The Unmaking of June Farrow is an imaginative tale of love, loss, and family.

Adrienne Young tells the story of June Farrow, a 34-year old taking care of her ailing grandmother and trying to discover secrets hidden far in their past.

I love that this book featured a main character in her thirties that didn't have it all figured out. It had suspense and some truly heartwarming revelations. The women in this story shined.

It is a feel good story, where you will probably shed a few tears and want to hug your daughter (if you have one).

A timeless, modern classic

I could not put this book down! This is my first read from Adrienne Young and I am hooked!

The Farrow women from Jasper, North Carolina are rumored to be cursed. After being abandoned by her mother and now losing her grandma, June Farrow is waiting for the curse to lead her to madness. She has been trying to ignore her hallucinations until she receives mail from her grandma that changes everything. June Farrow is determined, strong willed woman destined to break this cycle! She’s torn on ending her family long curse or giving up on her dreams of having her own family.

Perfect if you like:
Magic realism
Family curse
Small town
Time Travel

The relationship between the Farrow women is so strong and beautiful. It’s unconditional love, it’s unmeasurable sacrifices, it’s selfless.

I would recommend jumping into this book without too much information! Allow yourself to unravel the mystery alongside June Farrow. Follow her through the red door!

Thank you NetGalley and publishers for providing me an ACR copy!

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group - Ballentine, and to Adrienne Young for the opportunity to read this arc!
@netgalley
@randomhouse
@adrienneyoungbooks

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Publishing Date: 10/17/23

Summary:

It was a magical mix of mystery, murder, family curses, romance, and sacrifice. The generational bonds are so strong with the Farrow women. This book will truly stay with you, I won’t forget this one. It was beautiful and incredibly captivating. I really liked the magical realism!

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The Unmaking of June Farrow is unmistakably one of the best books I’ve ever read. This book is magic and so heartbreakingly beautiful I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get it out of my head. I have such an ache in my chest that it’s over.

The bond between the Farrow women are strong and uplifting. The things we wouldn’t do for our loved ones even across time!! I’m scared to say too much else and spoil it but do yourselves a favor and preorder it.

Trust me.

Thank you to Adrienne Young and Penguin Random House for sending me an e-ARC. I was so excited for this book. It was a lovely story with magic and love tied in. I didn’t love the whole time-traveling plot, but Adrienne’s writing is always perfect, so I enjoyed the read!

Shoutout to NetGalley for the arc! I can’t say this is Young’s best (but it sure as hell feels like it) because there are three other books of hers I’ve yet to read. I’ve read Fable, Namesake, Sky in the Deep and The Girl the Sea Gave Back. All 5 star YA fantasy reads for me. Especially, SITD. I went into TUOJF completely unaware that this is an adult book. Not that the content is particularly graphic, but the themes are heavy, rich, painful and ultimately cathartic. I don’t know if someone who isn’t at least in their mid twenties could appreciate the sacrifices and losses that these characters suffer. This is not a sad book. But it is a book where my heart was as engaged as my brain. Young is a phenomenal voice and she uses it to the nth degree to elicit poignancy and poetry. 34 year old June knows she and the women in her family are strange, that visions and dreams plague them until madness takes over. She commits herself wholeheartedly to her family’s flower farm, stoic and waiting for her demise, eschewing love and family. The shadow of her mother’s disappearance when June was a baby hangs over her, her grandmother and their friends. Collecting herself after her grandmother’s funeral, a photograph from over a hundred years ago terrifies June when she sees her mother’s face in sepia-toned clarity. But her mother was born in 1966? How can this be? June is already suffering from visions and dreams, seeing a doctor who believes it to be a rare form of Alzheimer’s or mental illness, but she knows what it is: the Farrow curse. It is easier to focus on this mysterious photograph than her own doom, yet her sleuthing will give her answers to both. If I say another word about the plot I will give it away, but this is fantastic storytelling. Expect magical realism, a touch of Southern gothic, mysterious deaths, a beautiful love story and Young’s golden prose guiding her audience through contemplations on grief, true love, motherhood, endurance and legacy. This was an unusual and original vehicle for a tale as old as time: mothers will do anything for their children.

Thanks to the publisher & Netgalley for the complimentary e-ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

Adrienne Young has such a way with words & THE UNMAKING OF JUNE FARROW really sucked me in one night when I flailed around looking for something to read. (The title alone gives me raptures.)

This evocative & wistful book has a time slippage premise where the female Farrows have the ability to respond to two different times at once—it’s something that June finds herself struggling with at the beginning of the book as she hears music no one else can hear, sees a strange man lurking & then suddenly disappearing, etc.

Then one day she chooses to walk through a door & she finds herself in the past with a ticked off man who says he is/was her husband who was summarily abandoned by her when she presumably went through the door again.

So June must confront this man who she doesn’t really remember meeting, during a time she hasn’t been in yet, & meanwhile she has another life in the current time with people she loves.

I’m guessing you can see the possible emotional implications of all of this.

Despite the fact that I occasionally got confused by some of the time details, this is a moving story that made me wrestle with some of the emotional fallout of the characters’ choices & what it means to go through the door.

There’s often a sadness that comes with time slippage / time travel books, I think, something lost for something gained, & this book definitely incorporates that into the story.

Ultimately TUOJF is an emotion-driven story that asks the question what if you don’t go through a door: what if that is the risky thing to do. It’s not my personal fave Adrienne Young story but it is compelling & written in a lovely way—she is such a stylist—& I think it will grab many hearts.

4⭐️. Out 10/17.

Please see a trusted reviewer’s list of CWs.

[ID: Jess’s white hand holds the ebook in front of a waterfall. A figure is in the background.]

There was no putting this book down once I had started! Multiple small town mysteries, romance, and a family curse kept the plot moving forward and my mind fully engaged in figuring it all out. There are beautifully written themes of family, love and sacrifice. Adrienne Young continues to write the most captivating and magical stories that live on in your mind long after reading the last page.

Thank you to Netgalley and Ballantine for access to this arc.

The Farrow women are cursed with madness. It took away June's mother when she was young and left her to be raised by her grandmother in a small town in North Carolina. After her grandmother passes, June's madness starts.  She sees and hears things that aren't there, including a red door.  Everything changes the day June decides to open the door to see what's on the other side.

I could not put this down.  While I had an idea of what was going on, I didn't know everything and was figuring it out as June was.  There were some things I figured out on my own and things that were a complete surprise to me. I really did not know how this was going to end.  It's hard to give a lot of detail because I don't want to give anything away.  But, this has a little bit of everything: legacy, family, love, mystery, murder, a curse, and magical realism. It was a complex but enduring story that was surprisingly easy to read.  The mystery aspect really had me hanging on the edge of my seat.  The secrets that had to be kept to give the story its ending was intricate and woven together beautifully.  There was a compelling love story that was the root of all this that gave me Outlander vibes.  After finishing the story, I kept thinking about it and realizing more deatils that made it even better.  The writing was beautiful and detailed, and the setting (blue ridge mountains) made me want to go there myself.  This is the perfect book to pick up if you like enchanting love stories with magical realism. You really should check this one out soon!

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This is a delightful mix of mystery, romance, and a generous dose of magical realism! If there's ever a book you should dive into without knowing much about it beforehand, it's def this one. Despite having some expectations from the synopsis, I found myself pleasantly surprised. While I didn't become fully engrossed until around the 25% mark, I strongly advise paying close attention to the beginning because it's full of hints that unravel by the end of the book.

The writing is beautiful, and the book immerses you in a really visual atmosphere. I really liked her other book, Spells For Forgetting, so I did have high hopes for this one. If I were to nitpick, the only thing preventing this from being a perfect 5-star read was my desire for a bit more exploration of certain characters and storylines. A slightly longer narrative might have provided the closure I wanted.. but nevertheless, its such a good, unique, mysterious read.

I definitely recommend it if you have a liking for magical realism, slow-burning mysteries, family curses and secrets, resilient female protagonists, and the star-crossed lovers trope.

I have been wanted to read this book since the first time I saw it's beautiful cover!

The main character, June Farrow, comes from a long line of women who possess a special gift. This gift causes all the women to become hysterical, evidentially leading to their death, June is not accepting of this future for herself and sets off to break her family curse, but you'll never be able to guess how she does it.

If you like magical realism, small-town murder mysteries, and hereditary supernatural gifts, then this book is for you. I had so much fun trying to unravel this book as I was reading it.

A curse and a flower farm setting in small town, North Carolina town. I enjoyed this story, definitely give this one a read.

This is, hands down, the BEST book Adrienne Young has ever written. I could not put it down, and stayed up waaaaaaaay too late on a work night to finish it in one sitting. The story enraptured me from the first; the writing is gorgeous, the plot and the characters and the mystery all work together beautifully, and it's so tightly paced. I had so many emotions throughout, and I got teary so many times. After I closed the book I actually just cried for a moment because I loved it so much. I ached for June and Eammon and Annie and Margaret. This is very much a book about what we will do for the ones we love, and it's just so very beautiful and real.
I can't recommend this book nearly enough, so do yourself a favor and pick it up.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing a requested copy to review. All opinions are my own.

I had purposely kept myself from seeing much about the plot of this book before I read it (you all know if it has Adrienne Young’s name on it, I’m reading it, no question anyway, as I have said since Sky In The Deep), and I’m SO GLAD I DID. It’s a deeply immersive drama-meets-murder mystery-meets magical realism involving a family curse, a forgotten history, and a doozy of a twist that I did NOT see coming. Lower on language and adult content than Spells For Forgetting, though there should probably be a trigger warning for those with religious trauma (I can’t explain why because SPOILERS, but it made me really sad. Though I don’t personally have any experience with trauma within the church, I know it happens and it hurts).

This honestly might be my favorite oddball genre book ever. I’ll say it’s magical realism, but it’s a lot of things and all of them amazing. 5 stars. 10/10 recommend. I literally read it in less than a day and have zero regrets.

I received an advance copy from the publisher; all opinions are my own, and a review was not required.

I truly feel like Adrienne Young can do no wrong. She has once again created, in June Farrow, a protagonist I root for through all her ups and downs, flaws and all. I will say that earlier parts of the novel dragged a bit for me, but once I finished, I could look back and see how everything came together. I want more books about the Farrow women!

Wow. Adrienne Young’s newest novel, The Unmaking of June Farrow, was such a twisty, heartfelt, beautiful story.
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We follow June, the mystery around the Farrow women, and the curse that has plagued them for generations.
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I feel like this is a book that readers just need to sit back and enjoy as this amazing story unfolds.
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Young manages to weave mystery, magical realism, and romance in this story. It sweeps you up and keeps you entranced until the very end. I’m going to be honest and say I wish there had been another scene or two at the end. 😌
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Mystery, secrets, romance. This is a perfect fall read. I loved it!
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Thank you to netgalley and Delacorte Press for the opportunity to read this book. 🤩

“The wind caught me, pulling my hair across my face, and I filled my chest with summer-sweet air. Dragonflies danced on the sparkling water below. But when I turned around, the door was gone”

June Farrow, like the Farrow women before her, is cursed. At some point, they unravel and altogether have time slipping between in their mind and senses. It leaves her often feeling lonely and as an outcast in her small Appalachian town. June knows this and lost her mother to it. Faced with challenges after the death of her grandma, she is spurred to dive deeper into her mother’s disappearance and the mystery of the Farrows.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! It had me from the first page. A soft weaving of this mysterious trait and how it’s followed the Farrows through time. There is an element of mystery of what happened to June’s mother and what exactly is happening to June as she experiences the unraveling she has been told would happen.

Young writes in such a way that leaves you wanting to understand more along with June. She sets the scenes beautifully and leaves you with a happy ending. June is such a strong character and I just love her and what she had been willing to attempt and sacrifice for her own.
Young tackles writing about time travel, which can get very messy, and takes something complicated and puts it in a way that makes sense and easy enough to understand while also displaying the challenges the Farrow women have endured because of their mysterious ability.

The ending is soft and beautiful and satisfying, and I am so excited to read more of Young’s works.

4/5

Adrienne Young's books have such an incredible sense of place, whether they are transporting you to a rainy island in the Pacific Northwest or a small town in the mountains of North Carolina. She wraps the book around you, weaving the characters and their stories into you until you can't let go. I really felt like I was part of Jasper, North Carolina. I felt the judgy eyes of closed-off town, the love of the close-knit Farrow family, and their willingness to do anything to survive.
I was immediately grabbed by the story and the mystery of The Unmaking of June Farrow. The book appears one way on the surface, but the more you read the more intricate the story gets. I loved how it managed to surprise me, make me think, make me feel, and mostly how it made me keep turning the pages because I needed to know how it all connected and how it was going to end.
Go into this book knowing as little as possible! Just allow yourself to be transported to a small town and into the lives of the Farrow women. Follow the red door. Trust me.

I can say that I've read many books that explore the concept of time, specifically those that navigate the delicate intersection of love and time. Ultimately, all these books distill down to a common theme - we belong to the time from which we originate, and our rightful place is exactly where we currently find ourselves. "The Unmaking of June Farrow" by Adrienne Young is another lovely addition to this list.

I should start by saying that I had high expectations for this book after reading Adrienne Young's "Spells For Forgetting" (which, if you haven't read yet, you should). "The Unmaking of June Farrow" did not disappoint. Young possesses a unique talent for crafting magical-realism-infused small-town settings that evoke both apprehension and a desire to cocoon oneself within their mysterious ambiance.

June Farrow is one of the most relatable and vulnerable characters I've met this year. At 34 years old, June knows she will someday lose her mind. It's been programmed into her family's history. The Farrow women unravel until they cease to be. With this knowledge, June puts all her wants aside, pushing away the future she desires so the people she loves do not bear the brunt of her undoing. But as time moves on, so does its toll on June worsen. And in a split-second decision she cannot avoid, she thrusts herself into the unraveling world that has been taunting the precipice of her mind. One in which she just might find everything she has ever wanted.

What I loved most about this book was how I found myself in June. I think we all have walls and layers, defenses we put up to keep from getting hurt, but also to keep ourselves from hurting others. June has known her future, or at least she thinks she does. And with this self-proclaimed knowledge, she creates a barrier. Keeping her circle small, so the fallout is minimal. Her beloved Gran, the ever-present Birdie, and her unwavering best friend, Mason - June's family. This bubble provides June with safety, consistency, and predictability. Yet, what these shields and barriers, these defenses and fortifications, prevent is the unpredictable, the risks, and the opportunities to explore a world that could potentially be better.

This book, in its most basic sense, is about trusting yourself. June embarks on a journey of self-discovery, learning to lower her defenses and comprehend how life can unfold differently when she chooses to deviate. To break the barriers of her making and find a way to create a new life for herself. The one she has only ever dared to dream.

"The Unmaking of June Farrow" plays with time and love, throwing in a bit of mystery through some haunting twists and tales. If you are to take away anything from this novel, it should be that your vulnerability is what makes you brave. Time may be finite, but within its bounds lie countless moments worth seizing, even if it means taking daring leaps into the unknown.

Headfirst, fearless!

She’s done it again folks, everything this author puts out is gold! I truly loved this story! June was a great FMC, never annoying or immature. It was cool to ride the mystery with her, and every guess I had I was wrong. Great mystery, great book!