Kiester made me sob, real tears throughout. June, oh June! Not often does a character hit me this hard. Recommend this one!

Hands down the best book I’ve read this month .

This was such a gritty emotional read about love , friendships, marriage and parenting. It focuses on the sacrifices and struggles faced through it all. It also really portrayed an underlying message of the importance of communicating with your loved ones especially through the difficult times, because it’s true, “sometimes love just isn’t enough”.

This book also contained such a raw outlook on mental health postpartum . I could relate to a lot of the things that June went through and this book will just always hold such a special place in my heart now.

The way the story is told through different POVs from Ben and June and jumping from past to present was perfect. Kiester even manages to add in a sprinkle of mystery and darkness and it just added that extra element of surprise. I simply could not put this down, it was so bingeable.

I’m so excited to see that this is Alex Kiester’s debut novel and can only hope there is more in store coming from this author! 🤞🏻

While this was easier for me to read than The Push, I still felt disconnected by the rushed ending and the Greek mythology aspect of the story. I thought it was a strange metaphor that was hard to relate to if someone wasn’t educated on Greek mythology, like myself.
There were a lot of things in this story that struck a chord with me and made me take pause. And I do appreciate a book that doesn’t end in doom and gloom but post partum psychosis cannot be wrapped up in a ten day rundown of how medication works the first time, and quickly. That all seemed very unrealistic to me.
I think there’s a lot here that could warrant me recommending it to someone, but I’m still searching for a book on PPD, and the like, that really is real and relatable.

This book sucked me in and didn’t let go. It was really emotional. It followed Ben and June throughout them meeting, getting married and having a baby. Definitely check the CW before reading because there was some heavy stuff in here.

Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for my advanced reader's copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased opinion.

June and Ben are new parents of Mickey, one morning Ben wakes up grabs Mickey and looks for his wife. He discoverrs that June has left and taken her suitcase with her.. He knew there were issues with new parenthood and she has been struggling with work/marriage/ life/balance. . She left behind her journal and Ben uses it to figure out what went wrong.wherre she went and why. As he reads more and more of the journal he doubts that he ever really knew June at all.

This book is about loss, misunderstandings, postpartum depression and the need to figure out who we are besides being a wife and mother. Our identities matter before and after children.

This book is well written and flows nicely but the issues it addresses is hard topics of new parents.

This was a heartwarming story that looks at the stress of being a young couple newly married with a baby.

About the book:

One day Ben wakes up to his wife, June gone. She left in the middle of the night alone with their infant son.

Ben is beside himself and unable to think where June could have gone.

Told from alternating perspectives of Husband and Wife, the reader learns their story. From the moment Ben and June met in a hospital waiting room on New Year’s Eve, their love has seemed fated. Looking back at all the tiny, unlikely decisions that brought them together, it was easy to believe their relationship was special. Several years later into marriage and June is finding motherhood more difficult than she had thought it would be. She started to resent giving up her career as a professional dancer.. Feeling like a bad mom and more alone than ever, she writes to her deceased mother, hoping for a sign of what she should do next.

My thoughts:
This was a really well done book on the need to seek help for postpartum depression. It also ponders the questions of the road not taken that most people come to at some point in their life.

Thanks so much to Harper Collins Canada for my copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I find this one hard to give a star rating to. I feel like parts of it I really liked and other parts were just ok for me. I think im settling in at 3.75 stars, so rounding up to a 4.

This was a story about a couple, Ben and June. Ben was extremely over worked in a job that he didn't even like and was barely home to help his wife with their new baby. June was struggling in her new roll as a mother and had undiagnosed postpartum anxiety. Some of the side characters were other Mom's who created some tension and conflicts for June. This ultimately lead to June's sudden disappearance as Ben wakes one night to his baby's cries and finds that his wife is gone. Even though Ben and June had terrible communication, which at times really bothered me, I still really felt for them. I thought the author handled the topic of postpartum anxiety well, though I have no personal experience with the topic.

This book kept me turning the pages and I was pretty intrigued throughout. I would classify it as contemporary fiction, but the book definitely has some drama and suspense. As Ben struggles with piecing together June's disappearance, he uncovers more information about her and slowly realizes how little he actually knows. This gave the story a little bit of an edge and had me wanting to know what was going to happen. I also really enjoyed the way the chapters were told through the alternating perspectives of Ben and June. If you enjoy books about family that have a little suspense to them, I'd pick this one up!

Be mindful of the following trigger warnings before reading:

Heavy drinking, suicidal thoughts, attempt at suicide, postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, hallucinations, cancer, death of a parent.

Ben wakes up one morning to the sound of his son. After he retrieves Mikey from the crib, he realizes that something doesn’t seem right. His wife, June, is not home. After looking through the house, he also finds a missing suitcase. Why did June leave and where did she go? This story follows Ben as he tries to unravel the mystery of June’s disappearance. This story explores June’s difficulty with being a first time mother. We later realize that she has been suffering from post-partum depression. This book was an interesting read. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance review copy in exchange for my honest review.

Oh wow - I wasn’t expecting this emotional read!
What I thought was going to be a thriller about a missing wife turned into a family drama packed with all the feels.
A deep love story torn by mental health & unspoken truths. The dual narrative clearly shows how two people in love can so easily see and experience things differently.
The Truth About Ben and June brings you on journey of love, missed opportunities, forgiveness & loss with much compassion.
Much love went into these pages by this debut author. Looking forward to more her.
Thant you Harper Collins for my advanced copy.

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

Very good! Not at all what I was expecting, but in a good way.

This book was really interesting! It was so different than anything I've read lately and I could not put it down!

Thanks to NetGalley for the digital advanced reader copy of 'The Truth about Ben and June.' I am employed by Indigo Books and Music - this review is my own.

Unfortunately I did not finish reading this book. I tried several times to sit and get into it but I struggled to connect with the characters and did not really care how the book was going to progress.

This book deals with several important topics related to new mothers including - postpartum depression, anxiety, resentment, insecurity and martial strain. Ben and June take it in turn to unravel the narrative whilst June gets an extra voice through letters she wrote to her dead mother.

I think this author has promise considering this is a debut novel. Hopefully I like her next book enough to finish.

I love a book with alternating perspectives! In this book, we are posed with the question, how well do you really know someone? When June disappears, that is exactly what Ben needs to figure out.

I wanted to love this but I don't think it was for me. I was envisioning a Gone Girl-esque novel but it missed the mark. Thank you netgalley & the publisher for the ARC!

CW: postpartum anxiety and depression, suicide attempt and ideation (on page), gaslighting, death of parent and mentions of chemotherapy/treatment (past), parental abandonment (past), strained family relationships, self medicating with alcohol, fighting/blood, discussion/mention of abortion

The Truth About Ben and June isn’t my typical read, but I was intrigued by the synopsis and decided to give it a try. It was much more emotional than I anticipated. Readers should 100% check content warnings prior to starting this book. Had I realized the topics that would be addressed, I’m not sure I would have proceeded.

The Truth About Ben and June was less mystery and more an examination of the hard truths we often hide. It looks at love, marriage, parenthood, and self fulfillment in a raw and sometimes brutal way. The story unfolds through past and present chapters and is told from alternating POV’s. I listened to the audiobook and read the ebook of this one and the narration by Brittany Pressley and Pete Cross was really well done. Brittany Pressley was especially fantastic and her performance had me riveted. I thought the build up and reveal were also well executed, but the ending felt rushed. I also wanted more character growth from Ben. Readers are left hopeful that changes will be made, but I’m not sure if that addresses Ben’s actual issues. Overall, I enjoyed this novel, but I don’t think my heart can handle ever reading it again.

Audiobook Review
Overall 4 stars
Performance 4.5 stars
Story 4 stars

*I voluntarily read and listened to a review copy of this book*

I had so much hope for this one. It started out great with the perfect amount of Gone Girl feel to it. I somewhat enjoyed the multiple perspectives. I liked that the main character June was complex filled with anxieties of new motherhood, grief for her own mother, the "death" of her career and so much more. Ben, the husband, had zero character development, but he was also the one that tells majority of the story????? I was so confused. Overall, soooo disappointed.

Wow- this is a case of mismarketing. Someone called this witty and I have to disagree. This is a hard look at motherhood gone wrong- a woman disappears and struggles with her postpartum psychosis. This was a tough read but I did finish.

Thank you @kccpr & @harperaudio for my gifted review copy of THE TRUTH ABOUT BEN & JUNE - available now!

It’s been a while since I’ve read a domestic suspense novel. The audio for this one sucked me in immediately. I’ll listen to anything & everything narrated by @britpressley !

The author does such a fantastic job outlining the fog, anxiety and stress that plagues June’s first months of motherhood. You don’t trust yourself, you’re sleep deprived & struggling while other people seem to make it look so easy. Even worse, June is still grieving a large loss in her life.

I found it easy to relate to June. I worried about her and saw Ben as someone too wrapped up in his own mess to help his partner. From the get go, I felt strongly about each character, a must for this type of story. The tension bubbles throughout the narrative & it kept me enthralled.

Side note: the small town my husband grew up in plays a role in this book. Too funny.

If you’re in the mood for a domestic thriller that is believable and character driven, this one is for you!

Ben and June seem prefect together, a marriage meant to be, until their child is born and June seems to question her choices. Told from both Ben and June's perspective, this is an interesting take on a marriage and parenthood. They don't really seem to know each other as well as they thought.

While this title might succeed in a niche of readers still interested in the Gone Girl genre, overall, this story was very average and lacked sophistication. The pacing was all wrong, taking the reader out of the action every time it built up, giving no motivation to keep reading, but rather feel frustration when the POVs changed. This is far from the thriller the first few pages promised.