dani ༊'s Reviews > The Unmaking of June Farrow

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥3.5/5 stars

read if you like:
♡ second-chance romance (very unconventional)
♡ rich family history
♡ magical realism
♡ small town mysteries

(disclaimer: i'm writing this with a fever so if it makes no sense i'll come back and make it make sense in like a week when i'm off my deathbed)

➸ adrienne young’s first wander into the magical realism genre spells for forgetting made it abundantly clear that young had stumbled upon a genre which fit her writing like a well-tailored outfit. with the release of the unmaking of june farrow, it’s beyond a shadow of a doubt that this niche concoction of magical realism, mystery and moody small communities is precisely where she excels.

➸ curling up with this novel splayed open in your lap you can feel each stalk of tobacco whisper against your skin, smell the farrow women’s biscuits pressed between the pages and see every beautiful, indelible image young conjures up with intensely musical prose as if each passage were an excerpt from a spell book. as an immersive experience, the languid grace and rich rural atmosphere of the unmaking of june farrow is in a league of its own; it’s a sleepy quiet magic with the exception of the tense murder mystery knifing through the windblown fields of jasper and the stifling shadow cast by june’s downward spiral into madness. my dreamy-eyed attention was utterly arrested.

➸ as the ending loomed however, and stray threads were coaxed together in an attempt at neatly packaging and serving a conclusion - i felt myself being physically pulled away from the story. there was something so contrived in the final act, as if it were a puppet show i had lost myself in and now i could see the strings young was pulling and the magic had withered. perhaps some of this sense of contrivance could be attributed to the romance between june and eamon which never once felt very sincere to my mind - but there is more to it which i still can’t quite put my finger on…

➸ conclusion:
certain more fussy takes notwithstanding, young has once again cursed me to be forever enamoured of her jewel-toned words with her twisty, transportive tale, the unmaking of june farrow. perfect for those of us looking for our own doors to the impossible from the comfort of home.

thank you netgalley for the arc !