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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
The only reason that I didn't give this a higher rating was my general dissatisfaction with adolescent/child narrators. Like most stories with young narrators, this one had a few instances where the fourteen year-old seemed to have the thoughts and mental capacity of an adult, which seemed to pull me out of the story. The ending was also a little neater than I would have liked but the rest of the story and characters were very well developed and engaging. This was a great read for a book club discussion because the characters themselves don't get all of the information which leaves the reader guessing as to character motivations and plot lines.
Would definitely recommend and would say that it takes a slightly more in-depth read to really get all the nuance.
Would definitely recommend and would say that it takes a slightly more in-depth read to really get all the nuance.
Was hesitant at the beginning whether I'd like it or not but turned out to be a very good book!
5/5stars | Favorite Standalone
I think this book has wedged its way into the little slot in my heart that has been previously held solely for "Three Souls" and "The Wind Up Bird Chronicle" and "Lord of the Rings" because of how hard this hit ME personally. It's not often a book slams it's way into my face and forces me to go "oh wow... this is me" because I'm a white girl, living in a normal suburban town in a wealthy area of the country, who goes to a top ranked college where the most exciting news is who puked over the weekend from giving themselves alcohol poisoning. I've never been able to connect to novels that I read and KNOW they're important - books about race, historical troubles, or even fantastical realms. I can't connect to those things cause I've never had to deal with them, obviously. But this book, it made me tear up with how much I could relate to it, how much I could see myself in it - and that's not necessarily a wonderful thing to feel, sometimes it's pretty scary how much pain words on a page can cause.
This novel follows a young, fourteen year old girl who's uncle she was extremely close to dies of AIDS in 1987 - a time when they still believed AIDS was a disease you could catch just from being near an infected person.
This review is gonna get personal, so I'm just warning ya'll now.
June was a character I could connect to on a level I've never felt for a character before. June was a weird little girl who preferred being out in the woods by herself playing pretend, and hanging out with her uncle who was fifteen (maybe more, I don't think we ever officially knew how old Finn was) years her senior. I can't tell you how much time young, ten to fourteen year old Kate would spend out in the woods behind her house, pretending she was in another time. Usually with her cat by her side because she was considered weird and no one wanted to go out and play with her. Most of June's thought processes and things she would say and do and feel were very similar to myself as a kid and even now.
I also connected so much to June because this was the first ever story I read about an asexual character who actually STAYED asexual (rather than suddenly changing their mind about their sexuality because a boy walks into their life because obviously asexuality is only a thing until you have sex or "find the right person" yeah fuck off authors who do that you can fucking fight me, or anyone who believes that's what asexuality is) throughout the entire novel. While June never puts a word to this sexuality she feels, there were several passages* that made me smile to myself, remembering the fourteen year old Kate in freshman year who was so, SO confused; who went through a time where she thought she was a lesbian, bisexual, and everything in between because sex was SO important to EVERYONE and not having it or not wanting to have it was the weirdest thing in the world. I just wanted to reach into the book and hug June close and tell her that it's okay to feel the way she does towards love and sex and relationships - that she's not weird, that she's not broken, because I wish someone had done this for me.
*Passages:
"I dream about people who don't need to have sex to know thy love each other. I dream about people who only ever kiss you on the cheek" (page 59)
"He said that everyone should stop having sex. It didn't seem like too bad an idea to me. I mean, why did sex have to be so important? Why couldn't people live together, spend their whole lives together, just because they liked each other's company? Just because they liked each other more than they liked anyone else in the whole world? If you found a person like that you wouldn't have to have sex. You could just hold them, couldn't you? You could sit close to them, nestle into them... You could do things like that" (page 222)
I connected so much to this book because I've witnessed first hand, in 20-fucking-16 people still thinking HIV/AIDS is this taboo thing that whoever gets it is a whore and deserves to die from the horrible disease. As I sat outside my school's cafeteria for four consecutive years, selling baked goods and ribbons and bracelets to raise money for our local AIDs research center, I can't even begin to recount the amount of vulgar language thrown at us, the amount of people who seemed to think that our cause didn't deserve money, that we should be avoided simply for wanting to help people stop dying. I've met people who genuinely think that the only people who are affected by the disease are "promiscuous gay men" like the world seemed to think thirty years ago.
I connected so much to this story because I recently lost the person probably closest to me besides my brother or mom or dad. A person who I know I was #1 in her heart, and she was #1 in mine, so I understood June's grief, her anger, the amount of thoughts and doubt and questions that whirled inside her head - could I have done anything? I should have been there for her. I shouldn't have said something I did. Did she die knowing how much I cared about her? June's love for her uncle, is something anyone whose lost someone they love without abandon will be able to connect to. The fact that this novel, unlike others that deal with this sort of topic and grief, connected to me because I also had my own Toby. My Opa was so lost after my gramma was gone. Being such a shy man, I could see how much effort it took him to reach out to me - to shyly hand me necklaces and rings he said "your Oma never wore... You know how she never liked jewelry, Katie, but she would have wanted you to have them, they were her mum's," to awkwardly hand me a box of books she'd collected over her 85 years, and to hug me tighter than he ever had before as he actually let himself cry in front of me for the first time ever. I think that's what made me love this book so much - I could relate to it on the level most people could to June, losing someone you care about is something too many people have to deal with, but not many people also have a Toby.
This is one of the first novels I've ever read where I can look at so many elements of it - rather than just an event here, or a character there like most stories - and see myself and my life and my story in them. This novel, besides hitting me so hard on a personal level, is a gorgeously written, incredibly important story about growing up, love - platonic and romantic, family relationships, siblings and grief. This book is so incredibly important and I can't even begin to recommend it to everyone, please PLEASE read this book. It's just so wonderful.
I think this book has wedged its way into the little slot in my heart that has been previously held solely for "Three Souls" and "The Wind Up Bird Chronicle" and "Lord of the Rings" because of how hard this hit ME personally. It's not often a book slams it's way into my face and forces me to go "oh wow... this is me" because I'm a white girl, living in a normal suburban town in a wealthy area of the country, who goes to a top ranked college where the most exciting news is who puked over the weekend from giving themselves alcohol poisoning. I've never been able to connect to novels that I read and KNOW they're important - books about race, historical troubles, or even fantastical realms. I can't connect to those things cause I've never had to deal with them, obviously. But this book, it made me tear up with how much I could relate to it, how much I could see myself in it - and that's not necessarily a wonderful thing to feel, sometimes it's pretty scary how much pain words on a page can cause.
This novel follows a young, fourteen year old girl who's uncle she was extremely close to dies of AIDS in 1987 - a time when they still believed AIDS was a disease you could catch just from being near an infected person.
This review is gonna get personal, so I'm just warning ya'll now.
June was a character I could connect to on a level I've never felt for a character before. June was a weird little girl who preferred being out in the woods by herself playing pretend, and hanging out with her uncle who was fifteen (maybe more, I don't think we ever officially knew how old Finn was) years her senior. I can't tell you how much time young, ten to fourteen year old Kate would spend out in the woods behind her house, pretending she was in another time. Usually with her cat by her side because she was considered weird and no one wanted to go out and play with her. Most of June's thought processes and things she would say and do and feel were very similar to myself as a kid and even now.
I also connected so much to June because this was the first ever story I read about an asexual character who actually STAYED asexual (rather than suddenly changing their mind about their sexuality because a boy walks into their life because obviously asexuality is only a thing until you have sex or "find the right person" yeah fuck off authors who do that you can fucking fight me, or anyone who believes that's what asexuality is) throughout the entire novel. While June never puts a word to this sexuality she feels, there were several passages* that made me smile to myself, remembering the fourteen year old Kate in freshman year who was so, SO confused; who went through a time where she thought she was a lesbian, bisexual, and everything in between because sex was SO important to EVERYONE and not having it or not wanting to have it was the weirdest thing in the world. I just wanted to reach into the book and hug June close and tell her that it's okay to feel the way she does towards love and sex and relationships - that she's not weird, that she's not broken, because I wish someone had done this for me.
*Passages:
"I dream about people who don't need to have sex to know thy love each other. I dream about people who only ever kiss you on the cheek" (page 59)
"He said that everyone should stop having sex. It didn't seem like too bad an idea to me. I mean, why did sex have to be so important? Why couldn't people live together, spend their whole lives together, just because they liked each other's company? Just because they liked each other more than they liked anyone else in the whole world? If you found a person like that you wouldn't have to have sex. You could just hold them, couldn't you? You could sit close to them, nestle into them... You could do things like that" (page 222)
I connected so much to this book because I've witnessed first hand, in 20-fucking-16 people still thinking HIV/AIDS is this taboo thing that whoever gets it is a whore and deserves to die from the horrible disease. As I sat outside my school's cafeteria for four consecutive years, selling baked goods and ribbons and bracelets to raise money for our local AIDs research center, I can't even begin to recount the amount of vulgar language thrown at us, the amount of people who seemed to think that our cause didn't deserve money, that we should be avoided simply for wanting to help people stop dying. I've met people who genuinely think that the only people who are affected by the disease are "promiscuous gay men" like the world seemed to think thirty years ago.
I connected so much to this story because I recently lost the person probably closest to me besides my brother or mom or dad. A person who I know I was #1 in her heart, and she was #1 in mine, so I understood June's grief, her anger, the amount of thoughts and doubt and questions that whirled inside her head - could I have done anything? I should have been there for her. I shouldn't have said something I did. Did she die knowing how much I cared about her? June's love for her uncle,
Spoiler
besides it being in a slightly romantic fashion,This is one of the first novels I've ever read where I can look at so many elements of it - rather than just an event here, or a character there like most stories - and see myself and my life and my story in them. This novel, besides hitting me so hard on a personal level, is a gorgeously written, incredibly important story about growing up, love - platonic and romantic, family relationships, siblings and grief. This book is so incredibly important and I can't even begin to recommend it to everyone, please PLEASE read this book. It's just so wonderful.
Beautiful and sad. Heartbreaking, loving, and wonderful. While not how I would normally describe my ideal book, I couldn't help but love this one. It was beautifully written and very well done.
This was such a pleasant surprise. A bit in the same vein as The Great Believers (1980’s, AIDS epidemic, art), but through an entirely different lens. It’s a story that is as tragic as it is heartwarming, and one of the most honest fictional accounts of motherhood, sisterhood and growing up that I have come across. Really glad we read this. Makes for a great book club read too!
More dead gays
Set during the early days of the AIDS epidemic, this rather dismal coming-of-age story follows 14-year-old June through a rough emotional patch as her beloved gay uncle dies of the disease. But her uncle’s death isn’t even the most painful part. The most painful part is June being relentlessly tormented by her bully of an older sister, each sister envying what the other has that they do not. Although a sense of melancholy pervades, there are aspects that are laugh-out-loud funny, as when the portrait that the artist uncle painted of the sisters keeps getting mysteriously defaced.
June is an appealing character, and one cannot help but root for her. Unfortunately, the gay uncle and his lover are less fully rendered. They don’t seem to have any friends or community other than the family, and they seem to mainly exist as a vehicle for the family to resolve its own internal issues. Once the family’s schisms are mended, the gay guys die and the sisters inherit the estate and live happily ever after. So, as with John Larison’s lauded [b:Whiskey When We're Dry|45358821|Whiskey When We're Dry|John Larison|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1557478221l/45358821._SX50_.jpg|58185404], it's yet another straight writer killing off the queers. I get that gay men really were dying in droves during the '80s, but it's still a bit cringy.
Considering the positive reception this debut novel received back in 2012 – it won a couple of awards, was promoted by Oprah and was translated into a bunch of different languages – it’s interesting that Brunt hasn’t published anything else in the decade since. She says she’s working on it, though – a historical novel to be out in early 2024 called “Mary Ann” inspired by the life of a woman in Victorian London who gained infamy as “the ugliest woman in the world.” Sounds intriguing.
Set during the early days of the AIDS epidemic, this rather dismal coming-of-age story follows 14-year-old June through a rough emotional patch as her beloved gay uncle dies of the disease. But her uncle’s death isn’t even the most painful part. The most painful part is June being relentlessly tormented by her bully of an older sister, each sister envying what the other has that they do not. Although a sense of melancholy pervades, there are aspects that are laugh-out-loud funny, as when the portrait that the artist uncle painted of the sisters keeps getting mysteriously defaced.
June is an appealing character, and one cannot help but root for her. Unfortunately, the gay uncle and his lover are less fully rendered. They don’t seem to have any friends or community other than the family, and they seem to mainly exist as a vehicle for the family to resolve its own internal issues. Once the family’s schisms are mended, the gay guys die and the sisters inherit the estate and live happily ever after. So, as with John Larison’s lauded [b:Whiskey When We're Dry|45358821|Whiskey When We're Dry|John Larison|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1557478221l/45358821._SX50_.jpg|58185404], it's yet another straight writer killing off the queers. I get that gay men really were dying in droves during the '80s, but it's still a bit cringy.
Considering the positive reception this debut novel received back in 2012 – it won a couple of awards, was promoted by Oprah and was translated into a bunch of different languages – it’s interesting that Brunt hasn’t published anything else in the decade since. She says she’s working on it, though – a historical novel to be out in early 2024 called “Mary Ann” inspired by the life of a woman in Victorian London who gained infamy as “the ugliest woman in the world.” Sounds intriguing.
The remarkable thing about this novel is how the story is richly layered. Peel one layer off and another, deeper layer lies beneath.
there’s nothing I could say about this book that would be adequate. just read it!!
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes