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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
I just love the way this woman writes. I rarely use the word "transport" but it perfectly describes how I was carried away every time I picked this up. Incredible prose, characters you can identify with and a heartbreaking story. I borrowed it from the library but need my own copy - I can't remember the last time I wanted to mark passages just so I could revisit them.
I found this overrated and manipulative. It had some great moments, but I got about 50 pages to the end, scanned it and found that it was exactly what I thought it would be, and abandoned it.
I truly enjoyed this moving and poignant coming of age story. I loved June and thought that her struggle with
reconciling her 'inappropriate' love for her uncle felt authentic. She was such an outsider to her peers- with her Gunnisax dress and medieval looking boots, that it wasn't hard to believe she didn't have any real friends her age and her escape to the woods was the only time she could be in her imaginary reality. The author dealt with the newness of the Aids epidemic and the general public's fear around it with truth and sensitivity. It was a book about secrets- how everyone has them and the lengths people will go to to hide them. I loved the Finn and Toby characters,they were warm, quirky and eccentric in a good way. It was easy to understand how intensely jealous Greta was of June and Finn's relationship and how she punished her sister by being mean to her. It was a book about how wrong assumptions can lead to devastating consequences. I had a lump in my throat a great deal of the time I was reading this story.
reconciling her 'inappropriate' love for her uncle felt authentic. She was such an outsider to her peers- with her Gunnisax dress and medieval looking boots, that it wasn't hard to believe she didn't have any real friends her age and her escape to the woods was the only time she could be in her imaginary reality. The author dealt with the newness of the Aids epidemic and the general public's fear around it with truth and sensitivity. It was a book about secrets- how everyone has them and the lengths people will go to to hide them. I loved the Finn and Toby characters,they were warm, quirky and eccentric in a good way. It was easy to understand how intensely jealous Greta was of June and Finn's relationship and how she punished her sister by being mean to her. It was a book about how wrong assumptions can lead to devastating consequences. I had a lump in my throat a great deal of the time I was reading this story.
Really, this is a fantastic first book. I've been reading a couple of YA books on Deathly themes lately, the most recent before this being the wonderful [b:The Fault in Our Stars|11870085|The Fault in Our Stars|John Green|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1360206420s/11870085.jpg|16827462] , but I think this even surpasses that work in the authenticity of the memories of my own teenage years, and the emotions it awoke in me.
June is a creative and under-confident teenager who lucked out and got her wonderful, charismatic and artistic gay uncle Finn as her godparent, and, perhaps as a reaction to the unlikelihood of his own family ever eventuating, he leaps into the task and creates a special, deep friendship with June. June is entranced by him and does what any red-blooded teenager with lots of imagination would do, and (despite her knowledge of his inclinations), falls in love with him, uncomprehending as she is (as we all once were..) of the significance of sex to a relationship.
But families are trampolines of opposing tensions and forces, and the pull of June's love for Finn forms a wedge between her and her sister Greta, who cannot handle the feeling of being second best, both to Finn and to June. To complicate matters further, June's mother is struggling with her unfulfilled artistic talent - she used to be as good an artist as Finn, and they had great plans as outstandingly talented teenagers, of developing their gifts together and living a bohemian life. But Finn went off to Europe and became 'known' and 'recognised' and lived the high life, catching AIDS along the way (the book is set in 1986, when everyone is scared to hysteria about the disease, and not sure how easily it can be transmitted - June is frightened to Kiss Finn despite her love for him), returning to live monogamously with his partner and fulfil his role as June's Godfather, and leaving June's mother struggling with her own resentment and embarrassingly conventional choices. Her power over Finn, as the overseer of his relationship with her daughter, is unfettered enough to morph into manipulation, and her regrets spill over to projection onto her own children, eroding her relationships with them and with Finn.
A complex plot, as you can see, but the tensions, emotions, petty jealousies and regrets which motivate the characters are so plausible that this reads like an alternative to our own lives, I could have been either June or her mother, and I know her sister was my sister!!
An absolutely wonderful first book, complex and authentic.
June is a creative and under-confident teenager who lucked out and got her wonderful, charismatic and artistic gay uncle Finn as her godparent, and, perhaps as a reaction to the unlikelihood of his own family ever eventuating, he leaps into the task and creates a special, deep friendship with June. June is entranced by him and does what any red-blooded teenager with lots of imagination would do, and (despite her knowledge of his inclinations), falls in love with him, uncomprehending as she is (as we all once were..) of the significance of sex to a relationship.
But families are trampolines of opposing tensions and forces, and the pull of June's love for Finn forms a wedge between her and her sister Greta, who cannot handle the feeling of being second best, both to Finn and to June. To complicate matters further, June's mother is struggling with her unfulfilled artistic talent - she used to be as good an artist as Finn, and they had great plans as outstandingly talented teenagers, of developing their gifts together and living a bohemian life. But Finn went off to Europe and became 'known' and 'recognised' and lived the high life, catching AIDS along the way (the book is set in 1986, when everyone is scared to hysteria about the disease, and not sure how easily it can be transmitted - June is frightened to Kiss Finn despite her love for him), returning to live monogamously with his partner and fulfil his role as June's Godfather, and leaving June's mother struggling with her own resentment and embarrassingly conventional choices. Her power over Finn, as the overseer of his relationship with her daughter, is unfettered enough to morph into manipulation, and her regrets spill over to projection onto her own children, eroding her relationships with them and with Finn.
A complex plot, as you can see, but the tensions, emotions, petty jealousies and regrets which motivate the characters are so plausible that this reads like an alternative to our own lives, I could have been either June or her mother, and I know her sister was my sister!!
An absolutely wonderful first book, complex and authentic.
Very moving and sweet..."things you'd never even seen with Finn could remind you of him because he was the one person you'd want to show.."
I picked this up on a whim from Goodwill, unfamiliar with the author and book. I don’t often read fiction, but this novel completely sucked me in—I finished it in two days! Refreshing to be in a pre-cellphone time period, and I appreciated the magical aspects from our 14-yr-old narrator’s eyes.
I recommend going into it blind like I did—don’t read the back cover!
I recommend going into it blind like I did—don’t read the back cover!
I'm really not sure on the rating for this. I liked it, had no trouble finishing it. As I came to write a review ... how much did I even remember though? It's not one I'd rush to recommend, and I didn't stop to make any notes while listening (I had a physical copy, and grabbed the audio and Kindle from the library ... went primarily with the audio). Reading other rave reviews I feel like I SHOULD have been more immersed in it, but I just wasn't really. Thinking back on a few things, I feel like I didn't really get (the altering of the painting, why Greta would lay down in the woods, the "love" for her uncle). Maybe a bookclub discussion would have made me appreciate it more, delve deeper? Maybe I was just distracted while I had this book going? I read the Discussion Questions (included in the Kindle copy, with a Q&A with the author) and I really appreciate extras like that, but even that didn't elevate this as it sometimes does for me.
The title tied in - several connections throughout the book. First person - June's POV. Past tense. Very easy, conversational tone.
The parents were tax professionals, super busy during tax season. A reminder to myself that I need to gather all our stuff and get it to our tax guy.
The look at AIDS in the 80s was an interesting reflection. I graduated high school in 1989, was involved in musical theater (like Greta). Was in Annie in the 80s.
No proFanity.
The title tied in - several connections throughout the book. First person - June's POV. Past tense. Very easy, conversational tone.
The parents were tax professionals, super busy during tax season. A reminder to myself that I need to gather all our stuff and get it to our tax guy.
The look at AIDS in the 80s was an interesting reflection. I graduated high school in 1989, was involved in musical theater (like Greta). Was in Annie in the 80s.
No proFanity.
This is the second time I've read this book, and I'm all headachey from crying. It's such a beautiful, profound, complex story -- and the writing is gorgeous. I'm so glad that enough time had elapsed from my first reading that it was like discovering the book anew. I have a hard time talking about how much I love this book, but it has such a special place in my heart. I just have to remember to always read this with a box of tissues within reach.
A well-written story that manages to create a hopeful atmosphere about a sad subject. I quite enjoyed this book more that I thought I would!