinely cannot recommend it enough. It is a rare book indeed where, just 100 pages in, I was telling people "you need to preorder this right now."

But, for me, I know a book hits that "indescribable" point when I want to turn it over and start again the moment I read the last few words. Here, the first time through, the book felt so nostalgic (growing up in the same area, having several similar life experiences) that finishing it for the first time felt like reading a beloved tale for the nth time. That's something I don't think I've ever been able to say about a book before, but the way Mandelo captures the utter southerness of their location, there feels like no other way to describe it. The characters felt like people so real they were about to walk of the page and the location was just as palpable.

This book has a LOT of praise points (I honestly tried to think of something nitpicky I could say about it - came up empty). but how Mandelo manages to write the early 20s/LGBTQ experience in a way that feels deeply ordinary and familiar while also weaving in an incredibly unique ghost story that manages to feel fresh AND timeless at the same time?

That is just unquestionable talent.

I don't think I've ever been so excited to see what a debut author does next.

I finished Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo a few days ago and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. This debut novel is a beautifully queer, Southern Gothic look into the world of Appalachian street racing and higher learning.
Summer Sons focuses on Andrew and Eddie, two friends with an intense, unexplainable bond as they move on to their graduate program at Vanderbilt. Eddie decides to go first, asking Andrew to stay behind for a few months. When Eddie dies by apparent suicide, he learns that Eddie has left him his considerable fortune, a house with a roommate he doesn’t want, his extensive thesis research, and a vengeful haunt that will not leave him alone. He also leaves him the mystery of his demise, which Andrew knows was not suicide. In order to solve this mystery, Andrew must assimilate into Eddie’s life, diving headfirst into a world of fast cars, blurred sexual identities, and copious amounts of drugs.
If that sounds like a lot thematically, it is but it somehow works. Mandelo is an amazing writer who manages to tackle huge themes like wealth inequality and toxic masculinity in the middle of what is, in essence, a ghostly unrequited love story. I am particularly impressed by his searing indictment of the casual racism of the academic world, especially in the South. I read a lot of dark academia and this is a topic usually skirted around or wholly ignored, so I appreciate the inclusion. I also love the way Mandelo handles the dual nature of human beings. Every character is incredibly nuanced, always encompassing more than one thing at a time, which is realistic and beautiful.
Summer Sons is one of the best books I can remember reading. I absolutely loved every minute of it and cannot wait to see what Mandelo comes up with next. I'd give this one more than 5 stars if I could.

Andrew is getting ready to join his best friend, when he instead learns of his apparent suicide. Now everything Eddie owned belongs to Andrew except for the knowledge of what really happened. Andrew knew Eddie better than anyone else in the world and he is positive that he never would have killed himself.
It took me a while to get into this story. The pace was slow at first, although I was immediately knocked over by the depth of Andrew's grief at the loss of his friend Eddie. As Andrew moves into what was once Eddie's house and now belongs to him, I didn't really care for his inherited roommate Riley or really any of Eddie's crowd. They grew on me eventually and by the time I realized I was angry with Eddie for having shared what Andrew thought was private, I was pretty heavily invested in Andrew's search for the truth of what really led to Eddie's death and whether he really took his own life. There is a supernatural element involved but it felt secondary to Andrew's grief and repressed sexuality. If you enjoy a slow burn horror this is for you.

4 out of 5 stars

Part mystery, part creepy Southern Gothic ghost story, part dark academia, part an exploration of queer masculinity and grief, Summer Sons was like nothing else I ever read. I wasn’t sure if it’d be up my alley, I don’t go for horror, and the ARC request was of the experimental why-the-hell-not-my-friends-like-it kind, but damn it was good. I picked it up at exactly the right time.

Andrew is in pieces after his childhood best friend Eddie suddenly died. He knows that what looks like a suicide isn’t and, haunted by Eddie’s ghost, sets off to follow his steps at university, meet his friends, and find out what really happened.

Also, he might be into guys without knowing it yet.

The story starts off fairly slow. Andrew’s idea of investigating is drinking, doing drugs, racing, getting acquainted with Eddie’s friends, avoiding talking about his feelings, and doing the bare minimum of Eddie’s schoolwork he was supposed to be following up on. His discovery of his sexuality is even slower because he’s an oblivious moron (oh, do we love to see it). But slowly and all the more surely, the story drew me in until I read the last part in one go.

I thought I wouldn’t be too into it because horror, but it’s so character-focused and queer in a messy and unlabelled way it ended up being very much to my liking. The atmosphere is spot on, it’s quotable as hell, and I loved the side characters, especially Riley aka the one sane person. I also found it interesting how, for the lack of a better world, masculine it is – fistfights, racing, cheap beer, and all.

All in all, I’d highly recommend you give it a try.