Seventeen-year-old Leo is sitting in an empty playground at night, listening to the sound of partying and pop music filtering in from the beach, when he sees another, more popular boy strangle himself with the ropes of the swings. Then, in a panic, Leo drags him to the beach and buries him.
This slim but memorable novel of teenage boredom and discontent is the ideal accompaniment to the hottest days of summer, whether you’re reading it while basking on a beach somewhere or comfortably relaxing in air conditioning ... Jestin (who himself is in his mid-20s) effectively captures that moment in a young person’s life when they might feel ready to separate from their family of origin but still have not found their identity or claimed their place in the adult world. Drifting from place to place, making missteps, expressing vulnerability, and finally achieving at least one of his goals (only to be supremely underwhelmed by the experience), Leo’s late-summer day --- dead body aside --- perfectly encapsulates what being a teenager feels like sometimes.
... [a] short, sharp, shock of a novel ... Jestin is extremely good on precisely those sensations so indelibly associated with fraught teen summers, be it Leonard’s obscure feelings of separation from his perfectly pleasant family, the forced bonhomie of those running the campsite or the blistering heat that seeps like an illness under the skin ... Adolescent horror stories are not particularly uncommon, but this one is beautifully done.
Jestin’s charged and chilling debut turns on a stifling vacation that descends from purgatory into a nightmarish inferno ... Though not the subtlest portrait of adolescence, Leonard’s curt voice is distinctly effective. Jestin’s memorable vision of a crushing landscape will linger with the reader.
