Book Review: Matthew Specktor – That Summertime Sound

“That Summertime Sound” by Matthew Specktor tells the story of a young man as he lives his life during the summer of 1986. The story starts with the main character as he travels with his college roommate and friends to live it up in Ohio, yes Ohio, because he believes that it is the best place to be in the world during the summertime. He goes there mainly to see a band, The Lords of Oblivion, who reside in Ohio and to see the sights he has heard so much about from his roommate who also originates from Ohio. What he finds there is both disappointment and love. Disappointment with Ohio because he expected so much more from it, and love in the form of a girl named Felice as well as from the lead singer, Nic Devine, of his beloved band Lords of Oblivion. The story focuses mainly on his love of the band and his love of Felice but we get brief glimpses into the lives of those around him as well. Overall, the book was pretty good and may be worth checking out for those of you who lived in the 80′s as it may bring back memories for you. Unfortunately having been born in the late 80′s I found the book a little hard to relate to. I thought there were too many characters to keep track of and that they all had their own stories to tell. The characters just kept popping in and out and made me forget they were ever in the story at all and I honestly did not care about them whenever they resurfaced. The book did have it’s entertaining moments though and made me laugh from time to time and in the end I thought it was a pretty good book.