This book is another great example of "good idea" but "not so great execution." It also suffers from a ridiculous lack of communication -- communication that could easily have fixed several problems and cut the story down in half (which I guess is why the author decided against the communication).

The story centers around June Farrow, a young woman from a line of cursed women who are fated to time travel between two timelines. Eventually, they'll have to decide which timeline to stay in, as you can only travel through the red door so many times. And that premise starts of well, and I was interested, but very quickly it seemed like the 'romance' angle was getting a little sloppy. If you are truly madly in love with someone in one timeline... how would you create a different life in a different timeline? I mean... set that aside. I'd just venture to say some of the rules about time travel are not clear -- at first, that is because June doesn't know what is going on. But there are plenty of people around her that seem to know things (yet refuse to tell her anything, sigh).

Alas, June travels back into the 1950s and meets Eamon, who she married and had a kid with -- and this is her 'true love' you'd think (I mean, and he is, but... that doesn't come across great in the novel... they just kind of ended up together as far as I'm concerned... I didn't buy into this big epic romance). But there's a secret he and others are keeping revolving around a murder. Did Eamon kill this guy? Did June? How is he related to June? I mean... the family drama is here, don't get me wrong, but it was all just stuff that could have been *easily* explained and communicated by individuals in the story. Instead, everyone tries to keep June in the dark. Why? Why not lay out what you know at the beginning? Seriously... just talking through some issues would have made much more sense.

All in all it was just kind of an idea that started off good and got overly complicated throughout the story. About halfway through I decided that I needed to finish the book, but also didn't really care about the outcome. Needless to say, a lot of people loved this one, but I don't think this was a successful novel.

I really loved this book. The atmosphere, the love in the family, the parts that made my head hurt! I loved it all. I want to hug the whole family! I don’t want to spoil anything, just read this book!

I’ve read several books by this author and requested this one before I’d even read the description. She’s absolutely on my auto-buy list.

The women in June’s family seem to be affected by a curse that extends back for generations. Her mother disappeared after abandoning her. Before her death, June’s grandmother spoke to people who weren’t there. For the past year, June has been seeing and hearing things she knows aren’t possible. In order to end the curse, she’s decided to sacrifice finding love and having a family.

You guys – this book. I don’t want to say much about it and spoil the experience for other readers. It deserves to be read without preconceived notions. The beautiful, magical, and immersive writing will transport you to a small town Blue Ridge Mountain NC setting. I wanted to live there. It seems like a simpler, uncomplicated lifestyle on June’s flower farm.

The novel is a brilliant blend of mystery, fantasy, and romance that I couldn’t put down. It’s a stunning, mind-bending story I finished in less than twenty-four hours, but it will stick with me for quite a while. I highly recommend this to readers who enjoy murder mysteries, a little romance, and complex characters.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

Loved the complex, multi generational women at the forefront. The magic was there. Loved the atmospheric writing.

This was my first Adrienne Young and I cannot wait to get to more of her books in the near future! This was one of my favorite reads of the year and I want to own every special edition that I can find. The magical realism mixed with the sci-fi aspect of time traveling was so much fun. It had a mystery element to it that had me curious and wondering what was happening up until the end of the book. I was also obsessed with the family and romance in this book. I am still amazed by it all.

a new concept of time travel that I thoroughly enjoyed. What length will a woman go for her family and a twisted mystery surrounding a family death. This was a special read.

One of my favorite reads of 2023! I have recommended this book to so many friends. It had so many amazing aspects for all kinds of readers. If you love historical fiction you will love it. If you love science fiction you will love it. If you love fantasy you will love it. Not many writers can give their readers so much in one novel.

This unique story has been on my radar for several months now. I expected more magic and mysticism, but was still happy and entertained by the unexplainable science fiction. Although parts of this book were a bit confusing (is the curse broken for all Farrow women to come, or just for June and her daughter? is the timeline a perpetual loop?), I enjoyed it.

💭 MY THOUGHTS: I’ve been a huge fan of Adrienne Young since reading Fable and Namesake so I was super excited to read this one! It did not disappoint. This was my first 5-star read of 2024.

Young has a talent for creating fascinating worlds that draw you in and make you feel apart of them.
At times the story was (intentionally) disjointed and confusing - just how June was experiencing it. It kept me guessing all the way until the end. I just couldn’t put the book down!

Read for:
🧿 Generational Curse
🗺️ Small Town Mystery
🚪 Time Jumps
⁉️ Family Secrets
💫 Star Crossed Love
🔮 Magical Realism

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5
Spice Level: 🌶️/ 5

I’ve been a fan of Adrienne Young since Fable and I’m happy to report that remains true. The premise of June Farrow was like nothing I’ve ever read before. June and that red door made some very hard decisions that kept me glued to the pages and solidified this as a five star read. I will absolutely be reading anything and everything Adrienne ever publishes. If you need me, I’ll be packing to move to Jasper.

The Unmaking of June Farrow is a unique story. I enjoyed getting to know the characters in both storylines. I think it’s best to go into this book without knowing too much about it and being surprised with where it takes you. Young is one of my favorite authors but this one was a little slower than I was expecting. However once I got into it I really enjoyed it. I loved how it tied up in the end.

4.5 stars.

Suspenseful, mysterious, and a plot that had me hooked. There was no good places to stop reading because I needed to know what was going to happen. I wasn’t enamored with this book as I was reading but I also could not put it down, which is saying something considering the colossal reading slump I’ve been in for months. The setting is vivid, the plot is gripping, the characters are complex, the pacing is on-point, the world-building is rich (though I NEED an origin story to this Farrow women curse. What started it?!). Besides the tired cliche of the small town preacher being the depraved villain, I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Time travel/parallel time lines is very hard to do well, and Adrienne tackled it fairly adeptly. I love Young’s writing and have enjoyed everything I’ve read by her. This story felt incredibly similar to Emily Henry’s ‘The Love that Split the World’. INCREDIBLY similar, and I would be shocked if she hasn’t read those books herself, so I have to knock it half a star for originality in that regard, and for the cliche villain. But even if you’ve read that one, I still encourage you to grab this one because it’s better! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC to review!

INCREDIBLE. Adrienne Young will always be an automatic purchase and read from now on. What an incredible story about a generational curse, an unsolved murder, and the lengths that a person will go to discover themselves, save their family, and right a complex history of wrongs. Holy cannoli - what a ride. I loved this story so much. It’s one of those reads that will stick with me - and likely remain one of my favorites for 2024!
I highly recommend this!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!!

3.5 stars. I am ordinarily a big Adrienne Young fan and while I overall didn't dislike The Unmaking of June Farrow, it was not my favorite book of hers. I found myself struggling to connect to June and her story. That could partially be because I didn't care much for Eamon and the constant unwillingness of everyone to tell June anything. I think the time travel trope has a tendency to be very hit or miss but the book is saved by Young's writing style. Her descriptions of a place are so evocative that I can always picture it clearly.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc!

I loved this one so much!! The flower farm setting was a cottage core dream and right up my alley. The time traveling aspect was a bit confusing at first but once I caught on it was a beautifully complex masterpiece. The mystery intertwined with the strong family love was just such a perfect balance for me. I felt all the things the characters were feeling and felt very invested in this story.

I think I'm majorly in the minority here, but this book just didn't jive with me. I can see why it would be so popular - it's well-written and the concept of time travel is explored in an interesting fashion - but for whatever reason I just was not invested in June's story or her family. Chalk it up to a me-thing.

I am absolutely savored The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young! The story is captivating, the writing is lovely, and Young has struck the perfect balance between fantasy and mystery. Coziness and darkness. I can’t recommend adding this to your TBR enough!

I really love Adrienne’s story telling. She’s very descriptive an atmospheric. I thought this was so unique and beautifully written. A timeless tale of love and finding yourself.

This book. Wow. I don’t think I even have words to do it justice. It was brilliant. A total masterpiece. SO well written.

It was so much more than I expected. The farther into the story I got, the more I fell in love with it. It kinda killed me that the story was complex because it made telling my husband about it a lot more difficult😂 He was a real winner though because he patiently listened as I explained all about the “curse” and time travel and the red door.

I absolutely loved the way that the author used June’s slow regaining of memories as a way to reveal slowly the missing pieces of the story. I mean, wow. There were twists and turns and it was just so good! This one was so hard to put down and I definitely want to read the rest of Adrienne Young’s books!

Content notes: there was infrequent mostly mild language and one brief relatively vague open door scene

Huge thank you to netgalley and the author for a free copy of the book in exchange for a review!

Rating: 4.5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

My Selling Pitch:
Do you want to read a cozy historical thriller that reads like every other cozy historical thriller?

It’s probably the best book on my do-not-read list, but it’s still going on my do-not-read list.

Pre-reading:
A book box pick that I know nothing about except that the cover reads cozy, and I am not a cozy girly. The special edition is lovely.

Thick of it:
So help me if this is a quirky, artsy-fartsy fuck-off Mom book- (They literally always are and I don’t know why I continue to try to read this genre.)

It’s reminding me of Starling House.

Tropes I hate: mental illness is actually just magic.

They’re 34. And they’re just friends? I don’t believe you.

I don’t trust Ida. (Sam’s unfounded paranoia for side characters continues.)

This is not my genre and I’m bored

A Sam!

This time travel is so plotholey.

I think I can see why people like this book, but it has so many things in it that I hate. I hate time travel. I hate moms. I hate children. I hate love triangles. It just all reeks of familial obligation, and I am so wildly independent and anti-that.

They’re like that’s your daughter. You owe her better, and it’s like no, that’s some other bitch’s. She didn’t push that out. She didn’t decide to have that kid.

I feel like horse people never wrap a lead rope around their hand but-

The chapter ending lines are so melodramatic.

I would feel so weird helping myself to their ingredients to make food. I don’t think they’re very well to do. Like he’s literally a farmer.

I’m assuming she killed her dad, and that’s why she went on the run.

I am not a history person at all, so this could very well be legit, but the idea of women working and having power in the 1950s is kind of foreign to me. Like I’m just thinking Madmen. Also, I don’t know what the price of pie would be but it felt wrong.

This story reads so whitewashed. It’s making me feel icky. Like farmhands in the past. In the south. Girl.

Okay, Cinderella.

tedder

This whole ‘you don’t need to know everything’ shit has gotten so old. Like this book is one big miscommunication trope, and I’m not about it.

OK cool, so I opened the book and knew exactly what had happened with her mother because it’s so fucking cliché.

For a book that’s playing with timelines, there’s really nothing to make them feel distinctly older from one another. Like she has chalk instead of an iPad but like do more?

Either Eamon died and she went back in time to undo it, or she murdered a bitch.

I feel nothing for their relationship. It’s very weird to me.

No, abandoning your family will never be brave. Babies. Are. Optional.

Oh look, I was right. I opened this book and knew the plot. I hate this book. It’s not badly written. It’s not. I just hate the genre.

Imagine knowing the future and being like I want a homesteader life, not share prices in Apple.

Post-reading:
Yeah, I hated this, but this is not my genre. This will never be my genre. I don’t think I’ve ever read a single book with a premise like this and liked it.

I think time travel is too messy and inherently plotholey to be done well.

I don’t think this book has problems with consent, but I don’t fuck with the idea that remembering something is the equivalent of living it. Memories are so inherently flawed and incorrect. What people remember is very rarely what actually happened. I think people from different timelines are still distinct and different people.

This book only has a plot because characters speak as cryptically as possible to each other. For no reason. They’re like we can’t change the future! We can write more than trust me as instructions for ourselves. We don’t have to use ambiguous pronouns. What do you mean.

There’s no explanation for how the magic got started. That will always frustrate me. The loophole explanation makes zero sense, but I also can’t be bothered to analyze it any further. I just wanna be done with this book.

Everyone in this book is a shit mom. How does it make sense that Margaret’s willing to have a child to let her be murdered? That doesn’t make any sense to me. Like it’s so she can have a granddaughter? Fuck off. Also, babies are optional. Everyone in this family is like oh we can’t have children. They’ll get cursed. So don’t. So don’t. Condoms exist. Birth control exists. Abortions exist. You do not have to have children.

And if you’re like Sam, you’re being unfair to this book, there was no possibility of you liking it because you don’t like what it was about to begin with, I will not argue with you on that. You are so correct. But I will argue that even if you like the genre, it’s still written poorly.

The writing style itself is fine. It’s whimsical. It’s romantic. It’s sentimental. It’s a little too melodramatic for my taste, but I’m a hater at my core.

However, it’s a time travel book that happens mostly in the past, and yet the time periods don’t feel distinctly different from one another. It feels like this book could happen in any time period. That’s bad. It has no thought for the political impacts of the time. There’s no sexism. There’s no racism, but this happens in the 50s in the South. The side characters serve as accessories to the Mary Sue main character. They don’t have lives separate from her. They exist solely to aid her.

The romance felt so forced to me. It never felt romantic. He’s a ponyboy Irishman. That is the definition of my type. I felt nothing. This book just asks you to assume everything. Assume they were in love and a perfect match because they got married and had a kid. Assume everyone in the family is just chill with keeping secrets and having no outside involvement. Assume the family is just totally chill keeping entirely to themselves for their entire lives. Assume everyone lives long enough to carry out this plan. Assume everyone remains able-bodied and in control of the faculties enough to carry out this plan.

The murder, which should be the most interesting thing about this story is boring and obvious. I’ll argue that if you’ve read any book in this genre before, you’ll pick this up and know what’s gonna happen.

Also, fuck me, I know I’m a Capricorn, but you’re telling me you know the future and you’re not gonna write that shit down so you don’t have to live in poverty? What do you mean. What do you mean.

If you turn your brain off and read this book just for the vibes maybe you can enjoy it. I can’t do that. I’m putting it on my do-not-read list. I don’t care.

Who should read this:
People who like historical thrillers
People who like generational family drama books

Do I want to reread this:
No

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