Heatwave An Evening Standard 'Best New Book' of 2021

I wanted something dark and bizarre, while still giving holiday vibes, for my summer vacation; this was the perfect read! Main character Leonard watches as another boy named Oscar kills himself. Leonard does nothing to stop it; he even buries the body afterwards. On the next day, last day of his vacation, he has to deal with the consequences. I liked this book a lot. It delivers Leonard's weirdness as an outcast perfectly, as he for example tells someone that his name is indeed Oscar, because he can't think of anything else since the incident. This book really got under my skin in a very positive way!

Heatwave by Jestin is sadly not very known even though it truly earns the place on everyone’s reading list. The book is written of the perspective of a teenage boy who is on vacation at a camping resort and he just watched a friend of his hang himself with a swing. Even though the protagonist feels a need to stop him he panics and hides the body. The rest of the book describes the next couple of days in which the main character tries to forget the body he hid under sand on which children unknowingly play. The book is a sister of Camus brilliant novel the stranger. It follows the same topics as the protagonist is emotionless, a murder and strongly impacted by the summer heat. This book is perfect for a summer day. It is very compact but beautifully detailed and I would more then recommend this book.