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Scumbag Summer: A Novel
It’s the summer of 2003 and an idealistic yet unambitious Florida college grad moves to Orlando—the most magical and maddening place on Earth. Determined to find transcendence in trash culture, she soon finds herself immersed in a torrid love affair with her married, opioid-addicted boss. From bowling alleys to barrooms, malls to matinees, through the dull refuse of suburbia with new and unforgettable meaning, this book is a love letter to a fleeting season of illicit love, rampant addiction, buried grief and inevitable heartbreak—a whiskey-soaked, deep-fried, classic rock-scored mega-chain ode to Florida, youth, and the swan song of the human heart.
“...sex, shock, and scandal, longing and shame, nostalgia and escape, and the precarious balance of innocence with dark hunger for meaning. [Scumbag Summer] captures the thrill of racing toward danger...”—SARAH GERARD, author of True Love
“...a bible for hedonism and heartbreak, where bad choices give us a reason to live.”—LEXI KENT-MONNING, author of Burden of Joy
“...a love story by way of a dumpster fire [and] the summer’s sexiest (and darkest) love letter.”—KEVIN MALONEY, author of The Red-Headed Pilgrim
“...hits you like a crush you’ll never get to touch, possessing the kind of exiled frisson that happens the moment before you kiss someone new...”—ELLE NASH, author of Deliver Me
“...never flinches from the tawdry, and thus blurs the merely pathetic into sublime pathos.”—JACK SKELLEY, author of The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker
“...doesn’t feel so much written as conjured from a jewel-encrusted skull buried under a burned-down gas station...”—TROY JAMES WEAVER, author of Temporal
“...sex, shock, and scandal, longing and shame, nostalgia and escape, and the precarious balance of innocence with dark hunger for meaning. [Scumbag Summer] captures the thrill of racing toward danger...”—SARAH GERARD, author of True Love
“...a bible for hedonism and heartbreak, where bad choices give us a reason to live.”—LEXI KENT-MONNING, author of Burden of Joy
“...a love story by way of a dumpster fire [and] the summer’s sexiest (and darkest) love letter.”—KEVIN MALONEY, author of The Red-Headed Pilgrim
“...hits you like a crush you’ll never get to touch, possessing the kind of exiled frisson that happens the moment before you kiss someone new...”—ELLE NASH, author of Deliver Me
“...never flinches from the tawdry, and thus blurs the merely pathetic into sublime pathos.”—JACK SKELLEY, author of The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker
“...doesn’t feel so much written as conjured from a jewel-encrusted skull buried under a burned-down gas station...”—TROY JAMES WEAVER, author of Temporal
- GenresFiction
190 pages, Paperback
Published June 1, 2024
10 people are currently reading
271 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
November 18, 2024
Scumbag Summer is the epitome of a Lana Del Rey album come to life—messy, gritty, and dripping with chaotic energy. This book is an absolute hot mess masterpiece, and I loved every second of it. By the time I was 30% through this 150-page ride, I had already highlighted 39 different sentences. It’s like 2011 Tumblr smashed together with Florida white trash, and I mean that in the best way possible.
I can’t even put into words how much I loved this book. It’s exactly the kind of story I crave: a character who’s unapologetically messy, reckless, and bursting with destruction. If you authors like Elle Nash and Darcey Steinke you will eat this up—if you love books that explore the raw and hedonistic side of girlhood, this one’s definitely for you. Top 5 favorite read this year 💕
I can’t even put into words how much I loved this book. It’s exactly the kind of story I crave: a character who’s unapologetically messy, reckless, and bursting with destruction. If you authors like Elle Nash and Darcey Steinke you will eat this up—if you love books that explore the raw and hedonistic side of girlhood, this one’s definitely for you. Top 5 favorite read this year 💕
November 17, 2025
Brilliant!
A phenomenal debut, and a novel that now ranks among my favorites. This is devastating, intoxicating, and unforgettable fiction. SCUMBAG SUMMER is a book I'll revisit time and again.
A phenomenal debut, and a novel that now ranks among my favorites. This is devastating, intoxicating, and unforgettable fiction. SCUMBAG SUMMER is a book I'll revisit time and again.
December 13, 2024
It's a trashy summer, not a scumbag summer. Designer names on shopping sprees, oxys, marlboros, alcohol, sex, all mixed into a tragic summer of infidelity. It's one of those heartbreaks that is deserved.
She writes crisp sentences though, and I felt her emotions. Pretty good book.
Round down 3
She writes crisp sentences though, and I felt her emotions. Pretty good book.
Round down 3
July 8, 2024
Jillian Luft is the patron saint of Floridian-flavored heartache. Scumbag Summer seduces you, fucks you, chokes you into a humid haze, and leaves you wondering if you'll ever find anything that hurts this good again.
January 21, 2025
Read this one slowly on my phone kindle app. I thought the actual writing was very thoughtful and poetic, but overall a kind of cringey story about a codependent home wrecker who is obsessed with a shitty guy(who also is a shitty husband and dad obviously lol) meh.
July 19, 2024
Sublime.
January 2, 2025
i heard a paris hilton in my head say “this book is hot.”
April 27, 2025
XO Jane-esque in the IM/Yahoo era for better or worse. Millennial shabby chic instead of scummy like How To Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell. Sappy Solstice felt more fitting. I’d rather this just be poetry or not feel like auto-fiction, be a regular novel. The prose style often has paragraphs where every sentence has the same start like “The man who…” which I’m iffy on. I usually like second-person POV but it adds to the all tell/no show. Ex.: “Me, a grieving, lonely girl skilled at easing everyone’s pain but my own.” Very little actions, just thoughts and a commanding dictation on what to think w/ a longing to be 20 again. Feels like commentary on scraps of an old diary or a LiveJournal updated for R/BornInTheWrongGeneration.
“Scumbags” to me don’t conjure images of getting sentimental at even drive-thrus and shitty popular songs. Nor being an administrative assistant who can afford clothes at Express and Banana Republic and Target dorm furniture. What everything hinges on is an affair with a bar fixture boss/father-to-two in Orlando. That’s who the “you” is though it takes a bit to meet him.
Good alliteration and fun-facting that bodies start growing at the heart in utero, but the MC thinking a lib arts degree in gender/lit studies would land her anything is mind-boggling even in 2010 and I can’t imagine was much different a few years beforehand or with all the Friendsy sitcom jokes. Yet she claims not to be looking for success and that “sets her apart” as a true artist. There’s an air of self-importance intermingled with talent, like she’s not relishing scumminess but looking down at it to cope emotionally/romantically rather than materially. Weird opening bit said they want to be part of “anyone who dares to look beyond the façade, who dares to uncover the secret of the ordinary” as if it’s original at all to enjoy simple pleasures like fairs or flings. I guess what the MC really wants is to super-soak up little dive bar and dingy mini golf dates and for her lover’s all-consuming affection to be the highlight…yet she goes after married men and is decidedly casual w/ internet men blatantly seeking more.
Things are a little BEEy in branding: everything from Target to Pier 1, the MC seemingly jealous of what others have for how often she points it out and how happy with the little things she supposedly is. Yet she dreams of destroying her Match-com triste’ stuff with period and piss. “I’m too impressed by my own perversity.” Yes, always self-impressed.
Nostalgic melodrama abound: “Ingest those lies, process them. Embrace and savor and suck suck suck them down until you think you can manifest the gorgeous fragile transcendent romantic tragic violent dramatic lie to imbue your life with the honesty you fear.” Like, calm down, haha, but I hope this means the MC knows now how pretentious they were.
Now for some good lines: “crack open a chilled Red Bull, let its jolt hit my veins, comingling with the nicotine and the indescribable, extended-release high of the illicit.” “Beer drooling into our fists.” ““Book one with minimal light but modern lines. If you can’t afford a hotel room, find four walls, and empty them of everything but your body and the songs that make you wish you could ravish yourself.” Back-melters and grin-givers for opioids, though she’s never really doing drugs herself, just observing others which is less fun. I wish we focused in-scene on, say, the “juggalos smoking opium out of Mr Pibb cans” instead of it being breezy world-building for what feels like outskirts to her brain when we’re always in the epicenter.
“Scumbags” to me don’t conjure images of getting sentimental at even drive-thrus and shitty popular songs. Nor being an administrative assistant who can afford clothes at Express and Banana Republic and Target dorm furniture. What everything hinges on is an affair with a bar fixture boss/father-to-two in Orlando. That’s who the “you” is though it takes a bit to meet him.
Good alliteration and fun-facting that bodies start growing at the heart in utero, but the MC thinking a lib arts degree in gender/lit studies would land her anything is mind-boggling even in 2010 and I can’t imagine was much different a few years beforehand or with all the Friendsy sitcom jokes. Yet she claims not to be looking for success and that “sets her apart” as a true artist. There’s an air of self-importance intermingled with talent, like she’s not relishing scumminess but looking down at it to cope emotionally/romantically rather than materially. Weird opening bit said they want to be part of “anyone who dares to look beyond the façade, who dares to uncover the secret of the ordinary” as if it’s original at all to enjoy simple pleasures like fairs or flings. I guess what the MC really wants is to super-soak up little dive bar and dingy mini golf dates and for her lover’s all-consuming affection to be the highlight…yet she goes after married men and is decidedly casual w/ internet men blatantly seeking more.
Things are a little BEEy in branding: everything from Target to Pier 1, the MC seemingly jealous of what others have for how often she points it out and how happy with the little things she supposedly is. Yet she dreams of destroying her Match-com triste’ stuff with period and piss. “I’m too impressed by my own perversity.” Yes, always self-impressed.
Nostalgic melodrama abound: “Ingest those lies, process them. Embrace and savor and suck suck suck them down until you think you can manifest the gorgeous fragile transcendent romantic tragic violent dramatic lie to imbue your life with the honesty you fear.” Like, calm down, haha, but I hope this means the MC knows now how pretentious they were.
Now for some good lines: “crack open a chilled Red Bull, let its jolt hit my veins, comingling with the nicotine and the indescribable, extended-release high of the illicit.” “Beer drooling into our fists.” ““Book one with minimal light but modern lines. If you can’t afford a hotel room, find four walls, and empty them of everything but your body and the songs that make you wish you could ravish yourself.” Back-melters and grin-givers for opioids, though she’s never really doing drugs herself, just observing others which is less fun. I wish we focused in-scene on, say, the “juggalos smoking opium out of Mr Pibb cans” instead of it being breezy world-building for what feels like outskirts to her brain when we’re always in the epicenter.
September 6, 2024
Like Dantiel W Moniz and Jennifer Clement, Luft paints Florida in bright colors, achieving in her work a new sort of decadence. Her prose brings her narrator to life like some Huysmans-esque aesthete, cruising with a car full of heat-warped and discarded soda bottles. In Scumbag Summer we get a love story at once grounded in verisimilitude and feelings of tender vulnerability. But if I were to situate Luft in any literary lineage, I would call her the one true heir to Eve Babitz. She makes us inhale the scents of a dive bar and hear the rain pattering outside. Her background characters are no mere extras. Most of all, she brings a sense of place to life with authority. Her work feels like postcards from a place both familiar and otherworldly.
Though in contrast to Babitz, Luft’s narrator is more an open romantic. Babitz embodies Woolf’s literature like overheard gossip, while Luft presents literature like a personal blog, one as poetic as confessional and pulls us into the story with tactile detail. While Luft has similarities to Babitz, she crafts a unique voice of her own, one both studied and unfiltered.
In summation, Scumbag Summer extends and revitalizes an exciting literary tradition and takes you through a bittersweet sensory experience. I’m very excited to see what Jillian Luft creates in the future.
Though in contrast to Babitz, Luft’s narrator is more an open romantic. Babitz embodies Woolf’s literature like overheard gossip, while Luft presents literature like a personal blog, one as poetic as confessional and pulls us into the story with tactile detail. While Luft has similarities to Babitz, she crafts a unique voice of her own, one both studied and unfiltered.
In summation, Scumbag Summer extends and revitalizes an exciting literary tradition and takes you through a bittersweet sensory experience. I’m very excited to see what Jillian Luft creates in the future.
August 15, 2025
Beautiful poetic prose about heartbreak and grief. This should be mandatory reading for girls who just graduated college and who are being thrown into the real world
January 12, 2025
Luft nails, with wince-inducing relatability, the cycles of a none-more-doomed romance, set in that most garish of cultural liminal zones, the early ‘00s.
(Readers of a certain vintage will flinch with recognition as a parade of arse plundering Juggalos, Buffy box sets and highly flammable fashion choices deftly establish the era).
Scumbag Summer sweeps you along in waves of bombed out lust, late period slacker ennui and lowkey trashbag tragedy - chomping at the bit to see what this author does next.
(Readers of a certain vintage will flinch with recognition as a parade of arse plundering Juggalos, Buffy box sets and highly flammable fashion choices deftly establish the era).
Scumbag Summer sweeps you along in waves of bombed out lust, late period slacker ennui and lowkey trashbag tragedy - chomping at the bit to see what this author does next.
September 17, 2024
3.5
a little pretentious and not quite scumbaggy enough. suitably pathetic for its title.
a little pretentious and not quite scumbaggy enough. suitably pathetic for its title.
December 2, 2024
Eh. I loved how the author described Orlando but that’s about it! Kind of boring overall, I don’t find pretentious heterosexual relationship drama very interesting, I guess.
July 31, 2025
"All that booze, hot on our breath, and nothing important on our minds. Everything feels wrong. Like I can't trust myself. Like even if I do, it doesn't matter because this is my fate. The darkest path. A straight shot to nowhere safe. I can finally see clearly while fucked up like this. I will have to die here in Gorham, New Hampshire, because you and I will never be free."
Scumbag Summer is a viscerally messy novel. It's gritty, it's wild, it's chaotic and unhinged - and, for something so tiny, it packs one hell of a sucker punch. It's a god-damn hot mess, and I mean that with love, not as a critique. Every single second of this thing is just, absolutely drenched in a wild, insane, off the charts energy, it radiates anxiety and unrest. Reading a lot like a Tumblr blog documenting a hopeless losers white trash sweltering Florida Summer, this kind of story isn't, on the face of it, what I'd normally be into. But, surprisingly, I loved every single minute I got to spend with this book. The single greatest thing about Scumbag Summer is how unapologetic it is, it never shies away from its own authenticity or rawness, it doesn't pretend to be anything but fucked up.
It's a wildly hedonistic novel, one that's absolutely bursting at the seams with destruction and ruination. It's such a beautifully tragic exploration of a summer, shopping sprees and unrestrained drug taking and horrendously regrettable choices galore, and it's all cast against this sweltering, vivid portrayal of Florida that somehow feels at once so bright and full of life and yet, so, so lonely. Scumbag Summer is the static that hums behind your eyes, it's the sort of book that feels horribly isolating to experience, but, only when its over do you realize how poetic it really was. For all of the pleasure seeking this novel thrusts upon us, there's a heavy sense of bleakness we just cannot escape, sort of like being with your ex one last time, I suppose.
Now, this is not a book of good people, so if you need likeable characters to enjoy a novel, then, skip over this one entirely, because, Scumbag Summer is exactly what it says on the cover, a story of scumbags, of horrible, awful people that make dreadful decisions and hurt those around them, yet, somehow, with all of the delightfully horrendous happenings, there's something truly gorgeous about this novel. There's a decadence here, a self-indulgence, Jillian Luft is clearly writing her passions, her obsessions, what she knows, yet, there's a strange vulnerability to this one too, something so tender, so brutal, and so, so very sad beats at the heart of this weird little novel. It's a bittersweet, and magical experience, perfect for those who have been high enough to forget their own names.
"Your truck has that new car smell, a chemical concoction approximating eternal birth. As if no one will bring their sordid, heavy lives into it. No whiff of sickness or sadness will soil its interior. It is the soporific scent of the clean and renewed, the pristine and virtuous. Comforting in the way it cocoons us in its sanitized lie. I wish we could live here."
Scumbag Summer is a viscerally messy novel. It's gritty, it's wild, it's chaotic and unhinged - and, for something so tiny, it packs one hell of a sucker punch. It's a god-damn hot mess, and I mean that with love, not as a critique. Every single second of this thing is just, absolutely drenched in a wild, insane, off the charts energy, it radiates anxiety and unrest. Reading a lot like a Tumblr blog documenting a hopeless losers white trash sweltering Florida Summer, this kind of story isn't, on the face of it, what I'd normally be into. But, surprisingly, I loved every single minute I got to spend with this book. The single greatest thing about Scumbag Summer is how unapologetic it is, it never shies away from its own authenticity or rawness, it doesn't pretend to be anything but fucked up.
It's a wildly hedonistic novel, one that's absolutely bursting at the seams with destruction and ruination. It's such a beautifully tragic exploration of a summer, shopping sprees and unrestrained drug taking and horrendously regrettable choices galore, and it's all cast against this sweltering, vivid portrayal of Florida that somehow feels at once so bright and full of life and yet, so, so lonely. Scumbag Summer is the static that hums behind your eyes, it's the sort of book that feels horribly isolating to experience, but, only when its over do you realize how poetic it really was. For all of the pleasure seeking this novel thrusts upon us, there's a heavy sense of bleakness we just cannot escape, sort of like being with your ex one last time, I suppose.
"Orlando is a sanitized Vegas with a seedier underbelly. Orlando is a carnival for the recently incarcerated. Orlando is where bad parents do penitence, maxing out their credit cards as recompense for the inherited demons they unleash on their spoiled children. Orlando is not so secretly in ruins. Orlando is emotionally stunted. Orlando is, unironically, in poor taste. Orlando is the dispensary of lowercase American dreams: street pharmaceuticals, quick sex, overwrought pleasures. Orlando is unnatural in every way yet coaxes out all your animal instincts, only as long as you make believe they're PG-13. Orlando saves the forsaken, forsakes the saved. Orlando is the great escape from yourself. For better or worse, there's no escaping Orlando."
Now, this is not a book of good people, so if you need likeable characters to enjoy a novel, then, skip over this one entirely, because, Scumbag Summer is exactly what it says on the cover, a story of scumbags, of horrible, awful people that make dreadful decisions and hurt those around them, yet, somehow, with all of the delightfully horrendous happenings, there's something truly gorgeous about this novel. There's a decadence here, a self-indulgence, Jillian Luft is clearly writing her passions, her obsessions, what she knows, yet, there's a strange vulnerability to this one too, something so tender, so brutal, and so, so very sad beats at the heart of this weird little novel. It's a bittersweet, and magical experience, perfect for those who have been high enough to forget their own names.
"Your truck has that new car smell, a chemical concoction approximating eternal birth. As if no one will bring their sordid, heavy lives into it. No whiff of sickness or sadness will soil its interior. It is the soporific scent of the clean and renewed, the pristine and virtuous. Comforting in the way it cocoons us in its sanitized lie. I wish we could live here."
November 23, 2025
It took me a little while to get into this (I don't think the relationship/situationship at the very start of the book is needed) but once the main plot gets going it's really captivating. The author is a really beautiful writer. I was totally 'in it' with the narrator as she's swept up by this doomed relationship, making stupid decisions blinded by love/lust, even though she kinda knows how it will end. You feel for how lost she is and somehow you understand every step she takes towards her own ruin.
The book wasn't quite what I was expecting: I thought Florida/Orlando would feel like a bigger presence and, from the title, I expected a summer of jumping from one conquest to the next (I don't really think the title 'Scumbag Summer' really encapsulates the story that well) but these don't matter much. I really enjoyed living in this story and can't wait for what the author puts out next.
4.5/5
The book wasn't quite what I was expecting: I thought Florida/Orlando would feel like a bigger presence and, from the title, I expected a summer of jumping from one conquest to the next (I don't really think the title 'Scumbag Summer' really encapsulates the story that well) but these don't matter much. I really enjoyed living in this story and can't wait for what the author puts out next.
4.5/5
July 2, 2024
A wild and fun read from a fierce new voice, SCUMBAG SUMMER is a deeply personal and often quite beautiful book despite its scuzzy characters and setting. Jillian Luft has staged love story of high drama against the bland backdrop of suburban Florida, placed herself at the center, and further, written the entire thing as a direct address to the man the main character is having an affair with. What's more is that it all comes together to form a coherent and competent narrative. Perhaps my favorite line is also reflective of what makes the book so compelling:
"I go to Chili's and meet Elle for cheese fries and Presidente margs. Pretend I'm not a pitiable goblin, deformed by my steadfast belief in love's unstoppable power."
"I go to Chili's and meet Elle for cheese fries and Presidente margs. Pretend I'm not a pitiable goblin, deformed by my steadfast belief in love's unstoppable power."
July 11, 2024
a sort of social realism set to one gear, the wounded feeling of seeing through a bad relationship while it's super humid out and most of the light that you live under is that kind of parking lot / strip mall light that makes your skin look bad. it's a good book: it conveys exactly that emotion well, as this relationship that we knew was doomed just inches through the doom in the exact ways we assume that it would. the predictability is the tragedy and what gives it emotional gravity. tbh though it never gets quite scum baggy enough for me. my overwhelming impression was the Florida scum bag was a different gear. this is no different from suburban New Jersey scumbag. the world is all the same place.
September 15, 2024
This book is filthy. And juicy. And gorgeous. Some of the lines here were so amazing. I LOVED this book. My last book of my summer stack, but honestly no need to wait to read it. Anytime is a good time to read about a romance so doomed and toxic and intense that you can't help but kind of hope for it to continue on. . . .even though it's gone on long enough. The writing is very poetic. I read the book in two sittings.
The setting, early 2000's Orlando, is a character as much as anyone else in this book. Any movement away from it isn't going to work. There is a pull back to for the characters that seems like resignation, but I think that is where the city of Orlando functions as something beyond a place in time.
Excellent book.
The setting, early 2000's Orlando, is a character as much as anyone else in this book. Any movement away from it isn't going to work. There is a pull back to for the characters that seems like resignation, but I think that is where the city of Orlando functions as something beyond a place in time.
Excellent book.
October 12, 2024
Jillian has really created a compelling narrator with a quirky, intelligent and sometimes snarky yet wholly authentic voice. The writing is beautiful and I was gratified that the book was replete with affectionate and often lyrical descriptions of seedy places and sordid actions. This book does an unbelievable job of putting the reader back in the mindset of those early adult years and the ill-advised decisions that accompany them.
July 20, 2024
4.5 stars rounded up! This was a fantastic debut, she described Orlando so well (Florida in general really) and I loved all the sordid details and descriptions. The main character is a hot mess but who isn’t at 22? Loved all the cultural references. I really hope this is the first of many books by this author!
August 19, 2024
"Wherever we go, there we are: totally tragic and out of control."
What a gem this book.
"Love and grief and heartbreak converge, coalesce, commune. It’s all the same in the end. And there’s always an end. We can’t avoid it. We should face it. Make the choices we want while we still can. While you still can. Memento mori."
Memento mori indeed.
What a gem this book.
"Love and grief and heartbreak converge, coalesce, commune. It’s all the same in the end. And there’s always an end. We can’t avoid it. We should face it. Make the choices we want while we still can. While you still can. Memento mori."
Memento mori indeed.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 13, 2025
Loved this raw, real, and wonderfully messy tale of passion, heartbreak, and family dysfunction. Luft’s prose is lush and vividly rendered, and she brings an artists sensibility to a budget aesthetic, finding beauty in the most unlikely of places. Scumbag Summer is a shimmering, opiate induced delirium, the chaotic gas station dreamgirl romance you can’t put down.
June 20, 2024
Scumbag Summer is a love story by way of a dumpster fire… Romeo and Juliet if Romeo was hopped up on pills and Juliet was an administrative assistant in kitten heels. In prose as menacing as its alligator-infested setting, Jillian Luft has written the summer’s sexiest (and darkest) love letter.
August 15, 2024
Basically read this in one sitting. House of Vlad Press consistently release great material and Jillian Luft has written a novel that cements that fact! Get your hands on one of the best books of 2024!
July 22, 2024
I devoured this book!!! Gorgeously written, and fearless, it turns TGI Fridays and peeing in the showers into true beauty.
July 25, 2024
Sprawling, raw and relatable. Showcases love and grief like a Taco Bell order that will ruin your stomach but you love to eat anyways. I devoured this book.
August 26, 2024
Compulsively readable. Frequently hilarious and surprisingly moving. I couldn't put it down.
December 1, 2024
Beautiful and unapologetic. An ode to Florida and a love letter to youth, to heartbreak, to nostalgia.
December 28, 2024
so lana del rey coded & I loved every minute.
January 4, 2025
The narrator compares her body to a hotdog rotisserie at a gas station and I learned that TouchTunes first started in 1998!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews