1983: A boy and his little brother wander through a loosely stitched summer. A summer full of sun and surrealism, Lessons of loss and love. Of growing up and figuring it out. Nestled in the mountains of Pennsylvania is a small town, it’s not like the others. Things are strange there- people die but hang around, pets too. Everyone knows your name and sometimes, a thing as simple as a movie coming … coming to the local theatre, is all it takes to keep you going.
PRAISE FOR JEDI SUMMER
“Jedi Summer drops the floor right out from under you, leaves you standing in a childhood that’s been roiling around inside your chest for too long. But you’d trade anything to stay there just one more day.”
– Stephen Graham Jones, author of Mongrels and After The Peoples Lights Have Gone Off
“[I] could not put it down. It moved me more than any novel in recent memory. Highly, highly, highly recommended, and I’m almost certain it will be one of the ten best books I’ll read this year.
Mark my words — John Boden is a writer you’re going to want to read so that five years from now, when everyone is raving about him, you can say, “Oh, I’ve been reading him for years.
– Brian Keene, award winning author of the The Rising, Pressure, and The Complex
“An exercise in fractured nostalgia, John Boden’s Jedi Summer is the work of a writer strongly attuned to the wonders and horrors of the world: here are fond reminiscences, wistful longings, aching regrets, and corners teeming with dark shadows. The unexplained is woven throughout. There are witches here, and there are monsters. And ghosts? Brother, are there ever ghosts. They crowd the suburban streets, looking in our windows, grinning secret grins. Dark things lurk behind freezer doors, in the stomachs of cadavers, and in our hearts. Boden opens up these secret places to show us that when you walk through the past, you walk on unstable ground—and that shadow behind you may not be your own.”
– Matthew Bartlett, Author of Creeping Waves and Gateways to Abomination
“When John Boden tells you a tale, he takes his thumb and smudges the lines between stark realism and dreamy fantasy. I can’t get enough of his work, and I think Jedi Summer might be his deepest piece yet. ”
-Mercedes M. Yardley, author of The Bone Angel trilogy
“Jedi Summer (with The Magnetic Kid) rings with notes of both Bradbury and McCammon, but the voice is all John Boden’s own unmistakable blend of unaffected wry humor and melancholy. Boden’s portrayal of the narrator’s uneasy relationship with both his brother and the town in which they live is magically disquieting. He delivers honest self-reflection without ever venturing into saccharine sentimentality or maudlin self-pity, and his picture of the uncanny summer of 1983 is as clear as a never-played VHS tape right out of the box.”
– Bracken MacLeod, author of Mountain Home and Stranded
“A poignant and nostalgic coming of age story with splashes of the morbid and surreal. I absolutely loved it!”
– Mike Lombardo, Director of I’m Dreaming of a White Doomsday and The Stall
“John Boden can do in a sentence what most authors fail to accomplish in whole novels. Yes, Jedi Summer is that good, that textured. It feels like a living thing, a dying thing. Reading it, I became a ghost haunting these characters, floating about as I watched brothers learn to hope, watched them try to unravel the mystery of why and how we love. I was deeply moved and whisked back to my own childhood—the scraped knees, the movie posters fading on the walls of my bedroom, all of my blinding, defining expectations. I can’t recommend Jedi Summer enough. It’s beautiful.”
– Aaron Dries, Author of House of Sighs and A Place for Sinners
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This book deserves so much more attention than what it has gotten. Such awesome storytelling. Depth, creativity, and John Boden’s unique voice. Highly recommend it.
Jedi Summer With the Magnetic Kid by John Boden is a coming-of-age story told from the perspective of a man looking back on his childhood and sharing memories with the readers. While there is plenty of fun within these pages, there is also a lot of stark reality that takes you back a step, as well as a bit of spookiness.
In this tale, we follow brothers Johnny and Roscoe who are just beginning summer vacation. Their mom, who is doing her best to raise these two as a single mom, isn’t around much because she works three jobs to keep them fed and sheltered. Because of this, the boys are on their own and Johnny has been moved into a parental role for his younger brother, Roscoe. The two are your typical brothers; they tease one another, they argue, they fight physically, but they are still best friends who are there for one another through thick and thin.
In each chapter of the main section of the book, we see day to day stories that share everyday life events, stories, and lessons. These aren’t really in a specific order timeline wise, they all just flow like memories of childhood summers do. But all the while, readers also get notes from the author as he’s looking back on these memories that will either make you smile or break your heart.
But as for my favorite element of the book… Occasionally the author suddenly drops in something that makes you do a double take to reread and find out if that’s indeed what you just read. That’s where the light horror elements came in.
While reading this, I really enjoyed the ride. There wasn’t much that set it up and there wasn’t really a great wrap up, but it just works as is. It was like sitting down with the author and having him talk to you about his childhood.
If you enjoy coming of age stories that are a bit nostalgic, I would recommend this one to you!
When I started John Boden’s Jedi Summer, I knew nothing about it other than Sadie Hartmann had recommended it, and when it first came out there were a trove of people lauding its praises. I bought it on the wave of that good feeling and knew it was a coming-of-age book. Other than that, I didn’t have a clue, I went in blind. It had sat quietly and unassumingly on my kindle, and it was time to clear some of my old TBR, and I’m very glad I chose this one first.
The book is pretty short – it clocks in with around 76 pages, so I read it in one sitting. It documents two brothers, Johnny and Roscoe, growing up one summer in the ’80s, waiting impatiently for the release of their most awaited film, The Return of the Jedi. I can relate to that totally because I was doing the same myself, fresh out of the hospital.
Boden paints the story of two young boys, growing up in borderline poverty, happy with what they had in the world, living for the summer. It is presented in a series of short chapters, each building a complete picture of a summer, with paranormal elements included – and normal everyday horror as the underlying theme. And it’s so well written, Boden’s voice is just honey, his calming prose reads just like Chad Lutzke’s, the story doesn’t need a conclusion, doesn’t need a goal or a finish line, it exists to exist, it tells of a fleeting moment in time, and how two boys did what brothers do – fought, played, annoyed each other and tried their best to stay out of trouble.
There are some wonderful scenes, namely – the cow – and – the man in the tree, that just smart the reader, it is like an open wound that has had salt or grit thrown into it – it’s beautifully timed, perfectly written memories of the loss of childhood and the dawning realization of responsibility. The whole is interspersed with reflections of the main character, Johnny, as a man, wishing he could have changed things he did or said to his brother, and how those things built up over the years to define their relationship.
It’s lush.
It speaks great depths of the man that wrote it, that level of introspection comes only to those that have lost something of importance, be it innocence, family, or pride. The honesty and the simple heartfelt reflections hit where they are supposed to. It makes you want to thank the man for writing your very own story, your very own relationship to your own sibling, and shake your head at how he captured it all so perfectly.
This was just lovely. It’s something you are going to think back on and feel a burst of warmth envelop you once again. It’s one you’ll want to read again, like an old friend dropping by for dinner. You’ll always be glad to see this again.
4 ’s out of 5, and I look forward to reading John and Chad’s collaboration Out Behind The Barn, soon.
I received a paperback ARC of Jedi Summer, authored by John Boden from Silver Shamrock Publishing for review consideration. Front cover design: Kealan Patrick Burke/Elderlemon Design. Interior art: Bob Veon. Format/edits: Kenneth W. Cain. What follows below is my honest review freely given.
I rated this novella 5 stars. In the foreword we are told that some of what we will read really happened while some is fictitious, pretty standard. After reading I can say, with certainty, that in my heart, all of what is written withing these pages happened as the author wrote it verbatim.
I have seen other reviewers compare, spoiler free and on social media, this novella to the coming of age juggernauts Boy’s Life by Robert R. McCammon and It by Stephen King, lofty praise. But here’s where it gets even crazier people, because this is a novella coming in at 82 pages total length, and Boy’s Life clocked in at 625, It at a whopping 1116 pages; the emotional impact has Jedi Summer going off like a nuclear bomb. This bad boy had me caught up in all the feelings, shiny eyes throughout and free fall tears for several parts. Several. And the whole time I felt like I was reading a personal letter to me, filled with precious memories that were now precious to me as well. The writing seemed as smooth as listening to him speaking, though I have not. If you have a sibling, as I do, I believe it will make you think on that relationship, as I did. I have Out Behind the Barn, which is written by him and Chad Lutzke and I don’t know how to prepare for that now that I have read their work separately and been beautifully broken by them, but I’m ready for the pain. I need to read everything by John Boden—and you do too. Past and future and evermore. Just transcendent.