Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨ Campbell's Reviews > The Summer Prince
The Summer Prince
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The first time I read this book was as an ARC when it first came out and I couldn't stop thinking about it. THE SUMMER PRINCE was one of the first diverse sci-fi-fantasy books I ever read and it totally blew me away. It's set in a dystopian matriarchal society in a futuristic Brazil, where all of the leaders are women and everyone old expects to live to two hundred. They elect their kings in an elaborate, Hunger Games-like ceremony every five years, and the king, in turn, chooses his new queen one year later: on the day of his sacrificial execution.
Our heroine, June, is an activist/artist, kind of like a female Banksy. She does all of these elaborate art pranks and one of these is at the very beginning, with her friend Gil, to help elect the underdog choice: a boy from the very worst parts of Palmares Tres named Enki. The prank works and the three of them end up first as glamorous poster children for the opulent party scene, and then as icons of rebellion. As the year goes on, the three of them become incredibly close: Gil and Enki become lovers and June starts to fall for him too, all the while, his fate hangs over the three of them like the sword of Damocles.
I think I loved this book just as much the second time. I loved the way Brazilian culture and the Portuguese language are woven into the story. I liked the heroine's passion for art, and how it ends up taking a more political bent as she sees more of the injustice that's inherent in the system that she's been blind to because of her privilege. I liked how there wasn't really a lot of slut-shaming, and how all of the characters in this book felt like real people making real decisions in this fantastic backdrop. It takes a while to get into, but I think the heroine sells the world-building, and her melancholy and wistfulness end up making this a pretty devastating read, especially as the story winds to the end.
I was a bit torn on whether to give this a four or a five. It's not a perfect book, but it's still a very, very good one, so I've decided to round up because I've never read anything like it before and I still love it.
4.5 stars
by
Nenia ✨ I yeet my books back and forth ✨ Campbell's review
bookshelves: poc-interracial, lgbtqia-library, science-fiction, help-help-i-m-being-repressed, pretty-cover-sparklies, ya-ya-land, best-scifi-fantasy, best-young-adult-books, just-tear-my-heart-out-why-dont-you
Oct 24, 2021
bookshelves: poc-interracial, lgbtqia-library, science-fiction, help-help-i-m-being-repressed, pretty-cover-sparklies, ya-ya-land, best-scifi-fantasy, best-young-adult-books, just-tear-my-heart-out-why-dont-you
Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest
The first time I read this book was as an ARC when it first came out and I couldn't stop thinking about it. THE SUMMER PRINCE was one of the first diverse sci-fi-fantasy books I ever read and it totally blew me away. It's set in a dystopian matriarchal society in a futuristic Brazil, where all of the leaders are women and everyone old expects to live to two hundred. They elect their kings in an elaborate, Hunger Games-like ceremony every five years, and the king, in turn, chooses his new queen one year later: on the day of his sacrificial execution.
Our heroine, June, is an activist/artist, kind of like a female Banksy. She does all of these elaborate art pranks and one of these is at the very beginning, with her friend Gil, to help elect the underdog choice: a boy from the very worst parts of Palmares Tres named Enki. The prank works and the three of them end up first as glamorous poster children for the opulent party scene, and then as icons of rebellion. As the year goes on, the three of them become incredibly close: Gil and Enki become lovers and June starts to fall for him too, all the while, his fate hangs over the three of them like the sword of Damocles.
I think I loved this book just as much the second time. I loved the way Brazilian culture and the Portuguese language are woven into the story. I liked the heroine's passion for art, and how it ends up taking a more political bent as she sees more of the injustice that's inherent in the system that she's been blind to because of her privilege. I liked how there wasn't really a lot of slut-shaming, and how all of the characters in this book felt like real people making real decisions in this fantastic backdrop. It takes a while to get into, but I think the heroine sells the world-building, and her melancholy and wistfulness end up making this a pretty devastating read, especially as the story winds to the end.
I was a bit torn on whether to give this a four or a five. It's not a perfect book, but it's still a very, very good one, so I've decided to round up because I've never read anything like it before and I still love it.
4.5 stars
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Reading Progress
March 4, 2013
–
20.76%
"Still loving this. Sometimes it seems like I hate the books everyone likes, and like all the books everyone hates. Hee-hee. :D"
page
60
March 8, 2013
–
26.3%
""You're an artist...and I don't think anyone but me truly understands what you mean by that. Not that you paint or you sculpt or you see the world in colors. You mean that you manipulate, that you express yourself on objects and use to express you. You mean that when you chose to be the summer king, you chose to use your own body as a canvas that no one could ignore.""
page
76
March 21, 2013
–
38.06%
"I love their art pranks. They're so amazing and poetic and powerful."
page
110
March 22, 2013
–
66.09%
"Reading this is like being in a surreal dream, halfway between a vision and a nightmare."
page
191
March 22, 2013
–
100%
"I am so sad. I can't even...
OH GOD.
I will review this tomorrow, when I am not so sad. :("
page
304
OH GOD.
I will review this tomorrow, when I am not so sad. :("
October 24, 2021
– Shelved as:
wishlist
October 24, 2021
– Shelved
October 24, 2021
– Shelved as:
poc-interracial
October 24, 2021
– Shelved as:
lgbtqia-library
December 18, 2021
–
Started Reading
December 18, 2021
– Shelved as:
science-fiction
December 18, 2021
– Shelved as:
help-help-i-m-being-repressed
December 18, 2021
–
0.0%
"I remember getting an ARC of this when it first came out and really liking it. My memories of it were so powerful that I eventually bought a copy of it to read again. TIME TO REEXPERIENCE THIS HOPEFULLY STILL-GOOD BOOK."
page
0
December 18, 2021
–
6.0%
"When the world is destroyed, someone must remake the world. I think you'd call that art."
December 18, 2021
– Shelved as:
pretty-cover-sparklies
December 18, 2021
–
22.0%
"He is so beautiful, so warm and cruel and distant that I think, without the connection, I might just run away."
December 18, 2021
– Shelved as:
ya-ya-land
December 18, 2021
–
31.0%
"I just want you all to know that this is a Brazilian dystopian with a matriarchal dictatorship that ritualistically sacrifices their elected kings and the heroine is basically a female Banksy"
December 19, 2021
–
39.0%
"I'm jumping from a cliff every time I'm with him, but I love the fall too much to stop."
December 19, 2021
–
43.0%
"I was just playing at being radical, trying on transgression like my skin lights, secure that I could cut it out and go right back to graduating and university just as soon as the year was over."
December 19, 2021
–
49.0%
""Do you know what he said to me, right after we first met? 'You can't recapture your youth, but would you like to screw it?'""
December 19, 2021
–
74.0%
""They think they've gone to heaven," he says. "They don't realize that means they're dead.""
December 19, 2021
– Shelved as:
best-scifi-fantasy
December 19, 2021
– Shelved as:
best-young-adult-books
December 19, 2021
– Shelved as:
just-tear-my-heart-out-why-dont-you
December 19, 2021
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-2 of 2 (2 new)
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message 1:
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˚ ༘ Beatriz ♡ ⋆。˚
(new)
Dec 29, 2021 11:36AM
Glad you liked it. I read this before I started tracking my process with goodreads and, as a young Brazilian girl, I found it quite a bad portrayal of Brazilian culture. It felt strange and ignorant that it kept being described as 'exotic' and the random use of Portuguese words felt very out of use but glad you enjoyed it
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Beatriz wrote: "Glad you liked it. I read this before I started tracking my process with goodreads and, as a young Brazilian girl, I found it quite a bad portrayal of Brazilian culture. It felt strange and ignoran..."
Aww no. I'm sorry to hear it was a bad representation. :( It was one of the first fantasy books I'd read set in a non European setting so it made a positive impression on me. But that sucks that it is appropriative.
Aww no. I'm sorry to hear it was a bad representation. :( It was one of the first fantasy books I'd read set in a non European setting so it made a positive impression on me. But that sucks that it is appropriative.