The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young Genres: Adult, Magical Realism
Published by Random House Publishing Group on October 17, 2023
Format: Audio/Physical (336 pages) • Source: Book of the Month, Spotify Audiobooks
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A woman risks everything to end her family’s centuries-old curse, solve her mother’s disappearance, and find love in this mesmerizing novel from the author of Spells for Forgetting.
“Come for the fresh twist on time travel; stay for the love story.”—Good HousekeepingA GOOD HOUSEKEEPING AND SHE READS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow’s disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.
It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere—the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.
After her grandmother’s death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother’s decades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she’s been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.
With The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant novel of romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible—a story you will never forget.
This book intrigued me from the start but I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. It doesn’t help that almost everyone gave it five-stars! I was truly expecting to be blown away lol. I think my expectations got the best of me and I really expected MORE from the elements that I knew the book contained: time travel, mystery spanning generations, romance, and general magical realism. I don’t know how to even review this, especially after sitting with it for a few days.
The story follows June Farrow, the last in line of the Farrow women, after her grandmother passes away. They all have some kind of “illness” that makes them hallucinate doors and other things. June begins to investigate what’s happening to hear and steps through a door that appears. Cue the time travel science that was hard to follow but I just ignored it while pretending I understood.
I realized that there’s a good chance literary mysteries are not for me – it made the book only somewhat intriguing and also quite boring, pulling the weaker elements from both genres together. I wanted more twists and intensity like I’d get in a mystery while also seeing some strong character development and romance. All of the elements of this story felt surface-level.
I heard people describe this as a fever dream and discuss how much they loved the characters and didn’t want to leave them behind, which totally baffled me. I felt zero connection to any of the characters and the romance did nothing for me. Even June as a main character had no defining features or qualities. Most of the mystery was predictable and I kept saying “okay, and…” whenever something semi-obvious would be revealed.
I enjoyed Young’s writing style a lot and will be interested to see if any of her other books are more my speed.
I received this book for free (hey, thanks!) in exchange for an honest review. I promise that this does NOT affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. For real.
The Finders Keepers Library by Annie Rains Series: Love in Bloom #1
Genres: Adult, Contemporary
Published by Grand Central Publishing on July 20, 2024
Also by this author: Christmas on Mistletoe Lane, Springtime at Hope Cottage, Snowfall on Cedar Trail , Starting Over at Blueberry Creek, Sunshine on Silver Lake, Season of Joy, Reunited on Dragonfly Lane, The Summer Cottage, The Christmas Village, The True Love Bookshop
Format: eARC (352 pages) • Source: Publisher
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This heart-warming second chance love story about hope and healing from USA Today bestselling author Annie Rains is perfect for fans of Raeanne Thayne and Jenny Hale!
For a gardener blessed with a green thumb, Savannah Collins's life sure seems like it's all thorns, zero roses. She has no job, no relationship, and no place to live. With nothing but a car full of plants and her new rescue kitten, Savannah heads to Bloom, North Carolina, to spend the summer with her beloved Aunt Eleanor, a retired librarian.
Her aunt shares her love of literature with the Finders Keepers Library, located in her beautiful garden, where anyone can stop by to pick a book or leave a book. When a sudden summer storm destroys the library and many of the roses, it will take a village to get everything ready for the garden wedding that is planned there in just three weeks.
As the entire town joins in to make the necessary repairs, Savannah bonds with their neighbor Evan Sanders over the books that Eleanor has handpicked for each of them, helping them both find healing and self-discovery. Savannah only intends to stay through the summer, but when an unexpected job offer, a sudden health crisis, and a wayward pre-teen push her future in new directions, she has to wonder whether this is the place that she is meant to be--and the family she's meant to be with.
Annie Rains is one of my favorite authors. I’ve never given her books under four stars (and I’d read fifteen of them before this!), so it’s very depressing to rate this one so low for me. I don’t know what it was but nearly zero elements of this story connected with me.
I usually like bookish stories and the concept of a shed-sized Little Free Library was cute in general, but the characters made a ton of book references and quotes that unfortunately felt shoehorned in. The three POVs included the main female and male characters but also the aunt, who was the biggest book-quoter of all. I just didn’t think it was necessary to have her POV.
There are a lot of tougher topics around illness, death, custody issues… it felt kind of heavy at times while not packing an emotional punch at all. The characters had repetitive, cheesy conversations that annoyed me instead of made me feel for them. I really hope my main issues were not being in the mood for a romance of this type at this moment and the characters, because I’d really like to continue the series. This just didn’t feel like an Annie Rains book to me!
I ended up speed-reading the second half because this has been on my currently-reading shelf for the whole month and took me 19 days to read, which is really unheard of for her books. I never wanted to pick this up and read it; I started and finished five other books in the time it took me to complete this.
I know this is small potatoes, but normally there aren’t any church/religious elements in her books but there was a random push for characters to go to church in the final part of the book that just didn’t resonate with me. It felt like when a Hallmark movie suddenly has people praying around the dinner table or talking about God. Again, this is fully a personal thing for me and something I avoid completely in the books I pick up.
Overall, this was definitely a miss. I’ll read the next book in the series in hopes that it feels more like her other two series that I’ve loved!
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