Book Review: The June Boys | Court Stevens

This is Book #3/20 that I read for my 20 for 2020 Challenge. It's the sixth book that I've read this year overall, but since this was published in 2020 it counts towards my 2020 challenge. I'll start out with my spoiler-free discussion, and then I'll discuss some spoiler-y stuff.

I liked this book. Looking back on it, there are a few things that were a little frustrating, but while reading it I was very excited to continue with the story and see what happens. The reviews were very mixed so I was a little scared going into it, but I enjoyed the ride of the story.

I think the pacing was a little off. The middle third got a little bit boring. It kept dragging on and wasn't really getting to where it needed to go. There wasn't really any new evidence being explored or any new discoveries. But the beginning and last thirds were very exciting, especially the last third.

Another one of my problems with this book is all of the loose ends that never got resolved in the end. It feels like the author just threw out as many clues and misleading things as possible just to throw you off on who the Gemini Thief is. Of course when they place all of these clues everywhere there's going to be a crazy twist that you didn't see coming. Because they had so many half developed plot lines everywhere. Another thing is that the group of kids (Thea, Nick, Gladys and Tank) that we follow seemed to overreact about every little piece of evidence. I'll discuss specific examples in the spoiler discussion below. These kids also didn't seem to really have any impact on figuring out the mystery. Everything just kind of happened around them. They didn't actually really do anything to help.

I do agree with some criticism that the characters are very one-dimensional. I did like Thea, because in general I wasn't too frustrated with the decisions she made. That's something that usually gets me with stories like this, is that the character keeps making dumb decisions. Thea didn't tend to do that. I really understood her thought processes and decisions for the most part. Other than Thea though, most of the other characters weren't too developed. They all could have used a little more personality, but I suppose this is more of a plot-driven story rather than character-focused. There were so many characters involved to try and plant all of these suspects everywhere, but I feel that there were too many that they all felt extremely underdeveloped. They felt like they only existed to be another suspect and twist.

A lot of people have criticism that the story was confusing because of time jumps and being told out or order. Apparently there are substantial changes between the ARC and what was published. I read the published hard cover version, so I don't know if that makes a difference (although I did see people specifically saying that they were confused when they read the same version as me). But I didn't think the story was confusing or hard to follow at all (and I get VERY easily confused while reading most books).

***SPOILER SECTION BELOW***

Above I discussed that the kids tended to overreact about evidence. Like in the beginning part of the book where they find Aulus' key in Chris' mouth. They thought that automatically meant that Thea's dad had something to do with it (because he gave Aulus that key). The only thing that that proves is that Aulus was with Chris. Another example I can think of is that they decided to bury Aulus' backpack for some reason. I don't see how the note in the backpack proved anything other that Aulus might have ran away. They just kept overreacting about evidence and jumping to conclusions which was pretty annoying.

Another note I wanted to add was about all of the characters that only existed to be a suspect for five minutes. The big twist with Ruby wasn't very effective for me, because we didn't get to know her too well. It was obvious that it would be one of the family members, but there were so many of them and they were all pretty indistinguishable. When they're all so indistinguishable, the twist obviously isn't going to be that powerful when you didn't know much about them. Tied in with the above point, I felt that they just kept used each of the clues for each person as a temporary red herring and was just completely glossed over by the end.

Here are some examples that I could think of with the unresolved plot lines and clues: Why did Ruby put that key in Chris' mouth? What was with Griff's weird, padlocked basement? Why was Chris put in the suit case, when the other two boys died also? How did the other three boys die, yet Aulus was fine? Thea mentioned at one point that one of her uncles could be the Gemini Thief because they are strong enough to capture all these boys. So how was Ruby able to kidnap these boys? Why were the principal and her husband so involved? It felt like there were so many misleading paths and planted clues to throw you off. It was a little too much.

I was very excited when they finally found Aulus and Tank. That was a very exciting and rewarding part of the book. It was getting so hopeless for the boys that I really thought that they might be killed off. I'm really glad that they were found in the end. My heart broke for Zared and Rufus though. And I thought it was a great twist, that Aulus had been imagining them the whole time after the flood.

I really liked that the book was pretty brutal for a Young Adult book. I was surprised that it went there by killing the three boys. And Thea really almost died. They didn't have the classic "oh she actually only got grazed and just passed out." Like no she really got shot twice. I just really liked that they went that far.

***END OF SPOILER SECTION***

Overall, I did quite like the book. There were some problems, but they weren't so overwhelming that it dampened my enjoyment of the book. I'd probably give this a 3.5/5 rating. Have you read this book? Let me know your thoughts down below.