Heatwave by Victor Jestin

*minor spoilers ahead*

Heatwave is a short story written by Victor Jestin, which details 17-year-old Leonard’s events on a camping holiday that he visits with his family. One evening, he sees one of the boys from the campsite, Oscar, hanging from a top of a swing and Leonard does nothing to prevent his death and decides to bury the body in the sand.

Originally a French book which was translated by Sam Taylor, this grabbed my attention as I have been looking to read more translated books. The shortness of this book also intrigued me as I hoped the pacing would be strong combined with a busy plot. Unfortunately. I was quite underwhelmed with this book as from the offset there are no clear chapters, just random sections every so often, making the flow of the book unnatural. Plot-wise, this book was rather weak despite its strong start. I was disappointed with the lack of exciting events as the majority of the book consisted of typical teenage altercations, not on the same level of severity as the death we witnessed at the start of Heatwave. For a book that seemed very dark at the start, the rest of the book was mundane and tedious.

Leonard does seem like an unreliable narrator, with the mention of the heat often affecting Leonard a lot during the book, but I felt there was a lot of missed potential. For example, with Leonard acting so out of character, could he have potentially murdered Oscar? Is that why he covered up the body? There were so many questions that were never explored which could have made Heatwave so much more interesting.

In Heatwave, there are prominent themes of guilt and romance however this does not result in a particularly memorable book. I am glad I persevered with the book, especially as it was such a short read, but I did find it rather dull on the whole. I’m excited to get started with my next book now which I hope I’ll enjoy more!

1/5 stars