Book Review: The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young

Mogsy’s Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Delacorte Press (October 17, 2023)

Length: 336 pages

Author Information: Website

I have to say, when I was pitched this fantasy novel about a woman who risks everything to break an age-old curse on her family, the last thing I expected was a time travel story! That said though, there is plenty of magic in it as well—but the kind found in the emotional and existential exploration of fate, love, and impact of time on relationships rather than in what we think of as traditional sci-fi or fantasy elements.

In The Unmaking of June Farrow, our eponymous protagonist is a 30-something-year-old worker on a flower farm in Jasper, a small town nestled at the edges of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. All her life, June has been living in fear of the future, dreading what it has in store. That’s because she knows that one day, the madness that has plagued the women in her family will come for her too—just as it did for her mother, Susanna Farrow, right before she disappeared, leaving a very young June to be raised by her grandmother.

The fear has been with June for as long as she can remember, shaping her life choices such as her decision never to have children so that the curse would die with her. And yet, despite all her preparations, the onset of the first symptoms still managed to catch her off guard. It has been a year now since June started seeing and hearing things—faint voices calling out her name, or visions of the unexplainable, like doorways appearing out of nowhere. She believes them to be signs of the madness, but she hasn’t gotten up the courage to admit it to herself or anyone else just yet.

But then, her grandmother passes away, leaving behind a letter filled with cryptic messages and clues, including an old photo taken almost a century ago depicting a woman who looks exactly like Susanna Farrow. In fact, June is certain it is her mother. But how could that be possible? Might there be more to Susanna’s disappearance? As these questions mount, June’s hallucinations also continue, and one day, the door that materializes before her seems more solid and tangible than ever before. This time, she opens it and walks through…

While I have read several of Adrienne Young’s YA novels, The Unmaking of June Farrow is my first experience with her adult fantasy, though this is actually her second foray into the genre. Her first one, Spells for Forgetting, is one that I regretfully missed, and I told myself I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice! Truly, I am so happy I decided to pick up this book. So many authors who attempt to make the jump from YA to adult often fail to capture the maturity and depth required for a different audience, but not so in this case. What we have here is a captivating narrative that is nuanced, thematically complex, and emotionally resonant.

And yet, whenever time travel is involved, things do have the tendency to get complicated. Following June’s venture through the strange door, she finds herself transported to 1951, which at least provides some possible theories on why her mother would be in a photo dated back to the turn of the century. How this relates to June, and why the door and the voices have called her here, demands a lot more work untangling this web of mysteries, however. In this past timeline, June realizes she’s lived another life, one that she doesn’t remember because she hasn’t lived it yet. And if that sentence caused some short circuiting in your brain, can’t say I blame you! It took me a good long while to grasp the situation myself, and that was with the help of notes to help me map out the timelines and family trees and such.

After a while though, as the story reveals more about the quandary of the Farrow women while introducing a murder mystery and even a poignant romance, a greater clarity emerges as everything starts to come together. That we forgo any sort of attempt to actually explain the family “curse” is a good thing, really, seeing as the plot is already convoluted enough, not to mention how no explanations are necessary to appreciate the overall story.

For me, The Unmaking of June Farrow was a delightful departure from my experience with Adrienne Young’s YA—a surprising journey not only through time and space, but through a range of intricate emotions and familial bonds as well. While the plot may initially seem confusing, it ultimately gives way to a narrative that explores the deeper meaning of the characters’ love and intertwined destinies. I hope Young will continue to write more adult fantasy, as I eagerly await her next novel.