How to Survive a Summer: A Novel

I received an ARC of this book.

With wonderful imagery and symbolism throughout, Nick White has encapsulated in this novel how unresolved fear and trauma can stagnate a person's life, and how moving on is a long and difficult process. Digging into Will's past and his present state of mind really allowed me to connect with our protagonist. And the abuse that went on at the "conversion" camps seemed quite well researched. I feel that "How to Survive a Summer" may come to be viewed as an essential piece of LGBT literature that truly reflects the internal struggles many of us went through who grew up in conservative rural areas.

Recounts a young man's time as a teenager at a religious camp designed to "cure" homosexuality. The novel uses a horror movie loosely based on the camp as a device to bring past experiences to the fore for the main character, and this juxtaposition of the real abuse that occurred there and the terrors of the horror film is both the most interesting thing about the book and the most disappointing--it brings up fascinating questions and parallels I don't think it does enough to resolve, and ultimately that part of the book seems to drop away. The story is set in the deep south, and while I could see that White was bringing details of that setting into the narrative, they didn't quite come together to form the kind of richness that setting show more makes me expect. An uneven novel, but still one I am very glad to have read and which I recommend despite its flaws. show less

When Will Dillard, aka Rooster, was in his teens, his father sent him to Camp Levi, a conversion therapy camp in the Neck, an isolated area in central Mississippi. Therapy is a misnomer for what actually happens to the young men placed by their parents in the hands of Father Drake and Mother Maude, the camp’s leaders. After a tragedy occurs, the camp disbands and the campers go their separate ways.

Will, now a graduate student, believes himself to have moved on from that summer. But then a horror movie, “Proud Flesh,” based very loosely on that summer’s events is released and inserts itself into his life. Will begins a road trip, both mentally and physically, back into his past as he returns to the place where it all began.

How to show more Survive a Summer has a lot of potential and the topic it tackles, gay conversion therapy camps, is certainly weighty and worthwhile, but I never felt it achieved the depth it deserves nor did the characters become much more than caricatures. It was a good try, but I was disappointed. show less

I wanted to love this book so much more than I did, but it was unfortunately juvenilely written and hard to slough through.
 
One character aptly assumes at one point that our narrator doesn't want to talk about his story because he may feel it's just another example of a gay boy growing up and getting out of a small town, moving from a rural area to a metropolitan area and not terribly worthy of sharing. This was the most poignant moment of the novel, because I think a lot of people do feel this way when they should know that their perspective is also important.
 
I don't know. I was so psyched for this book but it didn't captivate me or compel me. It wasn't as gruesome as promised, not that I wanted to see gruesome specifically, but I show more expected there to be more shock factor for how the book was sold. There was one character who was very fucked up and I think that this was much more the problem in the story than the idea of "stomping out the gay."
 
I feel like there could have been more. Will's current life is very strange and aimless and could have better been written into its own story. His relationships with a guy he's interested in and a friend who's more a mentor were both very strange and were described as more intimate than they really are.
 
I kept getting bored and wanting to give up. Ultimately, the ending was super unsatisfying also, and I was left in limbo wondering what I had just read. While I think this topic matter is important, I would have liked to see this story differently done in a manner that would be much more captivating. I felt like the title was false advertisement, honestly.
 
This was disappointing. If you're interested in the topic manner it might be worth your time, but it was far from the slamdunk I was hoping this would pull on my emotions.
 
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
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Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.


Will Dillard is struggling. Today, he is a graduate student working on his dissertation, but he is barely living. He goes through the motions, but he is haunted by his past. When he was a teenager, he spent one awful summer at Camp Levi, a conversion camp designed to "cure" teenage boys of their homosexual "affliction". It is only when a slasher film based on that nightmare summer is released that Will is forced to confront his demons head-on.

Reading the description of this book made me SO excited to read it, especially during pride month. This book did not quite live up to the hype. It was a good enough read that I show more got through the book, but at no point did I feel any kind of investment in the characters. Will is a boring, bland human who does things that just made zero sense to me.

This is also one of the slowest moving books I've ever read. It isn't until 56% of the way through the book (yes, read it on a Kindle) that you even get any kind of details about what went on at the camp. The build up just seemed to be way too in-depth and the movement was at a snail's pace. It was exhausting. I (as I assume other readers will) picked up this book because I wanted to hear the story of the camp. The horror flick was an interesting plot device to force Will to bring up those memories, but the pages upon pages of information about his mother and his expedition to see his father just did nothing for me.

I think that this was an interesting story, but I'm not sure that this author was the best person to tell it. show less

The first thing you will notice about Nick White's How To Survive A Summer is just how damn well it is written. If you weren't sure, you'd think it was pure memoir, as such detailed events are written with expert clarity. Where some novels can be frustrating flipping from past to present, White does it with ease. The subject matter can be painful at times, but that is what makes the book so interesting and engaging. This debut holds nothing but promise.