I absolutely loved Lie With Me when I read it a while back so I was very excited to get my hands on this book. It's is a kind of sequel insofar as it also features Phillipe who, when we catch up to him, is now 18 and occasionally remembers Thomas, his first love... He is visiting St Martin, a small resort island where his best friend Francois lives with his family. He usually hangs around with Francois, his best friend Christophe, and occasionally Virginie, Francois' little sister. But this year, they are joined by Nicolas who is rather enigmatic. And then there's brother and sister Marc and Alice who are the catalysts for the romance which follows... The bunch rub along well, with a small amount of tension as there is a bit of a love triangle. Not much of real note happens, they go out, they meet up, they drink, they dance, they hang out... But already from the beginning of the book, we the reader knows that there is tragedy ahead. And when it struck, it changed the rest of them forever. Investigations meant that they had to grow up and take life more seriously than the summer shenanigans. Consequences... decisions... choices... A bit of a slapped face coming of age. And, as it was narrated in hindsight by a much older Phillipe, it becomes more about how it has affected the rest of his life going forward... It's hard hitting and poignant, especially as for the majority it's a bunch of teens having a bit of a summer. It's definitely on my re-read list and I hardly ever say that...

The Summer Boy follows six teenagers spending the summer of 1985 on a small island off the French coast, where long, aimless days gradually give way to jealousy, desire, and tension within the group. At the center of the novel is Philippe’s growing fascination with Nicolas, a quiet outsider whose fractured family life and emotional distance set him apart from the others. Told through the memories of an older Philippe looking back on that summer, the novel combines nostalgia with the awareness of an approaching tragedy. Much of the story unfolds through idle afternoons, casual relationships, and the freedom of adolescence, capturing the atmosphere of a summer suspended between youth and adulthood. The later disappearance of Nicolas shifts the novel into something darker, forcing the narrator to reconsider both the summer itself and the people within it. Besson’s writing remains restrained and reflective throughout, emphasizing memory, longing, and emotional ambiguity over dramatic confrontation. The novel becomes both a coming-of-age story and a meditation on how certain summers—and certain people—continue to shape a life long after they are gone.

It’s only a short book of 200 pages, and the story is based on a family’s return to a familiar holiday location in the 80s like most of us of my age remember doing. Spending time with faces you’ve known for years but only see during that very small window in time, the friendships made and lost over a summer, mostly never to be seen again when you return home. I’ll admit it took me a few pages to get into, but I’ve just finished the last 100 pages and I’m a little bit broken by the outcome and the unknowing. I’m to old to lie but it made me cry a few tears at the sudden realisation that at that age in that decade while looking back we think we had it better, no mobiles, social media etc the loss of someone and the unknowing could forever change your life in a way that differs significantly from the same experience happening today, while the loss is still there the ability to track and chase, to engage others to help just wasn’t around and I’m saddened at the fact that the mother will never understand or get truth.