boghunden
Written on Apr 20, 2020
‘With a powerful story, characters that truly come alive, and a romance worth swooning over, Saving June is a fresh, fun, and poignant book that I couldn't tear myself away from.’ – Kody Keplinger, author of The DUFF
If she'd waited less than two weeks, she'd have been June who died in June.
But I guess my sister didn’t consider that. When sixteen-year-old Harper’s sister June, the perfect, popular, pretty one to Harper’s also-ran, commits suicide just before her high school graduation, nothing in Harper’s world makes sense anymore.
With her family falling apart, Harper has a plan – steal June’s ashes and take her sister to the one place she always wanted to go: California. Embarking on a wild road trip of impromptu gigs and stolen kisses with mysterious musician Jake, the one person who could hold answers about June, Harper’s determined to find peace for her sister. But will she find peace for herself along the way?
Praise for Hannah Harrington‘fresh, fun and poignant’ – Kody Keplinger
‘tender, funny and moving’ – Courtney Summers
‘raw, powerful, and absolutely spot-on’ – YA Reads.com
- ISBN13 9781848450950
- Publish Date 1 June 2012 (first published 1 January 2011)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher HarperCollins Publishers
- Imprint Mira Ink
- Format Paperback
- Pages 336
- Language English
- URL http://harpercollins.co.uk
Reviews
Bianca
Written on Jul 16, 2015
Some people think that a place can save them. Like if they could just be somewhere else, their lives would be totally different. They could finally be the people they always wanted to be. But to me, a place is just a place. If you really want things to change, you can make them change no matter where you are.
Alexandra
Written on Sep 6, 2013
Jyc
Written on Apr 10, 2013
Jo
Written on Aug 31, 2012
When I picked up Saving June, despite being aware that it was about travelling with the purpose of spreading Harper's dead sister's ashes, as it was a road trip book full of music references, I just assumed it would be a kind of light, summery type novel. Something I really needed. I was wrong - Saving June isn't light and summery, it's highly emotional. Yet it was absolutely what I needed.
Harper's older sister has committed suicide, and no-one knows why. There was no note, and June had everything going for her, she was beautiful, and was the nicest, seemingly happiest person around. So why kill herself? Harper is having a hard time coming to terms with it. Her mother is failing to cope, her absent father doesn't seem to care, and Harper just doesn't know what to do with all her questions, her sadness or her anger. But there's one thing she can do; June always, always wanted to live in California, but never got the chance, so, in the hopes that it will help her, Harper decides to take June's ashes to California and scatter them in the ocean along with her best friend Lanie and Jake, a mysterious guy who apparently knew June, but keeping how and why to himself.
Saving June is absolutely incredible. Harper is a brilliant character; rebellious, but because that's what's expected of her, because she can never match up to the perfection that was her older sister - yet there's no real bitterness felt towards her sister because of it. She has so many questions, questions that will never be answered because her sister is just gone. How can you deal with that? Gone, poof, willingly, without any explanation as to why. It's not sinking in as well as it should, and it's left Harper so angry. How could June just leave her? How could she be so selfish? And her guilt; how on earth is it she didn't know? Why didn't she see? Was there anything to see? Harper has a storm of emotion inside her, and no idea what to do with it. But taking her sister's remains to the one place she always wanted to be is her way of making things up to June, for not being able to help her while she was alive. Saying that, Harper is also a tough cookie, and is great at looking after herself. She has a great sense of humour with awesomely witty comebacks to the crap she gets from time to time from Jake, and is the type of character I could imagine being friends with. She's just so easily likeable.
Jake I loved from the word go. That messy hair and that glare just did it for me, as did his knowledge of music. Don't you just love a guy with a passion? He is super honest with Harper, to the point that sometimes she really dislikes him, but his honesty is what Harper needs, what helps her look at things differently, and think in ways she hadn't. Through the road trip and her conversations with Jake, Harper experiences things that help; she understands more about herself and her sister, and although they don't answer any questions, it's helps her to deal just a little bit. Jake is just awesome, and I love him.
And the music! I've never read a book which is so full of music references before, and it was just awesome! I would stop reading every now and then when an important song that meant something to a character or a certain point in the book, or was a catalyst that started a conversation or revelation, and would just Youtube and listed. Most of the time, the songs weren't really my cup of tea, but it added so much more to the reading experience. I was reading and listening, and there's something about a story talking about something I can look up that makes it that more credible. Jake talks about these songs with such knowledge and enthusiasm, that when listening to them, you can understand where he's coming from - that makes Jake seem so much more like a real person than other characters in other books normally, because he's not just talking to and educating Harper, he's also educating me, and his words resonate with me and make an impression through understanding. Oh my god, it was just awesome. And he is totally a man after my own heart, because he said some things about music that I totally agree with, and oh, I want to give him the biggest hug just for seeming to get what goes on in my head. For example:
'"What I'm trying to say is, it's just nice, I guess, knowing that someone else can put into words what I feel. That there are people who have been through things worse than I have, and they came out on the other side okay. Not only that, but they made some kind of twisted fucked-up sense of the completely senseless. They made it mean something. These songs tell me I'm not alone. If you look at it that way, music... music can see you through anything."'
P185 - emphasism my own.
Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Jake, you are awesome, and I am so going to listen to the soundtracks of the mix CDs that are included in the back of the book. I need more of this story!
I got so much from this book; the highs and the lows, the deeply emotional plot that brought me to tears, the romance that was just so sweet and so right, the music that opened my eyes... the pure enjoyment of reading such an amazing book! Saving June is going right up there with my favourites! I definitely need to read more music/road trip books, and I definitely need to read more by Hannah Harrington. I am just so completely in love with Saving June, and you need to fall in love with this book too.
Amber
Written on Nov 27, 2011
In the beginning, I found Saving June to be a very difficult book to get into. I’m unsure as to whether that’s due to the writing style or the characters themselves. I know, I’m a bad book reviewer.
That said, once the book got going it picked up, and I actually ended up feeling totally the opposite. I loved this book so much that it hurts. The last one hundred pages or so really picked up and improved and managed to hit the mark for me and made the entire book worthwhile.
Harper wasn’t the easiest character to for me relate with at the beginning of the novel, as we are total opposites. However, my view on her had done a complete 180 and I think that she was a great main character and overall I thoroughly enjoyed reading from her point of view. It was emotional and yet incredibly intriguing to read about how Harper was feeling after finding her sister dead in her car, and while I couldn’t say I knew how she felt from experience, Hannah Harrington does an excellent job of conveying her emotions through beautiful prose.
I also loved Harper's best friend, Laney, and Jake, a guy who knew June before she killed herself. They were both awesome characters, Jake in particular, and I loved the relationship that Harper had - or was building - with both of them.
The road trip overall was awesome, and despite it seeming like a light topic there were lots of deep issues thrown in along the way, the most obvious being suicide, of course. There were several scenes towards the end of the novel that caused me to burst into tears – much to the amusement of my mother – and said tears flowed until the last few pages.
The witty humour mixed in with the raw emotions was well placed and often caused me to switch from crying my eyes out to laughing in mere moments.
Saving June is a beautiful, heart wrenching debut by Hannah Harrington and I will be recommending this to everybody who wants an emotional and gripping read.
Joni Reads
Written on Sep 3, 2011
I felt an immediate connection with Harper. It wasn't exactly that I felt for her because she didn't even know what to feel. She was sad, angry, numb. Name a negative emotion and I guarantee Harper was feeling it during June's wake. Her older sister, thought by all to be happy go lucky, perfect all the time had just curled up in the backseat of her car and swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. How would you feel?
During a brief repreive from the houseful of mourners Harper runs into Jake, a mysterious boy who seems to hold a grudge against Harper though she has never seen him before in her life. Though he seemed to have known June. After a series of event unfolds Harper winds up deciding to travel cross country with Jake and her best friend Laney in an effort to come to peace with her sister's death. But she never intended to fall in love along the way.
A huge factor in this book is the saving grace of music. How it brings people together and also brings peace to the soul because a song can take every emotion you have bottled up inside and express it in a way that you yourself never could. There is even a playlist at the end of the novel of all the songs mentioned in the book. Instead of most books, which talk about bands that don't exist and songs that the reader can never hear, this book features real bands and songs that you will most likely hear if you switch on the radio right now. It makes the book more relateable that it already is.
What didn't I like about the book? Nothing major. I didn't connect well with Harper's name for some reason. You know the feeling. Where you love the character but halfway through the book you can't for the life of you remember what their name is? Yeah, it was like that for me. And that's really the only issue I had. The characters were well developed and I fell in love with each one of them. I would definitely read anything else by this author.
notajammiedodger
Written on Jul 1, 2011
Harper knows that her sister's dream was to get out of Grand Lake and move to California. After June takes her own life Harper feels as though she wasn't there enough for June, that she should have done more, and that this was somehow her fault because she didn't see it coming. Harper decides that the only way that she can make up for everything that she hasn't done for June, she is going take her to the one place that she always wanted to be, California.
I loved all of the characters in this book. I really liked Harper's character. She's so strong and will do anything for her friends. Even though Harper herself is a wreck and doesn't know how she is going to cope with anything, she is always there for Laney. I don't really know what it was that I liked so much about Harper, but I really liked her character.
Laney is Harper's best friend; the two have very different personalities but have such a wonderful friendship. They are always there for each other and will do anything for the other. Even if that means going on a sudden decision road trip to spread Harper's sister's ashes. Laney wants to be an actor, and has a strange interest in old actors who died young. Harper is the kind of girl that always sticks up for what she believes in and won't take crap from anyone. I admire that about her. It reminds me of myself, I guess that's why i like her so much.
Jake. . . Where to start. He is sweet, sexy, completely music obsessed and an arse hole. But I love him. I really do. He is on the top of my literary crush list right now. I really enjoyed all of the music references, it was really cool to read about someone who owns so much music and just loves it so much. While he may say and do some horrible things to Harper and Laney, in the end you can see why he is the way that he is, he's been through some tough times, but he really is the sweetest guy ever. And he'd do just about anything for these two girls that he's only known for like a week.
There so many things about this book, and scenes from it that I love. But I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. So I am not going to say anything. but all in all I think this book was a fantastic read! I was a little worried about it at first, I had really high expectations of this book because of all of the good things that I had heard about it, but it definitely reached, if not surpassed, my expectations. I am so glad that I got the chance to buy it when I did. This is definitely going to be one of my favourite books. I laughed, and I cried a lot throughout it. I think the writing was beautiful and it was a fantastic debut. I look forward to seeing more from Hannah Harrington.
This review is also on my blog The Confessions of a Book Nerd :)