June lives in futuristic Brazil, where she creates amazing art - including installing lights under her skin. But her best work is a secret project she's collaborating on with Enki. They've known from the start that their time together is fleeting, so their deadline is tight. Like all Summer Kings before him, Enki is scheduled to be sacrificed.
The vivid lights and imagery should inspire some awesome fan-art by readers. Art, life, death, and the future combine in this memorable setting, as their society grapples with deciding how far they should take technology...and how much they should pare it back.

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The Summer Prince MP3 CD – Unabridged, 12 May 2015
by
Alaya Dawn Johnson
(Author),
Rebecca Mozo
(Reader),
Lincoln Hoppe
(Reader)
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Alaya Dawn Johnson
(Author)
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Product details
- Publisher : Scholastic on Brilliance Audio; Unabridged edition (12 May 2015)
- Language : English
- ISBN-10 : 150125040X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1501250408
- Reading age : 14 - 17 years
- Dimensions : 16.51 x 1.59 x 13.97 cm
- Customer Reviews:
Product description
About the Author
Alaya Dawn Johnson began writing The Summer Prince while on a train, traveling three thousand miles across America. But her love of Brazil started much earlier--as a child listening to the music of Joao Gilberto, and as a young woman traveling there with her sister and cousin. She attended Columbia University and lives in New York City. This is her first young adult novel. Visit her online at www. alayadawnjohnson.com.
Customer reviews
4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
45 global ratings
How are ratings calculated?
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyses reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Top reviews from other countries

Catriona Easton
4.0 out of 5 stars
Confusing and Intriguing
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 July 2013Verified Purchase
An amazing novel for young adults. It has a twisting plot that leaves you always wanting to find out what happens next. It is full of rich descriptions and tantalising tidbits of a history that is not fully resolved until the end.
2 people found this helpful
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nadia
4.0 out of 5 stars
The kind of book that inspires you to create something
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 January 2015Verified Purchase
Beautifully written

Fraser Simons
5.0 out of 5 stars
Real, beautiful, and raw. Cyberpunk at its best
Reviewed in Canada on 22 November 2016Verified Purchase
This is a beautiful story. The protagonist is believable and complicated and deals with her emotions in a way that takes you along for the ride. This is cyberpunk at its best, a futuristic vision of a beautiful culture and a overlay of biotech that allows for the unoppresed to live both an opulent life, as well as unlock hidden organic potential already there.
Everything about this book was amazing to me, especially not being aware of any of the cultural aspects today. I finished it in a day and re read it only a month later, I consider this a must read for any sci fi and cyberpunk fan
Everything about this book was amazing to me, especially not being aware of any of the cultural aspects today. I finished it in a day and re read it only a month later, I consider this a must read for any sci fi and cyberpunk fan

Virditas
5.0 out of 5 stars
The author's love of Brazil!
Reviewed in the United States on 29 July 2016Verified Purchase
I grew up in Rio de Janeiro as a 1/2 Brazilian. The author's love of Brazil, her love of Brazilian culture and passion, injustice and anger is apparent in the book. All too often books about Other Cultures tend to exoticize the Other and parody or reflect a shallow understanding of the root drives of that Other. (Brasyl by Ian McDonald does this.) Alaya Dawn Johnson's deep compassion and understanding of the brutality, passion, and bright bright optimism of Brazilians reflects my own experience with my birth culture.
The book is classified as YA, but really could be enjoyed by anyone. A brilliant book. I am the richer for reading it, and it truly made me discover anew the vigor of my Brazilian childhood roots. Thank you, Alaya Dawn Johnson!
The book is classified as YA, but really could be enjoyed by anyone. A brilliant book. I am the richer for reading it, and it truly made me discover anew the vigor of my Brazilian childhood roots. Thank you, Alaya Dawn Johnson!
2 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting, very emotional
Reviewed in the United States on 23 September 2013Verified Purchase
Some other reviewers say that this book is just another anti-utopia. I disagree, the world of Summer Prince (Palmares Três) is set in a post-Apocalyptic world but in itself is not an anti-utopia. Let's see: even the poorest people in Palmares Três have access to medical care and are able to move up in the society, there are no limitations of the freedom of speech and it looks like there's no ubiquitous surveillance. But neither is it an utopia (as some other reviewers say) - there are still poor and disadvantaged people, there's gang warfare (though it looks like it's not a really big deal) and politicians are still scheming left and right without much regard to human lives. So Palmares Três is just a city-state with its own set of problems.
Now to the bad side of the book - the world-building is distinctly weak. There are huge differences in tech levels between cities: people in Tokyo have mind uploads and people in Salvador have access to nano-machines capable of universal assembly. It's just not plausible that this sort of technology can not be smuggled into Palmares Três. And it's just not plausible that such a gap can be supported for 400 years.
Palmares Três itself is also weak. Citizens there have at least a limited access to nanotech and semi-sentient AIs, but people still work at menial jobs. Energy is produced by vats of algae in form of hydrogen gas (tip to the author: it's NOT poisonous) with the side-effect of making the lowest levels of the city incredibly smelly. It would have been trivial to switch to solar panels or isolate the vats from the atmosphere properly even without the wonder-tech of the future.
No, what makes this book interesting are characters and social commentary. Society in Palmares Três is really an inversion of our society. Women are in charge and men are considered to be the gentler sex (so it's considered OK for boys to cry but not for girls) and there are no men in the power structure (Aunties, but not Uncles) apart from the Kings. Bisexuality is considered so normal that there are no comments about it at all (which is a comment in itself, of course). Assisted suicides are OK. And so on...
And then there's the central theme of the book - of a society built on a ritual human sacrifice (even voluntary one). It's brilliantly written, go and read it.
Oh, and then there's a link to the Epic of Gilgamesh - Enki and Gil are partially inspired by Enkidu and Gilgamesh. I wonder why no other reviewers caught this link...
Now to the bad side of the book - the world-building is distinctly weak. There are huge differences in tech levels between cities: people in Tokyo have mind uploads and people in Salvador have access to nano-machines capable of universal assembly. It's just not plausible that this sort of technology can not be smuggled into Palmares Três. And it's just not plausible that such a gap can be supported for 400 years.
Palmares Três itself is also weak. Citizens there have at least a limited access to nanotech and semi-sentient AIs, but people still work at menial jobs. Energy is produced by vats of algae in form of hydrogen gas (tip to the author: it's NOT poisonous) with the side-effect of making the lowest levels of the city incredibly smelly. It would have been trivial to switch to solar panels or isolate the vats from the atmosphere properly even without the wonder-tech of the future.
No, what makes this book interesting are characters and social commentary. Society in Palmares Três is really an inversion of our society. Women are in charge and men are considered to be the gentler sex (so it's considered OK for boys to cry but not for girls) and there are no men in the power structure (Aunties, but not Uncles) apart from the Kings. Bisexuality is considered so normal that there are no comments about it at all (which is a comment in itself, of course). Assisted suicides are OK. And so on...
And then there's the central theme of the book - of a society built on a ritual human sacrifice (even voluntary one). It's brilliantly written, go and read it.
Oh, and then there's a link to the Epic of Gilgamesh - Enki and Gil are partially inspired by Enkidu and Gilgamesh. I wonder why no other reviewers caught this link...
3 people found this helpful
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