I liked it a lot. It's set in the future, after some nuclear wars and incredible political turmoil. A city called Palmares Tres was built in a harbor (I think?) in what was once Brazil. It's kind of a giant pyramid, with the more wealthy and politically influential families living on the tiers nearer the top. The city is ruled by a Queen and a council of women called Aunties, and every five years the city elects a Summer King who selects the next Queen and is ritually killed at the end of the year. The book starts with the election of a new Summer King, a boy named Enki who was the son of an immigrant from El Salvador, who loves the city but also has a lot of problems with the way it's run. June, a high school girl and an artist, and her best friend Gil get mixed up with Enki and his plans for his tenure as Summer King. The story is really about how June slowly comes to see that all is not well in her city and she becomes a rather radical political artist. But she still loves her home and wants to save it, not tear it down. The ending was very bittersweet, but I liked it a lot. I also liked how homosexuality is a non-issue and is just a part of life. Gil falls in love with Enki and they become the media It Couple and June's mother is married to a woman and although June is pissed about that, it's only because her mom remarried so soon after her father's death.
It is with regret that I say I couldnt finish this book. I got within several dozen pages of the end, and even then I couldnt make myself finish. This book has so much going for it: the world-building of a future South American enclosed society thats extremely hierarchical and matriarchal and sci-fi is one of the best I have encountered in books marketed as YA, and as a result of this spectacular world-building, Johnson had a LOT she could work with in terms of exploring dystopian ideas and socially relevant themes of art and technology and race-based issues.
Unfortunately, what THE SUMMER PRINCE lacked for me was an emotional connection with the characters. In between Johnsons sinfully sensuous prose and her attempts to portray Enki as this beautiful and irrepressible, yet enigmatic, near-mythical being, it seems like there was lost the ways in which readers could concretely grasp the characters traits and motivations and desires. Enki read too much like a MPDG (except a guy) to me, and I dont really have a problem with MPDG characters, except Enkis character was much too slippery and bright for me to even grasp at the edges.
Johnson is a talented writer, having already published several acclaimed works. But perhaps THE SUMMER PRINCE would have been better marketed as not-YA, for in this genre in which so much depends upon readers connections with the characters, THE SUMMER PRINCE will have to face an uphill battle despite all that it has going for it.
Unfortunately, what THE SUMMER PRINCE lacked for me was an emotional connection with the characters. In between Johnsons sinfully sensuous prose and her attempts to portray Enki as this beautiful and irrepressible, yet enigmatic, near-mythical being, it seems like there was lost the ways in which readers could concretely grasp the characters traits and motivations and desires. Enki read too much like a MPDG (except a guy) to me, and I dont really have a problem with MPDG characters, except Enkis character was much too slippery and bright for me to even grasp at the edges.
Johnson is a talented writer, having already published several acclaimed works. But perhaps THE SUMMER PRINCE would have been better marketed as not-YA, for in this genre in which so much depends upon readers connections with the characters, THE SUMMER PRINCE will have to face an uphill battle despite all that it has going for it.
