The Unmaking of June Farrow
About the book
Author: Adrienne Young
Publisher: Delacorte Press
More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.
Buy and support indie bookstores (+ I earn a small commission):
Bookshop.org (print) | Libro.fm (audio)
My Review
June Farrow is last in a long line of Farrow women, all of whom have eventually gone mad. Or so she thinks. Until she, too, begins seeing the red door…and finally goes through it.
The Unmaking of June Farrow is part sweeping time-travel, part love story, part murder mystery, and fully unputdownable. It’s the perfect book if you liked Starling House and Addie LaRue and you’re looking for a fast, immersive read that you’ll want to gobble up in one day. I also loveddd the way this centers on a matrilinear line of incredible women assumed to be mad (you know where that’s going!).
This will probably get shelved with contemporary fiction (although also historical fiction — again, time travel); it’s much more magical realism than fantasy. As with all time travel novels (and all books with magic that aren’t hardcore fantasy), you can’t wait around for the magic system’s rules or origination, because we aren’t going to get it. But if you’re just along for the ride, it’s a hell of a time.
Content and Trigger Warnings
Abandonment
Mental illness
Violence
Sexual content (not a ton)
Religious bigotry