Saving June by Hannah Harrington
pages: 336
released: November 2011
publisher: Harlequin Teen
cover love: ♥

Harper Scott’s older sister has always been the perfect one so when June takes her own life a week before her high school graduation, sixteen-year-old Harper is devastated. Everyone’s sorry, but no one can explain why. When her divorcing parents decide to split her sister’s ashes into his-and-her urns, Harper takes matters into her own hands. She’ll steal the ashes and drive cross-country with her best friend, Laney, to the one place June always dreamed of going, California. Enter Jake Tolan. He’s a boy with a bad attitude, a classic-rock obsession and nothing in common with Harper’s sister. But Jake had a connection with June, and when he insists on joining them, Harper’s just desperate enough to let him. With his alternately charming and infuriating demeanor and his belief that music can see you through anything, he might be exactly what she needs. Except June wasn’t the only one hiding something. Jake’s keeping a secret that has the power to turn Harper’s life upside down again. (from Goodreads)

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 2/1/2012 ON BOOKSLIKESTARS.NET

Review:

In truth, more than half of this book didn’t WOW me. I had a hard time connecting with Harper, the main character. There was just something about her that I couldn’t latch onto. It wasn’t just her though, I had a problem with all the characters. Their dialogue was a bit Dawson Creek reminiscent, so their conversations don’t have a natural flow, it seems forced with all the wittiness. This is a road trip book, Harper is taking the ashes of her dead sister (via suicide) to California. June always wanted to go there and Harper feels like she needs to do this for her so they can have closure. Her best friend Laney is along for the ride and Jake, the mysterious boy she meets at June’s wake is the designated driver. I expected their trip from Michigan to Cali to be interesting and fun but it wasn’t so. It’s mostly them driving, taking pictures and listening to mix CDs. The places they visit and the people they meet weren’t very significant to the story, it just filler to get from one point to another.So why did I give this book 4 stars?

1) Because the last 30% of the book is where all the emotion really kicks in. This is where the author fuses you to Harper’s core and you watch her become someone else. Someone still a little broken, but someone who is also a little more whole. She can finally breathe. She spends a great deal of this book holding back everything she feels about June and death and how she feels about Jake. So when she releases her fears at the end, she gains the courage to bond with Jake and say good-bye to June in a way that no one else could. When Harper thinks about her sister killing herself, she’s sad about it but you get a sense that she was angry at her for what she did. By dying, June severed whatever hope their already torn family had. Her divorced mother, now had to deal with her perfect daughter, leaving her too. I liked that Harper had many mixed emotions about her sister’s death, it made her more realistic.

2) The music. I haven’t read many books where music was the centerpiece from start to finish. Music is coiled in and out, looped around and around every moment in the book. Hip hop, classic rock, slow rock, punk rock, disco, all types of music. Hannah Harrington, god bless her, she put a list of all the mix CD tracks at the back of the book, which I copied down so I can listen to them.

All-in-all, Saving June had a bundle of kinks but Hannah Harrington managed to work them all out by the last page because the ending was stellar! Should you read it? Hell yeah!

4