DO YOU REMEMBER THE SUMMER BEFORE?

A preteen tries to unravel the mystery of his family’s beach house in this series’ second volume.

Dash, a 12-year-old White boy, has no memory of vacationing at Black Sand Beach last summer, but having found a diary with his handwriting from the summer before, he’s determined to figure out how this could be. Other things are strange too. In his diary, he used a different name; he’s starting to remember two ghostly girls he met in the woods last summer; his supernatural neighbor is providing offerings to a sea monster; and something is different about their neighbor’s bright green ram. It is clear that nothing is as it seems, but Dash, his two cousins (who are also White), and his friend (a girl of color) are ready to solve the mystery. Unfortunately, this sequel introduces even more questions to the mystery while making surprisingly little progress on those introduced in the opener, making for scant payoff and exacerbating other dissatisfying aspects of the story. Flat illustrations with a hodgepodge color palette, inconsistent lighting, and underwhelming use of space make for a jarring reading experience. The many flashback scenes are not made sufficiently visually distinct from current sequences to transition readers smoothly. Minimal context is provided to refresh readers’ memories, making this volume only for passionate readers of the first volume.

An underwhelming, underpolished steppingstone on the way to…who knows what?