Blog Tour: The June Boys, by Courtney C. Stevens | THE FFBC ARC Review + Favourite Quotes

Hello friends! Welcome back to Adele Is Reading! Today I’m posting my book review of

The June Boys, by Court Stevens.

I want to give a quick Thank you, to both The Fantastic Flying Book Club, and the Thomas Nelson (Fiction) publishing group for allowing me to read The June Boys (via Netgalley) in exchange for an honest review (and to share a few of my favourite quotes from the book!).

I also want to thank Court Stevens for writing The June Boys. You’ve riddled me with ugly crying.

Today’s post is actually one of the stops for the June Boys Book Blog Tour. Click here to see the other stops on The June Boys book blog tour! I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Trigger Warnings: Blood, kidnappings, death via drowning, gun mention and gun usage.

The Gemini Thief could be anyone. Your father, your mother, your best friend’s crazy uncle. Some country music star’s deranged sister. Anyone.

The Gemini Thief is a serial kidnapper, who takes three boys and holds them captive from June 1st to June 30th of the following year. The June Boys endure thirteen months of being stolen, hidden, observed, and fed before they are released, unharmed, by their masked captor. The Thief is a pro, having eluded authorities for nearly a decade and taken at least twelve boys.

Now Thea Delacroix has reason to believe the Gemini Thief took a thirteenth victim: her cousin, Aulus McClaghen.

But the game changes when one of the kidnapped boys turns up dead. Together with her boyfriend Nick and her best friends, Thea is determined to find the Gemini Thief and the remaining boys before it’s too late. Only she’s beginning to wonder something sinister, something repulsive, something unbelievable, and yet, not impossible:

What if her father is the Gemini Thief?

Release Date: March 03, 2020.
Genre: Mystery, Young Adult, Thriller.

‘You don’t owe your truths to everyone.’

1/3 of my favourite quotes from The June Boys.

I stumbled upon The June Boys via The Fantastic Flying Bookclub, and I am so glad to have applied to be a part of the The June Boys Blog Tour! Before I had even sat down to read The June Boys I had thought two things: the first being, I have this story down pat (aka, I knew what was going to happen). The second thought I had was, ‘either The June Boys is going to happen the exact way I thought it would, or the plot is going to be wildly different.’

Once I sat down to read The June Boys, I wanted to say that I knew who the number one suspect was / or was going to be. Friends, I was so wrong. I was so, so off.

I had thought that The June Boys would only have one point of view, but a few chapters in we find out that that’s not the case. Shortly into the story, we’re introduced to letters addressed to Elizabeth. We find out at the end of TJB who exactly Elizabeth is, and oof, I’m heartbroken.

I was confused for a few chapters about the Elizabeth letters but realizing that the letters are coming (technically) from the future, along side reading Thea’s story was quite mind boggling. Now that I’ve got the two separated in my mind though, I believe that I have the storylines set up.

The other point of view that we read from is Thea, the main character, who is desperately trying to find out and solve the mystery behind the Gemini Thief–who they are, etc etc. Reading from Thea’s point of view was something else. Thea is entirely genuine–like, if you could plant Thea as a person in the real world, she could totally blend in. That’s how realistic and how genuine of a character I found Thea to be. And not only that, Thea’s mind and how she processes things was so realistic and completely convincing.

Thea’s so convincing that I, in fact, had major difficulties discerning who the Gemini Thief actually is. I was right there alongside Thea trying to find out who the Gemini Thief was. That’s how convincing Thea’s thought process is, and that’s how well written the story is.

‘I want to be a bell ringer instead of a June Boy.’

2/3 of my favourite quotes from The June Boys.

There were so many unknown variables that it was hard to pinpoint who the perp actually was. By the time we realize who the Gemini Thief is, I was completely floored by the real perpetrator is.

I’m going to be completely truthful by saying that there are some moments where the story dragged on and on. It was during these moments I wished that the story would conclude soon after. Whenever these few moments happened, I felt like they don’t exactly belong to the final product.

Most of the story flows really well—and reads like an actual mystery you see or read about on the television. In fact, throughout my time reading The June Boys I was on the edge of my seat, waiting for the other ~~(proverbial)~~ shoe to drop. I always felt that there was something…else that would happen—-but in a seriously dark way—-that we wouldn’t have found out until the end of The June Boys.

In the last 20% of The June Boys I couldn’t tell who the suspect was, and by that point, I was even entertaining the idea that Thea, the main character, could have been the suspect. Which eludes to just how well written The June Boys is, to be honest.

The ending to The June Boys honestly wanted to make me weep. Ugly cry. You name it, I wanted to do it. So I ended up crying. The ending to The June Boys is so emotional, and a completely fitting end to the story.

In the end, I enjoyed reading The June Boys. Yes, there were some moments that had me iffy about the story, but I’m glad I stuck it out until the end….where I proceeded to catch a case of the Ugly Cry.