Lina and June

LoveReading Says

Utterly absorbing, beautifully-written and rawly honest, Genevieve Wheeler’s Lina and June is a poignant love story of a very different kind. Here we met two ostensibly chalk-and-cheese young women whose hearts and souls bond and intertwine during their seminal college years. Though they remain close for some time, their lives veer onto different paths that see them divided, and then reunited in the worst of circumstances.

Cleverly told over several timelines, it explores one of the worst kinds of breakups (friendship breakups) along with identity, and handling feeling left behind. As June puts it, “What if this is what it looks like when people outgrow you?”

A chance meeting, when June comes to drunken Lina’s rescue, sees the young college students form an unlikely connection in NYC. While June is a hard-working planner who doesn’t drink, Lina is messy, spontaneous, and quick to leap into (and disrupt) June’s ordered life. Like the crazy playlists Lina makes for their road trips (for example, “Middle School Slumber Party Bangers” and “If Mel B and Kurt Cobain Had a Love Child”), the pair “inexplicably, magically worked”.

Post-college, while June moves away to work in political public relations, Lina throws herself into Paris, where her life falls apart while June handles a devastating cancer diagnosis and treatment without her former best friend, for Lina chose Paris over June. 

A relatable book for anyone who’s fallen out with a friend, or lost someone who meant the world to them, Lina and June is an incredibly honest and tender read.

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen’s lifelong love of reading and writing began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, and very much wished that witches (and Mrs Pepperpot) were real.
More reviews by Joanne Owen

About Lina and June

The second novel from Genevieve Wheeler, author of Goodreads Best Debut Novel award nominee Adelaide.

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