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Loading... Three Junesby Julia Glass
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Wonderful. Almost a five-star rating except that I just didn't connect well with the narrator in the third part.Don't let any blurbs or synopses put you off. I expected to find the whole Greece-Scotland-New York thing contrived, but it works. Also feared that it might end in a *too* neat little resolution at the end, but Glass wisely avoided the lure of the tidy. (  ) catalogthis | Nov 24, 2009 |  this book was fantastic i personally love the character potrayed by Mal .he had this aura about which had an impact on my life....ganerally the book was amazing ,the ending was a bit confusing but you managed to figure it out after a couple more trys ...Te McLeods were an intresting but lovable familly that is ironically similar to mine ( ) gibgon | Sep 17, 2009 | This is a dazzling first novel. I look forward to more from Ms. Glass. Essentially, the story is an examination of the lives and loves of a family, the McCleods, over a decade (1989-1999). Fenno, the viewpoint character for the second section, and arguably the key character in the book,, is fascinatingly complex and insightfully drawn. This book is not, as another reviewer has observed, about events; it is about characters. The storyline is very lightly drawn and the tale simply unfolds naturally with the actions and decisions of the characters. I loved it and found it almost compellingly readable. If tidiness in plotting is an issue with you, take warning. There are a number of items left unresolved at the end of the book. Some of them are made to seem potentially important as the book evolves and then are simply abandoned. Perhaps there is some symbolism here that simply escaped me. The story seems too well crafted for carelessness but the reader is left wondering what they ultimately decided to do with Dad's ashes, who the World Wad II medals found in the vase really belonged to and whether Marjorie ever sent those letters to Fenno. A bit frustrating but bearable. ( ) turtlesleap | Sep 2, 2009 | The book revolves around a Scottish family, the McLeods. The books starts out in June of 1989 with Paul McLeod, recently widowed, taking a vacation in Greece. There are flashbacks to his past life with his wife, how they met, and raising their three sons. Six years later, it's June again and Paul McLeod has just passed away. The three sons are gathered together with their wives and families in Scotland to pay homage to their father. This section is narrated by Fenno, the eldest son who is an expat and gay man living in New York City. It's during this period that Fenno starts to unravel some of their family history and family relationships are tested. He also flashes back to his past in New York and to his relationship with a gay man who is dying of AIDS. Four years later, the story is narrated by...well, I won't tell you the last narrator. So why did I like it so much? The plot of the story is pretty odd. Is there really a plot? It's really all about the characters. The story sucks you in by having Paul McLeod narrate. And you really like him. And this first part is short and then he dies. So you're already invested in the story. The second section is the longest section, narrated by Fenno, and I just fell for that character. I mean, while reading this section I loved to take the book for coffee, sit down, and just savor the book. When I finished the book I was so disappointed. Not disappointed in the ending, but sad that it ended at all. It took me awhile to read this book. I didn't rush through it, I didn't check on what book was waiting in my TBR que, I just sat and drank coffee and savored it. ( ) nycbookgirl | Sep 2, 2009 | This is my “I wish I hadn’t waited four years after buying this to read it” book of the year. Lovely voice, wonderful characters that make your insides ache for them, painstakingly well plotted. The split into three parts with three different narrators was incredibly effective, and there was a subtle beauty to the intertwined families and individual stories. The narrative structure is so good I can’t fathom the fact that this is a debut novel. Read slowly and savor it. (  ) amyrenee | May 18, 2009 | 
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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0375421440, Hardcover)Three Junes is a vividly textured symphonic novel set on both sides of the Atlantic during three fateful summers in the lives of a Scottish family. In June of 1989, Paul McLeod, the recently widowed patriarch, becomes infatuated with a young American artist while traveling through Greece and is compelled to relive the secretsorrows of his marriage. Six years later, Paul’s death reunites his sons at Tealing, their idyllic childhood home, where Fenno, the eldest, faces a choice that puts him at the center of his family’s future. A lovable, slightly repressed gay man, Fenno leads the life of an aloof expatriate in the West Village, running a shop filled with books and birdwatching gear. He believes himself safe from all emotional entanglements—until a worldly neighbor presents him with an extraordinary gift and a seductive photographer makes him an unwitting subject. Each man draws Fenno into territories of the heart he has never braved before, leading him toward an almost unbearable loss that will reveal to him the nature of love. Love in its limitless forms—between husband and wife, between lovers, between people and animals, between parents and children—is the force that moves these characters’ lives, which collide again, in yet another June, over a Long Island dinner table. This time it is Fenno who meets and captivates Fern, the same woman who captivated his father in Greece ten years before. Now pregnant with a son of her own, Fern, like Fenno and Paul before him, must make peace with her past to embrace her future. Elegantly detailed yet full of emotional suspense, often as comic as it is sad, Three Junes is a glorious triptych about how we learn to live, and live fully, beyond incurable grief and betrayals of the heart—how family ties, both those we’re born into and those we make, can offer us redemption and joy. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:20 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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