Book Review: The Summer Prince

Sometimes when I’m in the Young Adult section reading through the stacks, I can’t help thinking that if I see one more boring Gossip Girl knock off novel, I’m going to start kicking over shelves and setting shit on fire. Yes. It is that deep. I want to read something where I can’t read the first page and feel like I’ve read it, been bored by it, and hated it already. Moreover, please Universe, can we get some more characters of color and I don’t mean somebody’s token friend. And while I’m asking for what I really want, I want to read books with some cultural variety.

So I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson. Set in Palmares Tres, a matriarchal city in futuristic Brazil, the story begins with the memory of eight year old June sitting on the shoulders of her father witnessing for the first time the ritual sacrifice of the Summer King. There are “aunties” and queens who govern Palmares Tres, but there is a king, and in Palmares Tres the king's purpose is to die and in death choose the next queen.

Fast forward a few years. Now June is in her final year of school which is when the plot really gets going. A lot has changed in the interim years of June’s life. Her father is dead and her mother has re-married Auntie Yaha. She has become an artist and struggles to navigate the components of her identity some self claimed and some inherited. But one constant in her life and in the life of everyone is Palmares Tres is the tradition of the Summer King. This year as June and her best friend Gil join with all the other citizens of Palmares Tres in speculating on the candidates, there is one boy that stands out for her.

“The first thing you should know about Enki is that he’s dark. Darker than the coffee my mother and Auntie Yaha drink every morning, darker than the sky on a moonless night, not so dark as my pupil gone wide with pleasure, not so dark as ink,” June tells us. Enki is also from the Verde, futuristic Brazil’s version of the ghetto, the part of Palmares Tres at the base of a pyramid near these big vats of algae that produce la catinga…the stench.

The pages that follow are a beautiful, intriguing coming of age story interwoven with the age old issues of power, politics, sexuality, gender, race, and class. There is love and art and the continuous war between tradition and innovation, the wakas (young people) and the grandes (adults).

I must admit, I got sucked in. Johnson’s style of writing is evocative and lush with description. And her characters are gorgeously crafted, interesting, multi-dimensional and definitely not predictable.

This was Johnson’s first novel and it left me eagerly waiting for her next. Mark my words she is one to watch and The Summer Prince is one for your reading list.  

Reagan Jackson is a writer, artist, YA fiction aficionado, afro-punk, international educator, and community organizer based in Seattle, WA. You can find her most Tuesdays at the Seattle Poetry Slam or maybe just being nerdy at her favorite bookstores.