The Summer I Died

I’ve only delved into the splatterpunk subgenre a handful of times, and none of those times have I ever found a book with much substance to go along with the shock horror and gore. This book was the exception. When Roger Huntington comes home from college for the summer and is met by his best friend, Tooth, he knows they're going to have a good time. When Roger and Tooth are out shooting at tin cans in the mountains, they hear a woman screaming. When they go to investigate, they wind up in the middle of a horror movie. I listened to this story’s audiobook, and I was instantly drawn in by the narrator’s voice and how he brought these characters to life. I loved how the first third of this book was spent fleshing out Roger and Tooth’s friendship, and they felt like real young boys, and reading about them and their dynamic brought me back to growing up with male friends. They felt authentic and real, and not like characters in a typical slasher novel. A lot of extreme horror and splatterpunk books skip right to the extremely depraved scenes without fleshing out the characters, but this book did such a good job at establishing the characters and this world, so when we finally get to the insane horrific horror scenes, it feels much more impactful and effective. The reader will feel more connected to these characters because they’re more than the typical horror movie fodder. I was misinformed in that I thought the protagonist would be queer as I had read that online somewhere, only to discover the main two characters were typical homophobic teenage boys. This didn’t bother me though as it was authentic to their characters and the time/setting and I was invested in their friendship throughout the story. The antagonist was brutal and horrific and felt closer to real life serial killers than a horror movie caricature. Every horrific moment felt so real, and I loved how chaotic the ending was, it felt like this was how a real survivor of a massacre would escape and stumble upon help. I was surprised by how connected I felt to the protagonist and these characters, and I’m very curious about where the story goes from here. I’ll be reading the next book in the series sooner rather than later.