More specifically, she had no idea that the terrible, unforgivable thing she did to keep their summer fling a secret wouldn’t just ruin their friendship, but also Graham’s entire life. Now, months since the fallout, Junie and Graham spend most of their time sidestepping conversational landmines on the journey back to normalcy.
Junie is sure the strangeness between her and Graham is her biggest problem - until her mom hires Tallulah, her boyfriend’s surly teenage daughter, to work at their family café, and then announces they’ll all be moving in together at the end of the summer. The only bright spot ahead is Junie’s dad’s upcoming visit, just in time for her community theater production. And then poor turnout soon threatens that.
But when Junie starts to realize the feelings she swore to take care of last summer have lingered, saving her production and managing her hostile relationship with Tallulah might be the least of her problems. Graham isn’t just off limits - their friendship has been mended to barely withstand a breeze, and the gale force of Junie’s feelings could be just what breaks them. (Pub Date: Mar 28 2023)
Juniper will have to move farther from her friends and a whole community she loves. And right at this time, crisis establishes in her tight group of friends, and she may have causes it. Starting from how she had spent the whole previous summer making out with one of them and now they pretend it never happened. And then, people blame her for how another can't keep his girlfriends. Now she needs their help to put a play at the community theater, her last before she has to leave, they need to work together and face their cracks, at the risk of breaking.
I had a problem with this read. It's a nice story if I think of it from afar. Junie has issues, especially caused by how distant her dad has become since he left her mother and moved far from their town, and though she's been shielded from a lot of things not to increase the burden on her, she's growing up and it becomes harder to make sure things are well. I like that she finally needs to face all this, many teenagers will probably identify with it. But damn, Junie is annoying. I could relate to her situation but I had to forget it was her for that. It's not that I thought she deserved any of it, she's not bad, and there is some blaming there that is unfair. Yet, it was very hard. And when it is a YA and you don't like the main character, the story would have had to be super good to hold. It did hold me to the end but this is no supreme plot. If you exclude how dramatic the main character is and the personality traits that irked me out, the plot becomes a little too common. Well, for what the plot was, this was a good book.
I know my opinion on Junie is my own opinion, and you might love her. She does have that Pollyanna? Little Miss Sunshine? thing going on, so even I don't know why it bothered me so. It still did.
Honest review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley. Many thanks to the publisher for this opportunity.
Rating: 3 out of 5.
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