Carol Rifka Brunt

After the untimely death of her uncle and best friend, June has to learn how to grieve all by herself. No one expects June to be as sad as she is. The truth is secret, and shameful. June was in love with her uncle Finn. Finn was the only person that understood her and listened to her, and thought she had something to offer the world.

Now June is all alone in the house with her two workaholic parents and her overachieving sister, Greta. Greta and June used to have a good relationship but show more things have soured in recent years. Greta spends most of her time hanging out with her friends and June spends time alone in the woods pretending she's from another time.

At the center of the narrative is the portrait that Finn painted of Greta and June as he was dying. It would be his last painting, and he barely finished it. Finn was dying of AIDS and his relationship with the rest of the family was very strained following his diagnosis. By order of his sister, Finn was forbidden to see his nieces if his boyfriend was around. As a result, June grew up knowing nothing about the person closest to her uncle.

Following the funeral, Finn's boyfriend, Toby began to contact June in secret because he felt that she was the only one who missed Finn as much as he did. Through Toby, June came to understand the complicated family history that led to the wall of secrecy shrouding the life of her uncle. Getting to know Toby is helping her to know Finn better, and maybe it will even help mend the fractured relationship with Greta.

A moving story about love and the strange, dark impulses it can inspire in people. show less

This is an unforgettable mashup between a YA and an early AIDS novel. The formerly fierce friendship of sisters Greta and June falls apart when Greta, the elder, starts middle school, and June turns to her godfather and uncle, renowned artist Finn, for companionship and then, an actual real and painful crush. Greta, younger than her school peers and a raging mass of jealousy, makes everything worse at home for June, a friendless loner. When Finn gets sick, he paints one last portrait of show more Greta and June, which is discovered and treasured by the art world after his death. When Finn dies, his sister Danielle, June and Greta's mom, blames the man in the blue car who shows up uninvited at the funeral and calls him a murderer. He is Toby, Finn's lover, who has been kept secret from the sisters at Danielle’s insistence. He reaches out to June, who responds, despite the mid-1980s fear of catching AIDS by sitting next to someone who has it. The portrait itself functions almost like a character in the plot. Every family secret and grievance, even the ones going back to Danielle and Finn’s childhood, and the details of Finn and Toby’s meeting, rings true and June is an impressive heroine for all time.

Quotes:

“All my parents’ music came from greatest hits albums. It was like the thought of getting even one bum track was too much for them to handle.”

“When you have a watch, time is like a swimming pool. There are edges and sides. Without a watch, time is like the ocean, sloppy and vast.”

“It’s the most unhappy people who want to stay alive, because they think they haven’t done everything they want to do. They think they haven’t had enough time. They feel like they’ve been shortchanged.” show less

My heart!!!! From beginning to end I loved this book. Every flawed character was perfection and I never wanted this story to end. Fourteen year old June's best friend in the world is her Uncle Finn. When he dies of AIDS she is heartbroken and no one, not even her sister or her mother, understand what she's going through. They all just want to move on. When Finn's "special friend" reaches out June reluctantly agrees to meet him. Soon they realize how much they both loved the same bond and show more they slowly start to trust each other. A dazzling coming of age tale told through art, sibling rivalry, medieval music, and more. Truly wonderful and a story I will definitely visit again! show less

This book was a tough one to get through, but kept drawing me back. It was tough because of all the FEELINGS in it. Teenaged sisters and their relationships with each other and others in their family; the annoyingly absentee parents; adults who should know better: all of that combined to make my stomach clench and for me to say, "Oh, no, god, don't do THAT!" in my head many times over.

People suffering with AIDS is a central theme of this book, and I think it's a sign of how far we've come, show more medically and socially, that I'd forgotten what it was like in the 80s when the HIV/AIDS epidemic began. All of the fear, the ignorance, the intolerance. I'm not implying that the world is perfect now, but it is so much better than it was then.

Regarding the characters, I kind of wanted to kick June's mom, but, on the other hand, I had to remind myself that this book was from the point-of-view of a 14-year-old girl, so not unbiased by any stretch of the imagination, and that she probably did what she thought was best at the time, working from the angle of a sister who felt abandoned by her brother. I think she mostly redeemed herself at the end.

June does a lot of really stupid things in this story but, again, what 14-year-old is completely rational all the time. I came to sympathize with Greta, though that was a hard sell. Her actions began to make more sense, and I just hope that she got the help she needed.

I highly recommend this book; just be ready for all the feels. ;)

I listened to the audiobook, and I didn't love the narrator's voice. It was a bit too breathy, and her British accent was horrible. show less