Summer of Night
Ratings38
Average rating4
15
Ratings38
Average rating4
It's the summer of 1960 in Elm Haven, Illinois, and five 12-year old boys are forming the bonds that a lifetime of changes will never erase.
But then a dark cloud threatens the bright promise of summer vacation: on the last day of school, their classmate Tubby Cooke vanishes. Soon, the group discovers stories of other children who once disappeared from Elm Haven. And there are other strange things happening in town: unexplained holes in the ground, a stranger dressed as a World War I soldier, and a rendering-plant truck that seems to be following the five boys. The friends realize that there is a terrible evil lurking in Elm Haven...and they must be the ones to stop it.
Featured Series
4 primary booksSeasons of Horror is a 4-book series with 4 primary works first released in 1991 with contributions by Dan Simmons.
Reviews with the most likes.
Unbelievable, as a fan of horror, that I've overlooked this for so long. Fantastic.
Finally accepting that this goes in my DNF pile.
If you want a spooky, nostalgic adventure by a pack of generic white tween boys on their bikes, just go read some Bradbury. He does it way better, and while poetic is infinitely more concise.
If you want a non-supernatural nostalgic adventure by a pack of distinctive white tween boys, just go read “The Body” or watch Stand by Me.
If you want a spooky, nostalgic adventure by a pack of tween misfits (including a girl and an African American boy) who are all well-drawn and distinctive characters, just go read IT. Try to ignore the SUPER WEIRD and uncomfortable event at the, uh, climax that I still don't understand King getting away with. The rest of the story is pure gold.
My recommendation is not to bother with this one. Why?
- The characters are dull and largely interchangeable. The closest it comes to painting unique characters is designating The Smart Kid, The Dumb Oaf, The Little Brother, The Catholic One, and so on. Even though the Smart Kid was the most interesting, I found myself constantly confusing him with the main character (who has no discernible personality traits) because they have similar names.
- It's not scary. The story meanders a lot, with long stretches of gee-whiz nostalgia punctuated with sudden interpolations of horror cliche set pieces. Things that should have had me squirming were dulled because they're secondary to the lengthy naturalistic backstory. They pop up and then are forgotten in favor of something ludicrously mundane. Moreover, the horror is neither left mysterious enough to be scary nor explained well enough to be satisfying. We're left in the completely bland place between, where one starts to ask questions like, “Are the ghouls just trying to gaslight these kids?” “Why do these supernatural creatures attack in broad daylight but then hide when a grownup comes around?” “Seriously? It's an evil . . . bell?”
- It's annoyingly sexist. The female characters are present enough around the fringes of the story to create a misogynistic undertone absent from the Bradbury and King stories where the main characters simply don't have girls on their radar. When one boy mentally reviles his mother for being an irresponsible slut of a bad mom, it's not super clear if the author means to show the boy in a bad light, or agrees with his assessment. The Bev-analog has no point of view and serves only as a sex object on the bare periphery of the story. It's made more frustrating by a tantalizing aside painting Mike's grandmother as a badass, complex character whom I'd much rather read about. But within the current story, she's literally mute and paralyzed.
This was disappointing. I really, really tried to like it. But now I just get more annoyed the more I read, so better to stop.
While this book is longer than it needs to be and some of the content has aged pretty poorly, it has a great story, likable characters, and plenty of truly chilling horror. It isn't perfect, but there sure is a lot to love here.
