There is something so beautiful about stories in the magical realism genre, especially when they manage to blur the lines between what is magic and what is real. The Unmaking of June Farrow does just that, managing to detail the events of a woman on a race to unravel the curse that overtakes the women in her life before it takes her life as well. It is richly detailed and evokes those feelings of confusion, frustration, and a little madness too. You won’t be able to forget June’s journey, and all those that she meets along the way. Paired alongside a tale of a mother’s love, this story will draw you in until the very last, bittersweet page.
This story is cantered around June Farrow, who is part of a long line of women plagued by a curse that led her own mother to abandon her and leave her in the care of her grandmother. It starts with voices and wind chimes, which June has been hearing for well over a year. After her grandmother’s death and the appearance of a mysterious door, June can no longer deny that it is time to set her own fate, and if she’s going to break the curse, she’s going to have to sacrifice finding love and a family of her own to do it. The next time the door appears, she follows it and starts a journey that will rock the fabric of her realities.
From the beginning of this book, you’re drawn to the quaint mountain town in Jasper, North Carolina. It’s quaint and everyone knows each other all too well. The Farrow women own a beautiful flower farm, but are plagued by the stories about June’s mother Susanna Farrow. June herself wonders about her mother, but there is little information that her grandmother shares with her. In fact, a lot about the lives of the Farrow women seems a closely guarded secret, even to June. This ends up making her somewhat of an unreliable narrator, because the readers are working on the information that she knows in order to move forward. As you follow June into her journey, there’s a lot that we learn about her family and the gaps in between.
Personally, I was hoping for a little more romance than I found in the book, but it was still satisfying nonetheless. Adrienne Young always manages to captivate me with her cinematic writing, and the imagery just jumps off of the page for me. I was obsessed with the male love interest and the intensity of the romance between him and June. While romance isn’t at the centre of this story, love is something that permeates each bit of this book. The love of a mother, daughter, and grandmother is something that is deeply explored and meshes so well with the story.
Something that I loved about this book was the time travel aspect. I can’t say that I have read many time travel books, but the few that I have read have stuck with me because the stories have either been really easy to follow, or horribly done. In this case, it was really straightforward and easy to understand. I appreciated that there is the magical aspect, but the way that it was explained made sense to me as a reader. There is a lot going on with this, so I won’t go into too much detail, but it definitely gives the story a bittersweet quality toward the end of the book.
I have to say that Young is an incredible author. I have devoured each and every book she has written, and each one has evoked different feelings as I read, but the word that comes to mind each time I pick up one of her books is: resilience. From the beginning of this book, it is clear to me that although the Farrow women are besieged by a curse, they are not weak. They persevere despite their circumstances. I highly encourage you to add this book to your shelf if you’re wanting something beautifully written, with some unforgettable characters.
The Unmaking of June Farrow is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
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 New York Times bestselling author of Spells for Forgetting.
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.
