Review: Goodnight June by Sarah Jio

Goodnight Moon is an adored childhood classic, but its real origins are lost to history. In Goodnight June, Sarah Jio offers a suspenseful and heartfelt take on how the "great green room" might have come to be.

June Andersen is professionally successful, but her personal life is marred by unhappiness. Unexpectedly, she is called to settle her great-aunt Ruby’s estate and determine the fate of Bluebird Books, the children’s bookstore Ruby founded in the 1940s. Amidst the store’s papers, June stumbles upon letters between her great-aunt and the late Margaret Wise Brown—and steps into the pages of American literature.

Kindle Edition, 320 pages

Expected publication: May 27th 2014 by Plume

Genre: Women's Fiction

Kristine's Thoughts:

I received an advanced readers copy of this book from Penguin Group- Plume via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The expected publication date is May 27, 2014. Thank you!

Sarah Jio has become one of my favourite authors in recent years. Her books always have stories that draw me in and keep me glued to the pages. There is always a story that links past and present that are equally interesting and entertaining. Goodnight June is no exception. It proved again why I am always so anxious to pick up one of her books.

I will admit that I never read Goodnight Moon (at least I don't think I did) as a child so I did not know anything about the children's book that is the centre of this story. I was however an avid reader as a child who always got those special certificates from the teacher for reading the most books in the class. This is why, I think, I was so drawn to this storyline. I remember the joy that books gave me in my younger years and still do.

This book is about a woman named June who inherits her aunt's bookstore and along with struggling professionally and personally, has to decide what to do with the one place that holds the greatest memories for her. During this time she finds a trail of old letters between her aunt and Margaret Wise Brown, the author of Goodnight Moon, and discovers a past that she never knew existed.

The story weaves between June's present day struggles and uncovering her Aunt Ruby's secrets. Jio does this flawlessly and kept me engaged from beginning to end. The characters were all likeable and the story flowed so smoothly that I easily finished the book in one day.

I have to comment on Bluebird's Bookstore because it was just as much a character as the people in it. The way that it was described in the story, I could easily visualise myself in it. I wish such a place existed where I lived when I grew up.

Fans of Sarah Jio will not be disappointed. It was a truly wonderful book to read as all her other ones were. My only wish is that she could clone herself so that she could write twice as many books so that I wouldn't have to wait long for the next one!

About the Author

Sarah Jio is the New York Times bestselling author of THE LAST CAMELLIA, BLACKBERRY WINTER, THE VIOLETS OF MARCH (a Library Journal Best Book of 2011), THE BUNGALOW, and MORNING GLORY, all from Penguin/Plume. Sarah is also the former health and fitness blogger for Glamour.com. She has written thousands of articles for national magazines including Redbook, O, The Oprah Magazine, Glamour, SELF, Real Simple, Fitness, Marie Claire, and many others. She has appeared as a commentator on NPR’s Morning Edition. Sarah lives in Seattle with her husband and their three young boys.

Website-http://www.sarahjio.com/  

Twitter-sarahjio 

Facebook-https://www.facebook.com/sarahjioauthor?fref=ts