Review of The June Boys by Court Stevens

The June Boys by Court Stevens

3.43 out of 5 Stars

~ Thank you to Thomas Nelson and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review ~

While the formatting of the version I read this in was horrible, The June Boys was fairly good. It wasn't the most thrilling mystery I've ever read, but I was still intrigued enough to see it through. What The June Boys did best was give me strong atmospheric near-summery vibes, but there were moments every now and then that just didn't make logical sense to me. (Would an FBI agent really give the kids that much access, even as a relation?) It was just a little bit creepy. It had great emotional ideas behind it. It had an answer to the mystery that I enjoyed. I just wish I had a little bit more of all those things than what was given in the book.

Spoilers Below

Plot:
Personally, I don't think I'm the best authority as to if this mystery was predictable or not because I just let myself get dragged along for the ride without trying to piece it together. It was a strange way to read a mystery, but I didn't have the brain capacity at the time to try to engage more with the text. That being said, Welder's reveal at the end was a good one. It wasn't something that I saw coming and I enjoyed how it all came together as well as how it was all resolved after Welder dies.

Audiobook Cover

The concept for this book seems unique to me as well. Albeit, I don't read a lot of thrillers or mysteries, so I could be very off on this point. But the structure of the serial kidnappings and then breaking down Welder's psychology at the end are things that I don't think I've come across too frequently in pop culture, let along a YA book. I've maybe seen something like this in an episode of Criminal Minds, so I really enjoyed it because I haven't seen something specifically like this before.


Characters:
Thea: I feel like I couldn't really get a grasp on Thea's character. There were times that I thought she was so incredibly strong, even with the horrible things happening around her. But then there were times that I though she was a complete idiot. And especially given her role in the story as Aulus's cousin and one of the ones really out there constantly trying to find him, this got to be really frustrating at times. It was like I couldn't rely on her to make any decisions.

Nick: I liked Nick. He wasn't the greatest, but he wasn't completely flat either. He and Tank felt a little bit too much like stock characters to me, but I think in Nick's situation, it worked because it was twisted from the kidnappings. I really, really, wish there was a more in depth exploration of his relationship with Thea too because he's a full-time student and I would just love to know what his thoughts were on starting a relationship with someone because a loved one they had in common was kidnapped. I would love to know more of Thea's thoughts on this too.

Aulus: Aulus was easily my favorite character even though we saw him the least out of all the others. My heart hurt for him and his chapters were so sad, yet so hopeful that I couldn't help but feel the strongest about him. He was the tragedy, and even though he lived, his whole arc throughout the story was still horribly horribly tragic, and I think it was really well done.


Writing:
I really enjoyed the two points of view here. The formatting was so incredibly frustrating for Aulus's perspective because there would be random breaks and blank pieces of notebook paper and the images wouldn't line up. . . it wasn't pretty. Hell, it wasn't even readable at times. But I really enjoyed his perspective of things. It was a little confusing when Tank was in both his chapters as well as Thea's, but by around 50-60% of the way through I had figured out what was going on, and it just added to the suspense for me.

In Thea's chapters, I wish the writing brought us closer to the characters. There are clearly strong emotional ties between the characters driving the story forward, but it was all kept at a distance from me as a reader. I don't think this is necessarily because it was third person, but the narration in Thea's chapters was almost clinical at times. Her relationship with Nick, for example, I really wanted more from, and not just because I'm a sucker for a romance. There are glimpses of the bond that they've formed out of this tragedy but they're so random and objectively portrayed that it was hard to attach onto that emotion. This connection though ends up being important because they go through their own doubts about their relationship and need to completely trust each other at the end to find Aulus and Tank. It is an interesting relationship that was born out the loss of Aulus, and yet, it was deeply explored at all because the reader is kept so distant from the characters.

The June Boys was a nice mystery to break up my reading patterns. Despite the things that I couldn't suspend my disbelief about, I enjoyed myself while reading it. It was a great atmospheric book for a rainy day, I just wished I could connect to the characters some more.

Thanks for reading!