Novel Review: Saving June by Hannah Harrington

My cover, but I prefer this one and this one.

Genre: YA Contemporary

Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5 (a bit waver-y on the rating, could move up to four or down to three)

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Spoilers?: No.

Amazon Synopsis:

Everyone's sorry. But no one can explain why.Harper Scott's older sister, June, took her own life a week before high school graduation, leaving Harper devastated. So when her divorcing parents decide to split up June's ashes, Harper steals the urn and takes off cross-country with her best friend, Laney, to the one place June always dreamed of going—California.
Enter Jake Tolan, a boy with a bad attitude, a classic-rock obsession…and an unknown connection to June. When he insists on joining them, Harper's just desperate enough to let him. With his alternately charming and infuriating demeanor and his belief that music can see you through anything, he might be exactly what Harper needs. Except…Jake's keeping a secret that has the power to turn her life upside down—again.

On Goodreads.

Review:

I had rather high hopes for this book, and, I wouldn’t say that it totally disappointed me, but it wasn’t as good as I’d hoped it would be. It turned out to be kind of mediocre, maybe a tiny bit higher.

I found the characters interesting, including how Harper, Laney, and Jake go on a road trip together and what goes on during that, and how they all handled June’s death. I liked all of that and the interactions between all of them, but I just… didn’t feel as invested, or as into it as I would have liked. I’m not sure why, maybe this just wasn’t the book for me or something; I did overall enjoy it, I just don’t hold it very high, or feel very strongly about it, for some reason. I mean, I think the writing was good, and the characters were pretty well written, and I understood their feelings toward everything, and I really did find what happened on the road trip to be entertaining.

I think maybe I was just expecting more, or I didn’t connect with the characters very well, or something. I don’t know.

I do still want to read Harrington’s next book, Speechless, as I wanted to even before this one, because it sounds really interesting and more like my type of book, so maybe I’ll enjoy that one more.