Until September; Harker Jones

On the surface, “Until Summer” follows Kyle on his final summer before he and his core group of very rich and privileged friends, leave their summer island homes behind for college. This is the last summer they can play their games and catch up and live carefree and wild lives together. Some more than others, like Trent who seems to make a sport out of making the local girls fall for him and then breaking their hearts and destroying their lives. There’s very much a “Dirty” Dancing” kind of vibe between the rich visitors that come every year, and the locals that wait upon them. Kyle is more sensitive than his friends, a closeted gay boy who isn’t looking for the same kind of sexual conquests as his friends, until The Boy appears and suddenly all of Kyle’s attention, his purpose for breathing and thinking, becomes Jack. When the author says this is a book about obsessive first love, he wasn’t kidding.

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The story can really be boiled down to Kyle and Jack falling in love, sneaking around with one another, afraid of getting caught, and then being ripped away from one another, followed by Kyle relentlessly trying to find Jack again. That story is interesting, and heartbreaking all on its own. And “Until September” IS heartbreaking, and not just because of the whole teenage love aspect. There are some genuinely dark aspects in this book with mentions of suicide for several characters and Kyle’s pretty heavy depression. But the book also lags quite considerably as we’re slowly brought through the every day life of Kyle and Jack being teenage boys in love, and then a teenage boy with such an obsessive quest to find Jack again that you have to wonder why Kyle’s family didn’t get him real psychiatric help as Kyle becomes mad with hunting down Jack. The author has a knack for emotional writing, but Kyle’s constant waxing poetic means that there’s little room for character growth for any of the friends, making them all little more than set dressing. Which includes Trent whose decisions cost someone their life and did not get the page time that kind of topic really deserved.

It's hard to really reconcile the haunting narrative style and the beautiful prose with the slow pacing and the sudden shifts in POV at the end that ultimately led to a bit of an unsatisfying ending. Do not except a HEA in this story! Not that these kinds of books have to have one, but even when things were “golden” there’s a lot of underlining depression and anxiety that weighs even tender moments down. Ultimately, the mundane aspects of Kyle and Jack’s time together could have been paired down to give Trent and the rest of the friends more agency in the story, and the obsessive nature of Kyle’s yearning probably should have been a red flag to everyone over the years which diminished the “sweet” aspect of first love, hence why this book gets 3 stars. But the author does write beautifully and I think really captures the essence of a coming-out and coming-of-age story in a time period heavy with homophobia. Just know going into this contemporary gay romance that it can get very dark and heavy at times. And thanks to the author for providing an ebook for review!