Adele Evans

I give Summer of Night an A-plus and an F for story and copying. On the positive side, the writer gives us wonderful, lush, brilliant descriptions of the Midwest during summertime. His descriptions rival any writer I’ve ever read – and I can feel, smell and taste what it is like to be there, near the cornfields and farms. He really nails descriptions – almost poetic. I wish the book could have just been about the descriptions and basic elements of life in the farmlands of Illinois. Sadly, the book stops being good there. The author really does copy both Shirley Jackson (from the very first sentence); and Stephen King (King’s usual line-up of outcast/hero kids, clueless adults, psychopathic bullies and sassy girls). Honestly, there could have been lawsuits. That aside, the story was about 300 pages too long. It trudged along at a snail’s pace – and after awhile you could see the pattern. He began with about 6 main kids. Each chapter would start, build up, give a cliff-hanger, and stop before anything was resolved. Then he’d switch to another chapter, about another kid, and so on. Then he’d return to the first kid and resolve it, and so on. So he had 6 scenes per rotation – and a seemingly infinite amount of rotations. And Dan was really, really hard on overweight people. He must have used the word "fat" dozens, if not hundreds of times, in a very, very negative way. I’d say read it for the lovely descriptions. Not the story.