Book Review: Until Summer Comes Around by Glenn Rolfe
Published by Flame Tree Press
I am not a huge fan of the vampire sub-genre. What I am a huge fan of is Mr. Rolfe's work. I requested this ARC because of how much I enjoyed his book The Window. Then I saw it was a vampire story and shelved it for a while. I finally picked it up because it drops this month. I think Glen has taught me something. I don't mind vampire books if the book isn't mostly, solely about the vampires. Give me a nice little love story set to the backdrop of a 1980's touristy, beachy, carnivally (I know, I invented some adjectives there) town. Give me coming of age with a heaping dose of my childhood. The music, the video games, the distance. The distance that existed between you and your friends or your girl or boyfriend when you weren't with them. No cellphones or social media. Distance. Absolute page turning nostalgia. Kids, I am telling you, it was a better time.
I thought long and hard about this before saying it. This is my third favorite piece of vampire fiction of all time. I have read Stoker, Anne Rice, (cough) Twilight (cough). I have read the staples. Meh. I was actually going to call this my second favorite, right behind Salem's Lot, but I read some articles on top vampire novels. So for me, this is third. Right behind Salem's Lot and Matheson's I Am Legend.
Yes, you are going to draw comparisons to The Lost Boys. I think that is going to be natural just due to the 80's backdrop. This is different though. It's different in its very brief setup about what vampires are. How they work. The book spends very little time on lore and legend (not much at all really) and I appreciated that.
Another thing that stands out about this book is the brutality of the kills and the extreme size of the body count. Fans of monster gore are going to appreciate this. The ARC was 230 pages and based off that you are getting a kill scene every 10 pages on average. Did I mention the brutal nature of the kills scenes? I think I did.
This book takes place in 1986. I was 10 years old. Kids are disappearing. There is a real feel of paranoia. All I could think about was Adam Walsh (look that up, if you weren't around). I remember the way my parents responded to all that. I remember the real fear they felt and thus I felt considering child abductions. It was definitely a "tone" to the 80's, and I definitely picked up on those same feelings from my childhood while reading this book.
So for me was it perfect? I mean no, it wasn't perfect, but it was damn close. The coming of age, the 80's nostalgia, the original enough take on vampires, the touching love bits. I have said this before but being a young boy in the 80's was kind of like magic. Magic was everywhere from the local haunted house, video arcade machines, your trusty bicycle, first loves. All of it. This book took me back.
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Review by Well Read Beard
Twitter: @WellReadBeard
I received this book from the publisher for review consideration.
