Review of 'The summer is ended and we are not yet saved' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
Disappointing.
The story starts off ok, we learn about Martin and his mother, who have an odd relationship revolving around horror as Martin's mother is a makeup artist specialising in horror effects. She takes a job and Martin decides to go to Bible Camp near his grandparents house.
The action shifts to the Bible Camp and thats where the story really starts to go downhill in my opinion. Father Tony, the camp leader just randomly decides to start killing 12 year olds in increasingly violent ways. This starts almost right away, within days of them arriving. We don't really get to know any of these kids - it happens so quickly - so while it was awful that they were killed, the impact wasn't as great as it might have been had we grown to like any of the kids.
The carnage at the camp is interspersed with letters to …
Disappointing.
The story starts off ok, we learn about Martin and his mother, who have an odd relationship revolving around horror as Martin's mother is a makeup artist specialising in horror effects. She takes a job and Martin decides to go to Bible Camp near his grandparents house.
The action shifts to the Bible Camp and thats where the story really starts to go downhill in my opinion. Father Tony, the camp leader just randomly decides to start killing 12 year olds in increasingly violent ways. This starts almost right away, within days of them arriving. We don't really get to know any of these kids - it happens so quickly - so while it was awful that they were killed, the impact wasn't as great as it might have been had we grown to like any of the kids.
The carnage at the camp is interspersed with letters to Martin from his mother, talking about her job and some strange things that are going on. It seems clear that the mother has some mental health issues. But the letters never seem to have anything to do with the story and the last letter doesn't really make sense in the context of what has happened in the story at that point.
But the biggest issues are that there was no character growth, the main character doesn't overcome any obstacles, the story itself didn't really seem to follow any kind of story structure, it just meanders along. I can think of many, many ways that this story could have been improved, if only this, if only that. At least it was a quick read.
