The Summer Prince

 The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson, 289 pages.

June Costa is a young artist in the high-tech city of Palmares Tres, located in the area that used to be Brazil. The book starts in a Moon Year, which is the year that a young Summer King is elected in the Spring, before being sacrificed in the Winter. June's art quickly entwines her life with the new Summer King, Enki, and she finds herself falling in love despite herself, which sends her into even deeper trouble as Enki uses his position to cause all sorts of it. 

This book has been on my tbr pile the longest, which means I added it to my list when I was about 15 and stayed just interested enough in the concept not to delete it, but I think I may have enjoyed it more if I had read it closer to when I added it. I can see what the story was trying to do; there are a lot of themes of innovation and fear thereof, youth vs age, and the role of art in society. Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of things in both the world-building and plot of this book that I just don't buy. For example, it does an absolutely terrible job justifying what the Summer King ritual is supposed to accomplish, which feels like a pretty central oversight. As cool as a South American cyberpunk novel sounds as a concept, this one didn't really work for me.