Someone on Goodreads compared this to The Stranger by Albert Camus and quite frankly I agree with that comparison. I think this is to further drive home that other people live silent isolated lives with their own internal struggles that we cannot see. The reader then spends the next 48 hours with Leo as he sulks around in the heat, attempts to lose his virginity, gets into a fistfight with a bully, and mostly has a miserable time as that classic archetype of the misunderstood teen. This slim but memorable novel of teenage boredom and discontent is the ideal accompaniment to the hottest days of summer . While wandering on the dunes he sees Oscar, one of the cool kids, hanging from his neck, entangled by the rope of a swing.

Heatwave | Book by Victor Jestin | Official Publisher Page

Poi fa qualcosa di altrettanto irrimediabile, ma anche più assurdo: sotterra in spiaggia il corpo di Oscar sotto la sabbia di una duna.I understand I can change my preference through my account settings or unsubscribe directly from any marketing communications at any time. Teenage alienation, embarrassing moments as boys and girls flirt, that confusing transition phase to young adulthood and all the baggage that comes with it - besides the opening scene, there’s little else in the book to hold the attention. All this while the parents have their own fun at the other end of the beach where a bunny-costumed host is prancing around, shouting Olé!

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Originally published in France with the title La Chaleur, Heatwave is Victor Jestin’s debut novel, masterfully translated into English by Sam Taylor, who has also translated Leïla Slimani’s work. In the blink of an eye, the pervasive heat, brightness and cheerfulness of the campers become considerably more bearable for our cynical narrator.With echoes of the films of Francois Ozon, this intense, slim novel is a hot summer read that lingers long after you finish the last page. Non intervenire, restare immobile a guardare – tanto più che Oscar dava l’impressione di averci ripensato, di volersi liberare dalle corde dell’altalena – è come ammazzare? Una sorta di sturm und drang declinato secondo la lezione dell’esistenzialismo (celeberrima la conclusione Sartre a L’essere e il nulla: “L’uomo è una passione inutile”), ma inserito nella condizione giovanile contemporanea, dove lo sfasamento tra percezione della realtà e capacità di tradurla in parole sembra caratterizzare la generazione dei millennial asservita ai social.

Heatwave by Victor Jestin | Waterstones Heatwave by Victor Jestin | Waterstones

He was strangled by the ropes of a swing, like one of those children you read about in the newspapers. He had done that on his own and, to judge from the expression on his face, he might have changed his mind. William Shaw’s The Trawlerman (riverrun), Laura Shepherd-Robinson’s Daughters of Night (Mantle), Rosalind Stopps’ A Beginner’s Guide to Murder (HQ) and Joe Thomas’ Brazilian Psycho (Arcadia) complete the longlist for the Gold Dagger. But it was still very readable and in the end it's won a lot of awards and I'm not really sure I understood it.Stalwarts in contention for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger are MW Craven for Dead Ground (Constable), Laura Lippman for Dream Girl (Faber), Belinda Bauer’s Exit (Bantam Press) and Linwood Barclay’s Find You First (HQ). Others must have agreed, as it won several awards, including the Prix Femina des Lycéens 2019 and the Prix de la vocation 2019. Léonard is 17 en brengt met zijn ouders, jongere broer en zus de laatste vakantiedagen op de camping door. The descriptions of the French summer are luscious, I could feel the sticky humidity and the sand between my toes.

Heatwave: The most deliciously dark beach read of the summer

With a searing voice, Victor Jestin captures the stale air of tents, the cheap music, the guys disguised in pink bunny suits who force you to have fun, teenagers as poignant as they are idiotic, rage, desire, absurdity. Translated by Sam Taylor — French author Victor Jestin’s short yet forceful debut novel is part dark coming-of-age novel, part morality tale. The ALCS Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction features The Jigsaw Murders (The History Press), the debut book by Jeremy Craddock who worked as journalist and crime reporter for over 20 years which traces the true story of a shocking 1930s murder case, as well as Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain (Picador), which recently won the Baillie Gifford Prize. If so, could Leo be an unreliable narrator and, like in Camus’ novel, the death that occurs is a murder - did Leo actually murder Oscar, because he was jealous of his being with Luce, the girl he fancies, and Leo distanced himself from the crime like he distances himself from everything else in his life, pretending the swings killed him instead?The novella ends just as things start to get interesting making for a book the feels very rushed and lacking. But while reading I got a bit restless, from the moment Leo saw Oscar I wanted to know what happened and why. Note: there is a major trigger warning attached to this novel because of the suicide and finding the body of a friend.