Review: The Unmaking of June Farrow - Adrienne Young

Review: The Unmaking of  June Farrow - Adrienne Young - October 2023

Well, hello lovely readers, and happy birthday to me! There's something rather fitting about curling up with tea, cake crumbs on the blanket, and writing this review on my birthday, because this book felt like the kind of cosy, curl-into-the-sofa read that deserves a special occasion. Consider this my little gift to you.

I first spotted The Unmaking of June Farrow floating around bookstagram, and I'll admit, the cover and buzz had me expecting a witchy fantasy romp. What I got instead was something far more tender and layered,  a time-slip story wrapped in small-town Southern warmth, family secrets, and just a touch of magic.

The story opens in 1986, when a baby named June Farrow mysteriously appears and is taken in by her grandmother. Fast forward to the early 2000s, and June is now grieving her Nana's death, left with only her Nana's old friend Birdie and sweet local boy Mason for company. She's also been having strange, haunting visions ,ones that seem to run through the women in her family like a thread pulled too tight.

Then the truth unravels: June wasn't born in 1986 at all. She was born in 1911, and her mother stepped through a mysterious red door to leave her safely in the future before vanishing back into her own time. Now it's June's turn to walk through that same door, and when she does, she lands in the 1950s  only to discover she's been there before. She has a husband. A daughter. A whole life she doesn't remember living, and a family who has spent a year wondering where she went. All of this tangled up with the real historical detail of Nathaniel Hawthorne's death, which June finds herself unexpectedly caught up in.

It's a story about choosing between two lives, two loves, two versions of home and honestly, by the end, my heart ached in the best way. Fans of The Time Traveler's Wife or The Seven Year Slip will feel right at home here, just with a YA warmth and a slower, more suspenseful unraveling.

A book that made me want to gather the people I love a little closer which felt like exactly the right note to end my birthday reading on. 

Pass it on to: readers who love family secrets, gentle time-slip romance, and a mystery that unfolds like a warm hug.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/44jOfer