Three Junes by Julia Glass (#22, Contemporary Literature)

I started Three Junes while I was sitting at work, on a hour break between shifts. I can get some reading done there, but generally it is sporadic and interrupted with people coming in and out, co-workers chatting me up, and the ever alluring smell of food to distract me. But, Three Junes was different. Within the first 10-20 pages I was transported to another place and everything going on around me disappeared (which I am sure Bridie did not appreciate because as I was floating in book world she got super busy).

Since that first day I have been asking myself over and over again, "What is it about this book I like so much?" I can't pinpoint it. I immediately liked the character of the father. A smart, hardworking, family man, who is still striving to learn how to express himself emotionally ( I could take some lessons!!). Then we get to investigate his life more through his three sons, specifically one in the second and third sections.

Julia Glass somehow managed to take the life of a family and weave it into a beautiful story. Their lives were not filled with excess drama, they were not typical, but they were also not off the deep end. The pages were filled with love, animosity, bickering, and relationships between male and female, brother and sister, old and young, human and animal--maybe I liked it so much because of the involvement of animals in the story. The allure of Three Junes will continue to be a mystery to me, maybe that is what makes it so great, nothing earth shattering, just life.