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June First
Want to know what happens to a man who barely claws his way out of a tragedy, only to fall right into the arms of the one girl in the world he can never have?
Another tragedy, that's what.
When I was six years old, my father made a choice that altered the course of my entire life. Because of what he did, the only girl I ever loved became the only girl I couldn’t have.
In a lot of ways, I did have her; I had her first steps, her first words, her first smile. I had her milestones, her heartbreaks, her dreams. I had her heart so woven in with mine, I didn’t know where she ended, and I began.
Only, as the years pressed on, lines became blurred—and the blurrier the line, the easier it is to cross.
They say tragedy comes in threes. For me, that was true. The first one changed me, the second one broke me, and the third one healed me.
But at the center of all that tragedy, there is a love story. And at the center of that love story, there is June.
Another tragedy, that's what.
When I was six years old, my father made a choice that altered the course of my entire life. Because of what he did, the only girl I ever loved became the only girl I couldn’t have.
In a lot of ways, I did have her; I had her first steps, her first words, her first smile. I had her milestones, her heartbreaks, her dreams. I had her heart so woven in with mine, I didn’t know where she ended, and I began.
Only, as the years pressed on, lines became blurred—and the blurrier the line, the easier it is to cross.
They say tragedy comes in threes. For me, that was true. The first one changed me, the second one broke me, and the third one healed me.
But at the center of all that tragedy, there is a love story. And at the center of that love story, there is June.
17 pages, Audible Audio
First published May 13, 2022
About the author
Jennifer Hartmann
29 books18.6k followersJennifer Hartmann resides in northern Illinois with her own personal romance hero and three children. When she is not writing angsty love stories, she is likely pondering all the ways she can break your heart and piece it back together again. She enjoys sunsets (because mornings are hard), bike riding, traveling, bingeing Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns, and that time of day when coffee gets replaced by wine. She loves tacos. She also really, really wants to pet your dog.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 6,347 reviews
May 17, 2022
5 stars
I’m so glad I found Jennifer Hartmann’s books this year. Her writing is so fantastic. June and Brant’s love story is one that spans years. Basically since June was born. I know that sounds odd, but it really isn’t. It just works for them.
Brant and June grew up together. June’s older brother Theo and Brant were the best of friends and after a tragedy in Brant’s family, the Bailey family took him in. This isn’t your typical forbidden romance. It is so much deeper than that. It’s not tawdry, but meant to be.
This is a book that truly hit me in my feels. I cried so much, but I also smiled and laughed. I fell in love with these characters and their story. This is an unforgettable and unputdownable romance. I highly recommend it!
June always feels like a new beginning.
I’m so glad I found Jennifer Hartmann’s books this year. Her writing is so fantastic. June and Brant’s love story is one that spans years. Basically since June was born. I know that sounds odd, but it really isn’t. It just works for them.
Brant and June grew up together. June’s older brother Theo and Brant were the best of friends and after a tragedy in Brant’s family, the Bailey family took him in. This isn’t your typical forbidden romance. It is so much deeper than that. It’s not tawdry, but meant to be.
This is a book that truly hit me in my feels. I cried so much, but I also smiled and laughed. I fell in love with these characters and their story. This is an unforgettable and unputdownable romance. I highly recommend it!
“Nothing is impossible when two people love each other.”
September 1, 2022
I’m uncomfy.
65% of this book I couldn’t tell if the author was trying to convince the reader or themselves that this wasn’t grooming.
I don’t think Brandt had any sort of malicious intent and he did let June live her life while trying to fight his feelings BUT IT JUST FELT SO GROSS 🤢
“I was born yours” perhaps an endearing thing to say to someone who WASN’T raised as your brother.
Lastly, I was deeply disturbed by the fact she saved her virginity for her “brother”.
65% of this book I couldn’t tell if the author was trying to convince the reader or themselves that this wasn’t grooming.
I don’t think Brandt had any sort of malicious intent and he did let June live her life while trying to fight his feelings BUT IT JUST FELT SO GROSS 🤢
“I was born yours” perhaps an endearing thing to say to someone who WASN’T raised as your brother.
Lastly, I was deeply disturbed by the fact she saved her virginity for her “brother”.
June 6, 2022
4.5 Stars
Overall Opinion: This was better than I was expecting! I also think it wasn’t as much of a tearjerker as I was expecting either. I tried really hard not to get my hopes up with all the raving reviews, so I basically skimmed them and went in blind. I’d recommend anyone else to do the same. This has the story that covers ~30 years and how their relationship became so meant to be and controversial at the same time. I liked that. I also liked to see the mess and to know that while I liked the characters, I understand that they are not perfect — as nobody is! I also have to say that it ended amazingly!! It seems like lately I’m a broken record about how underwhelming endings are in the books I review, so I am happy to report that this gave me some great closure and an awesome epilogue! My only gripe (and the only reason for the .5 star off) is that I would’ve liked to experience them working on fixing the damage they had done with the family. This is all off page, and I think it would’ve added a ton to include that. Otherwise, I really liked this!
*Be sure to check out my trigger spoiler tag below if you’re concerned about safety*
Brief Summary of the Storyline: This is June and Brant’s story. Brant faces a huge tragedy when he is six and ends up moving in with his best friend, Theo, after loosing both of his parents. Theo has a brand new little sister, June, that Brant instantly loves and finds comfort in during his traumatic time. Through the years, Brant grows up inseparable from Theo and June. When someone points out that June and Brant might feel a different kind of love for one another, it rocks Brant’s world and makes him start to see June in a different light. Feelings that were never exposed now are exposed, and after a eventful night they are forever changed. There are some sweet moments, some tragedy and sad moments, and some sexy times…and they get a HEA ending.
Point Of View (POV): This alternated between Brant (mainly) and June’s POV. There is one part that is in Theo’s POV.
Overall Pace of Story: Good. I never skimmed and I thought it flowed well.
Instalove: Kind of. Brant fell in love with June almost instantly when he first meets her. She grew up loving him.
H (Hero) rating: 4 stars. Brant. I liked him. I liked how he always put the h first and was so protective of her even when he was young.
h (heroine) rating: 4 stars. June. I liked her too. I appreciated how she loved the H and how she fought for their relationship.
Sadness level: Moderate. I shed a few tears but never needed any tissues and definitely didn’t cry as much as I had expected to after reading/skimming some reviews.
Push/Pull: Yes
Heat level: Good. They have some good tension, chemistry, and scenes -- but not so much it takes away from the story.
Descriptive sex: Yes
OW (Other Woman)/OM (Other Man) drama: Yes, but mild
Sex scene with OW or OM: No
Cheating: No
Separation: Yes
Possible Triggers: Yes
Closure: This ends with great closure and what I would easily call a HEA ending !
Safety: This one is probably Not Safe for most safety gang readers
Overall Opinion: This was better than I was expecting! I also think it wasn’t as much of a tearjerker as I was expecting either. I tried really hard not to get my hopes up with all the raving reviews, so I basically skimmed them and went in blind. I’d recommend anyone else to do the same. This has the story that covers ~30 years and how their relationship became so meant to be and controversial at the same time. I liked that. I also liked to see the mess and to know that while I liked the characters, I understand that they are not perfect — as nobody is! I also have to say that it ended amazingly!! It seems like lately I’m a broken record about how underwhelming endings are in the books I review, so I am happy to report that this gave me some great closure and an awesome epilogue! My only gripe (and the only reason for the .5 star off) is that I would’ve liked to experience them working on fixing the damage they had done with the family. This is all off page, and I think it would’ve added a ton to include that. Otherwise, I really liked this!
*Be sure to check out my trigger spoiler tag below if you’re concerned about safety*
Brief Summary of the Storyline: This is June and Brant’s story. Brant faces a huge tragedy when he is six and ends up moving in with his best friend, Theo, after loosing both of his parents. Theo has a brand new little sister, June, that Brant instantly loves and finds comfort in during his traumatic time. Through the years, Brant grows up inseparable from Theo and June. When someone points out that June and Brant might feel a different kind of love for one another, it rocks Brant’s world and makes him start to see June in a different light. Feelings that were never exposed now are exposed, and after a eventful night they are forever changed. There are some sweet moments, some tragedy and sad moments, and some sexy times…and they get a HEA ending.
Point Of View (POV): This alternated between Brant (mainly) and June’s POV. There is one part that is in Theo’s POV.
Overall Pace of Story: Good. I never skimmed and I thought it flowed well.
Instalove: Kind of. Brant fell in love with June almost instantly when he first meets her. She grew up loving him.
H (Hero) rating: 4 stars. Brant. I liked him. I liked how he always put the h first and was so protective of her even when he was young.
h (heroine) rating: 4 stars. June. I liked her too. I appreciated how she loved the H and how she fought for their relationship.
Sadness level: Moderate. I shed a few tears but never needed any tissues and definitely didn’t cry as much as I had expected to after reading/skimming some reviews.
Push/Pull: Yes
Heat level: Good. They have some good tension, chemistry, and scenes -- but not so much it takes away from the story.
Descriptive sex: Yes
OW (Other Woman)/OM (Other Man) drama: Yes, but mild
Sex scene with OW or OM: No
Cheating: No
Separation: Yes
Possible Triggers: Yes
Closure: This ends with great closure and what I would easily call a HEA ending !
Safety: This one is probably Not Safe for most safety gang readers
May 4, 2022
MY REVIEW AND OTHERS: can also be found on my blog: ➽ KITTY KATS CRAZY ABOUT BOOKS
📚 '𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 ' 📚 Is a full length stand-alone coming of age, forbidden romance book by author 'jennifer Hartmann' Spoken in 'Dual perspectives.'
Brant and June will burrow in your hearts, stealing your heart beats...
I crAzy loved this but feel like it was a wee bit too long as some chapters not a lot really happened, though it delivered exactly what this author was after, and that was the dynamics of these characters. I also feel that this is by far one of her best to date, her use of words, how it flowed, and her touch of heartbreak she threw at us completed this book perfectly, she's becoming renowned for her little achy twists she blindsides us with get me every time.
This was written so beautifully and touched me where it should. Everything this author put into this book I felt right down to my soul, the feels came at me from that very first chapter, the swoony moments were executed perfectly, and the heartbreak threw me off kilter, then throw in these characters and they were perfection.
You need to go into this one blind with a box of tissues at the ready..
February 14, 2026
This review will be done with a series of chronological images because.... reasons.
5 stars whatever HE NEVER SAW HER AS A SISTER I DO NOT CARE THEY BELONGED TOGETHER 😭😭 God this was so angsty and forbidden and filled with tension THERE WAS ACTUALLY NO WAY I WOULD NOT EAT THIS BOOK UP😭
__________________________________________________________
pre-read:
If you hear a distant wail, that's Laura screaming 😅 This will be my last romance for a month probably🙂↕️ tbh I've been in a romance slump since BoT 😩
5 stars whatever HE NEVER SAW HER AS A SISTER I DO NOT CARE THEY BELONGED TOGETHER 😭😭 God this was so angsty and forbidden and filled with tension THERE WAS ACTUALLY NO WAY I WOULD NOT EAT THIS BOOK UP😭
__________________________________________________________
pre-read:
If you hear a distant wail, that's Laura screaming 😅 This will be my last romance for a month probably🙂↕️ tbh I've been in a romance slump since BoT 😩
May 19, 2022
I love this author’s other book, Still Beating. So, I’m not sure what happened with this book. I’m confused by all the positive reviews. My conclusion is that a lot of people think that if a book makes you cry, that means it’s good.
This book has a lot of similarities to Still Beating: In that one, the characters are overcoming trauma (being kidnaped by a serial killer) and their relationship is taboo (the hero was engaged to the heroine’s sister).
Similarly, in this book, the characters are overcoming trauma And, their relationship is taboo .
So, why did these tropes work in Still Beating, but not in this book? Because that one was so harrowing, the HEA felt hard-earned, and satisfying. The emotions didn’t feel sappy, just raw. Here, this book feels like a maudlin Lifetime movie. I like angst, but this isn’t angst, it’s cloyingly sentimental melodrama.
And, the pace is SO slow. We go through their entire lives from the heroine’s birth to when she’s 30, and we spend half the story on boring minutiae of their childhood. The main point from their younger years is that they were close, and the hero was the heroine’s protector. We don’t need 300 pages to understand that! Torment: Part One is a much darker (and better) story with a similar taboo relationship, and that one manages to capture how it changes through their childhood in a MUCH better way that doesn’t feel snail-paced.
There are also parts where the hero narrates from the future looking back on his life, saying things like “Little did I know, she’d soon have another reason to cry…” Having a sign post saying, “A BAD THING WILL SOON HAPPEN!” before the thing happens is laughably childish storytelling. And, it made the plot feel anticlimactic, since I was like, “Wait, THIS is what he dropped that ominous hint about? That’s all?”
This had a few other similarities to Still Beating, too, that worked better in that.
I’m glad this author gave us Still Beating, but I will not read any of her future works. If you’re a fan of Nicholas Sparks type stuff, you might enjoy this, but it’s a No from me.
This book has a lot of similarities to Still Beating: In that one, the characters are overcoming trauma (being kidnaped by a serial killer) and their relationship is taboo (the hero was engaged to the heroine’s sister).
Similarly, in this book, the characters are overcoming trauma And, their relationship is taboo .
So, why did these tropes work in Still Beating, but not in this book? Because that one was so harrowing, the HEA felt hard-earned, and satisfying. The emotions didn’t feel sappy, just raw. Here, this book feels like a maudlin Lifetime movie. I like angst, but this isn’t angst, it’s cloyingly sentimental melodrama.
And, the pace is SO slow. We go through their entire lives from the heroine’s birth to when she’s 30, and we spend half the story on boring minutiae of their childhood. The main point from their younger years is that they were close, and the hero was the heroine’s protector. We don’t need 300 pages to understand that! Torment: Part One is a much darker (and better) story with a similar taboo relationship, and that one manages to capture how it changes through their childhood in a MUCH better way that doesn’t feel snail-paced.
There are also parts where the hero narrates from the future looking back on his life, saying things like “Little did I know, she’d soon have another reason to cry…” Having a sign post saying, “A BAD THING WILL SOON HAPPEN!” before the thing happens is laughably childish storytelling. And, it made the plot feel anticlimactic, since I was like, “Wait, THIS is what he dropped that ominous hint about? That’s all?”
This had a few other similarities to Still Beating, too, that worked better in that.
I’m glad this author gave us Still Beating, but I will not read any of her future works. If you’re a fan of Nicholas Sparks type stuff, you might enjoy this, but it’s a No from me.
May 16, 2022
Jennifer Hartmann penned an exceptionally unique story with every emotion digging its claws into your heart. June First is an unforgettable masterpiece!
September 14, 2026
5⭐🌈
"There are worse things than loving the wrong person. And that's losing them."
This was the most beautiful, heart-wrenching love story I have read this year. I started crying at chapter 1 and didn't stop the whole way through 😭 I just wanted a fun little love story. Why did you have to do this to me Jennifer?? 😭
I just wanted to say that I can see why this book isn't for everyone, but it was absolutely for me. 🥹
June and Brant's love story is so incredibly beautiful and yet heartbreaking at the same time. No one can tell me that they aren't soulmates, destined for each other in every universe. These two overcame every single hurdle and challenge life threw at them and still came out the other side ok 🥹 The slow burn was perfection. The yearning was perfection. Every. Single. Thing. Was. Perfection.
Also, what happened to that one character. WTFFFF DUDE 😭 That was not ok at all!
"It's a good day to save someone" fml 💔
I have to stop now otherwise I'm going to cry again (happy tears i swear 😭) so let me just put some quotes below because you best believe I was highlighting the ship out of this book.
"Passion is meaning. Passion is purpose. And tragedy is simply the risk we take in order to experience it."
"I don't want to chase my dream because it's not a dream without you in it."
"We'll fly over the rainbow together one day. Just you and me. I'll wait for you, Junebug. I'll wait forever."
"But you have a whole new life" "You're my whole life."
"Never underestimate a man willing to wait forever for the woman he loves."
"Look for me over the rainbow Brant. This Junebug will be flying high."
" I love you so much it fucking hurts."
"How much?"
"To the moon and back."
"That's not enough..."
"Over the rainbow and back again."
"That's better."
pre-read:
Forbidden, friends-to-lovers romance you say? Curious to see what this book has in store for me 🧡🤞🏼
"There are worse things than loving the wrong person. And that's losing them."
This was the most beautiful, heart-wrenching love story I have read this year. I started crying at chapter 1 and didn't stop the whole way through 😭 I just wanted a fun little love story. Why did you have to do this to me Jennifer?? 😭
I just wanted to say that I can see why this book isn't for everyone, but it was absolutely for me. 🥹
June and Brant's love story is so incredibly beautiful and yet heartbreaking at the same time. No one can tell me that they aren't soulmates, destined for each other in every universe. These two overcame every single hurdle and challenge life threw at them and still came out the other side ok 🥹 The slow burn was perfection. The yearning was perfection. Every. Single. Thing. Was. Perfection.
Also, what happened to that one character. WTFFFF DUDE 😭 That was not ok at all!
"It's a good day to save someone" fml 💔
I have to stop now otherwise I'm going to cry again (happy tears i swear 😭) so let me just put some quotes below because you best believe I was highlighting the ship out of this book.
"Passion is meaning. Passion is purpose. And tragedy is simply the risk we take in order to experience it."
"I don't want to chase my dream because it's not a dream without you in it."
"We'll fly over the rainbow together one day. Just you and me. I'll wait for you, Junebug. I'll wait forever."
"But you have a whole new life" "You're my whole life."
"Never underestimate a man willing to wait forever for the woman he loves."
"Look for me over the rainbow Brant. This Junebug will be flying high."
" I love you so much it fucking hurts."
"How much?"
"To the moon and back."
"That's not enough..."
"Over the rainbow and back again."
"That's better."
pre-read:
Forbidden, friends-to-lovers romance you say? Curious to see what this book has in store for me 🧡🤞🏼
May 11, 2022
If slow burn had a poster child, this book would be it. I had to put down the book frequently to catch my breath and wipe my tears a lot. My utmost favourite trope - Forbidden/Tabboo, by my newest Author im obsessed with it's a perfect combination and I was giddy with excitement when the book landed on my kindle. It's the saddest-sweetest story told in the sweetest-saddest way.
Book weeps in bereavement of love so forbidden, the characters go out of their way in the opposite direction.
"Forbidden. Illicit. Scandalous.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The ache of wanting the unsaid, that resides in deepest parts of the hearts of Brant Elliott & June Bailey, where no sunshine can reach to give it growth. Their love is enveloped in darkness, becoming one with unresolved sins.
I cried bucket loads throughout. I bet the pages are soggy with my hot tears .
"I let it eat me up inside like battery acid, eroding my skin and gnawing at my bones. It felt like a disease. A cancer, rotting me from the inside out. "
I've never seen agonizing yearning so acute, it punctured a hole in my soul. Hartmann roasts them alive on a slow turning pit, enhancing and prolonging their distress tenfold.
I've never wanted the main lead to come closer and end up together, as badly as I've wanted Elliott and his Junebug.
Throughout the book, Torment is the dominant emotion. Hartmann excels at writing stories steeped in anguish and heartache like none other. But this book is pure affliction from page one to the last.
Midway through,to twist the knife even further, she turns our worlds upside down. As if we didn't have enough to cry over, she creates scenarios that elicit ugly cry of the kardashian proportions.
You've been warned. It's not pretty at all!!
To say that the book took a toll on me would be the understatement of the year.
Three unsullied, pure hearts start their life together. Bound by an invisible string of sibling Iove, Theo, June & Elliott are as innocent and godly as they come. Somewhere between childhood and adult life, the entangled lives get messy and unidentifiable. Or maybe the world isnt ready to label it, so they remain in relationship limbo.
"Lines were starting to blur. And if there’s anything in this world that can mess a man up inside and drive him to the brink of insanity, it’s a blurred line."
Hartmann makes them earn their validation. Puts them through unimaginable pain to accept their destiny and therein lies the beauty of this wholesome love story.
A standing ovation for this brilliant author who's destined to be the next B-I-G thing
"Over the Rainbow dress, where skies are blue. Where dreams come true."
5 stars for Rehabilitation Of Hearts
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Book weeps in bereavement of love so forbidden, the characters go out of their way in the opposite direction.
"Forbidden. Illicit. Scandalous.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The ache of wanting the unsaid, that resides in deepest parts of the hearts of Brant Elliott & June Bailey, where no sunshine can reach to give it growth. Their love is enveloped in darkness, becoming one with unresolved sins.
I cried bucket loads throughout. I bet the pages are soggy with my hot tears .
"I let it eat me up inside like battery acid, eroding my skin and gnawing at my bones. It felt like a disease. A cancer, rotting me from the inside out. "
I've never seen agonizing yearning so acute, it punctured a hole in my soul. Hartmann roasts them alive on a slow turning pit, enhancing and prolonging their distress tenfold.
I've never wanted the main lead to come closer and end up together, as badly as I've wanted Elliott and his Junebug.
Throughout the book, Torment is the dominant emotion. Hartmann excels at writing stories steeped in anguish and heartache like none other. But this book is pure affliction from page one to the last.
Midway through,to twist the knife even further, she turns our worlds upside down. As if we didn't have enough to cry over, she creates scenarios that elicit ugly cry of the kardashian proportions.
You've been warned. It's not pretty at all!!
To say that the book took a toll on me would be the understatement of the year.
Three unsullied, pure hearts start their life together. Bound by an invisible string of sibling Iove, Theo, June & Elliott are as innocent and godly as they come. Somewhere between childhood and adult life, the entangled lives get messy and unidentifiable. Or maybe the world isnt ready to label it, so they remain in relationship limbo.
"Lines were starting to blur. And if there’s anything in this world that can mess a man up inside and drive him to the brink of insanity, it’s a blurred line."
Hartmann makes them earn their validation. Puts them through unimaginable pain to accept their destiny and therein lies the beauty of this wholesome love story.
A standing ovation for this brilliant author who's destined to be the next B-I-G thing
"Over the Rainbow dress, where skies are blue. Where dreams come true."
5 stars for Rehabilitation Of Hearts
Follow me on:
January 30, 2026
sadly, this just wasn’t for me. i really wanted to like this more, but i was so incredibly uncomfortable a lot of the time that i couldn’t get into the romance at all - despite the book having some solid emotional beats around a few things outside of the love story arc. it also felt like it was never going to end 😭, but i was too stubborn to dnf. plus, i was hoping something would shift and i’d suddenly become obsessed - but that never happened.
this won’t be a venom-laced review (or much of any review really), but more of a wordy reflection. to be frank - i probably shouldn’t have read this book to begin with and along the way, i considered leaving it unrated if i managed to finish it. i knew going in that it was built on the type of premise that i typically struggle with and try not to read much of at all, but i wanted to believe that this one would be an exception like something else i read and loved last year that shares some parallels (plus june first came highly recommended to me so i wanted to try), but the execution did not feel remotely the same as what i’ve liked in the past.
some of the things that most bothered me are matters up to interpretation and your personal taste. that can be said about almost any book but i feel it extra hard on this one. i’ll share some context for my feelings, but know that even with my initial reservations, i did try to go into this with an open mind and i was truly hoping for a much different outcome than a rating this low. this is why i almost left this unrated tbh - especially when i realized during the read that i wasn’t the target audience and had no business doing all this 😭. and so, i don’t want to pen a negative diatribe about it - but i will put down the gist of why this didn’t work for me.
firstly, pseudo-familial forbidden romances can be very dicey for my taste, so i don’t read them often - but that’s not where the buck ends with this one nor am i saying i didn’t love this on that basis alone. there have been a few that i’ve enjoyed, mainly with a later-in-life step or foster relation. however, these kinds of romances are not my typical go-to. secondly, while i do enjoy an age gap trope, my usual exclusionary criteria is to avoid ones where there’s a pseudo-familial dynamic because i anticipate two things being par for the course:
a) there potentially being a pre-existing relationship before the romance kicks in from when the younger mc was a child, because of the familial connection and the fact that there’s a younger person in the pair (even if this timeline is not depicted at length on-page, i expect it will be referenced at a minimum if it exists in the story); and
b) the older mc having a more than negligible amount of influence / power over the younger mc stemming from the pseudo-familial relationship (established trust, familiarity, familial dependence, etc). i do seem to love the word familial, don’t i? 🙃. theoretically, this can create an ideal environment for grooming to thrive.
both these things together end up unsettling me when i am meant to read about mcs as love interests and in explicit situations, when there’s all this history from when at least one character was a child and the relationship is being transitioned out of “innocence” into something that’s…not.
now, knowing this upfront is why i say i probably shouldn’t have picked this one up to begin with as i was not in the potential target audience. i really wanted to believe though 😭. so for this reason, i’m not going to get negative. i just want to jot down some additional (non-spoilery) context:
in this specific story, both mcs start out as children but the mmc is 6 years older. at the beginning of the book, the mmc is orphaned at 6 and legally adopted by the fmc’s biological family right around the time that she was born. brant and june are raised alongside one another as siblings. while the story tried to keep conveying that brant had a personal limitation on calling any of the baileys family-style nomenclature, june still calls him her brother well into her late teens. there are multiple chapters written from both mcs’s povs at various ages below 16, depicting their “connection” and degrees of fixation and possessiveness / protectiveness toward each other, and of course beyond those years as well.
now, even if the adoptive sibling trope remained a construct in the story, there was still a chance i could have liked this, even if not my usual preference, IF some fundamentals were altered. if there weren’t parts of the book written from when the fmc and mmc are as young as a newborn and 6 y/o respectively, but rather, the story kicked off around teenhood or older, without too much narrative around the characters sharing a home life from a very young age (or even a later-in-life adoption would have been ideal for me) AND if they were both around the same age without the 6-year gap, it would have made a huge difference for me.
what ended up happening here was that several trains of thought in inner monologues, words exchanged between the mcs and actions that take place in their respective povs at points in the timeline when one or both of the characters were minors, and several things beyond when the mmc was a young man but the fmc was still a teenager left me ill at ease. there were even moments after both characters were over 18 that still left me disconcerted in the way in which they were executed (including language used in the writing) - and even more specifically, advantages being taken when the younger mc was drunk or in vulnerable situations. in these moments, my instincts are wired to hope an “older brother” will be there to protect and shield instead of contributing to or encouraging situations that would lead to proximity and eventual sexual activity. the dynamic coming from the age gap and older/younger pseudo-sibling relationship made me feel very uncomfortable in how these things went down and how the romance was ultimately developed. i definitely didn’t love brant’s influence over and pre-occupation with june from when she was a baby either, especially knowing where the story was going and me not being able to stop viewing them through the lens of being family and him an older brother figure to her that she herself referred to as such until, as i said, well into her late teens. while brant refused to “see” or call june his sister since he was young (or the other baileys “mom”, “dad”, “brother”), he DID use the sister term when it was convenient for him, one specific occasion coming to mind when he tried to throw the scent off someone questioning him about his pre-occupation with june and it looking inappropriate to the side character doing the questioning.
unfortunately, it’s just the combination of all these things and more in the actual writing - the context and execution of it all in this book - that ultimately did me in. so many scenes genuinely had me almost crawling out of my skin 😞.
i do want to emphasize again that how one feels about june and brant’s dynamic and the romance in here can go either way depending on how you interpret this book (and whether you like this brand of taboo / forbidden romance or not). i recognize that i could be reading into some things that the book did not intend, because it wasn’t unequivocally black and white all the time (particularly on the grooming thing). i also recognize that i’m not alone in feeling the way that i do because i looked up some other opinions and found some congruence there - so i wasn’t completely making things up either (or i’m part of a shared delusion haha, who the hell ever knows?). alas, i fall on the side of the aisle with people who were disturbed by this and/or it just didn’t hit!
there were a few other elements in the storytelling and writing that i didn’t find perfect or to my liking either, but this main rationale up top is the driver for me rating this book so low. no one wishes i had a better time with this than me, believe me 😩. again - this is a deeply personal one so if you’ve read this far, please don’t take my essay here as me saying it’s outright terrible and there’s no way any of this is ok. all i’m saying is that it wasn’t to my taste. a lot of people love it and you may experience the whole story way differently than me. or hey, this kind of taboo romance might be right up your alley in general and so all this ain’t no thang - even better for you too.
honestly, my sympathies most lie with the parents in this story (and a side character or two + 6 y/o brant as well). but those parents…damn, they went through a lot 😭. i felt so bad for everything they’d sacrificed, what they never got in return, all that they’d lost and every tragedy and shake-up they had to endure - including what this relationship did to their understanding of their family.
this won’t be a venom-laced review (or much of any review really), but more of a wordy reflection. to be frank - i probably shouldn’t have read this book to begin with and along the way, i considered leaving it unrated if i managed to finish it. i knew going in that it was built on the type of premise that i typically struggle with and try not to read much of at all, but i wanted to believe that this one would be an exception like something else i read and loved last year that shares some parallels (plus june first came highly recommended to me so i wanted to try), but the execution did not feel remotely the same as what i’ve liked in the past.
some of the things that most bothered me are matters up to interpretation and your personal taste. that can be said about almost any book but i feel it extra hard on this one. i’ll share some context for my feelings, but know that even with my initial reservations, i did try to go into this with an open mind and i was truly hoping for a much different outcome than a rating this low. this is why i almost left this unrated tbh - especially when i realized during the read that i wasn’t the target audience and had no business doing all this 😭. and so, i don’t want to pen a negative diatribe about it - but i will put down the gist of why this didn’t work for me.
firstly, pseudo-familial forbidden romances can be very dicey for my taste, so i don’t read them often - but that’s not where the buck ends with this one nor am i saying i didn’t love this on that basis alone. there have been a few that i’ve enjoyed, mainly with a later-in-life step or foster relation. however, these kinds of romances are not my typical go-to. secondly, while i do enjoy an age gap trope, my usual exclusionary criteria is to avoid ones where there’s a pseudo-familial dynamic because i anticipate two things being par for the course:
a) there potentially being a pre-existing relationship before the romance kicks in from when the younger mc was a child, because of the familial connection and the fact that there’s a younger person in the pair (even if this timeline is not depicted at length on-page, i expect it will be referenced at a minimum if it exists in the story); and
b) the older mc having a more than negligible amount of influence / power over the younger mc stemming from the pseudo-familial relationship (established trust, familiarity, familial dependence, etc). i do seem to love the word familial, don’t i? 🙃. theoretically, this can create an ideal environment for grooming to thrive.
both these things together end up unsettling me when i am meant to read about mcs as love interests and in explicit situations, when there’s all this history from when at least one character was a child and the relationship is being transitioned out of “innocence” into something that’s…not.
now, knowing this upfront is why i say i probably shouldn’t have picked this one up to begin with as i was not in the potential target audience. i really wanted to believe though 😭. so for this reason, i’m not going to get negative. i just want to jot down some additional (non-spoilery) context:
in this specific story, both mcs start out as children but the mmc is 6 years older. at the beginning of the book, the mmc is orphaned at 6 and legally adopted by the fmc’s biological family right around the time that she was born. brant and june are raised alongside one another as siblings. while the story tried to keep conveying that brant had a personal limitation on calling any of the baileys family-style nomenclature, june still calls him her brother well into her late teens. there are multiple chapters written from both mcs’s povs at various ages below 16, depicting their “connection” and degrees of fixation and possessiveness / protectiveness toward each other, and of course beyond those years as well.
now, even if the adoptive sibling trope remained a construct in the story, there was still a chance i could have liked this, even if not my usual preference, IF some fundamentals were altered. if there weren’t parts of the book written from when the fmc and mmc are as young as a newborn and 6 y/o respectively, but rather, the story kicked off around teenhood or older, without too much narrative around the characters sharing a home life from a very young age (or even a later-in-life adoption would have been ideal for me) AND if they were both around the same age without the 6-year gap, it would have made a huge difference for me.
what ended up happening here was that several trains of thought in inner monologues, words exchanged between the mcs and actions that take place in their respective povs at points in the timeline when one or both of the characters were minors, and several things beyond when the mmc was a young man but the fmc was still a teenager left me ill at ease. there were even moments after both characters were over 18 that still left me disconcerted in the way in which they were executed (including language used in the writing) - and even more specifically, advantages being taken when the younger mc was drunk or in vulnerable situations. in these moments, my instincts are wired to hope an “older brother” will be there to protect and shield instead of contributing to or encouraging situations that would lead to proximity and eventual sexual activity. the dynamic coming from the age gap and older/younger pseudo-sibling relationship made me feel very uncomfortable in how these things went down and how the romance was ultimately developed. i definitely didn’t love brant’s influence over and pre-occupation with june from when she was a baby either, especially knowing where the story was going and me not being able to stop viewing them through the lens of being family and him an older brother figure to her that she herself referred to as such until, as i said, well into her late teens. while brant refused to “see” or call june his sister since he was young (or the other baileys “mom”, “dad”, “brother”), he DID use the sister term when it was convenient for him, one specific occasion coming to mind when he tried to throw the scent off someone questioning him about his pre-occupation with june and it looking inappropriate to the side character doing the questioning.
unfortunately, it’s just the combination of all these things and more in the actual writing - the context and execution of it all in this book - that ultimately did me in. so many scenes genuinely had me almost crawling out of my skin 😞.
i do want to emphasize again that how one feels about june and brant’s dynamic and the romance in here can go either way depending on how you interpret this book (and whether you like this brand of taboo / forbidden romance or not). i recognize that i could be reading into some things that the book did not intend, because it wasn’t unequivocally black and white all the time (particularly on the grooming thing). i also recognize that i’m not alone in feeling the way that i do because i looked up some other opinions and found some congruence there - so i wasn’t completely making things up either (or i’m part of a shared delusion haha, who the hell ever knows?). alas, i fall on the side of the aisle with people who were disturbed by this and/or it just didn’t hit!
there were a few other elements in the storytelling and writing that i didn’t find perfect or to my liking either, but this main rationale up top is the driver for me rating this book so low. no one wishes i had a better time with this than me, believe me 😩. again - this is a deeply personal one so if you’ve read this far, please don’t take my essay here as me saying it’s outright terrible and there’s no way any of this is ok. all i’m saying is that it wasn’t to my taste. a lot of people love it and you may experience the whole story way differently than me. or hey, this kind of taboo romance might be right up your alley in general and so all this ain’t no thang - even better for you too.
honestly, my sympathies most lie with the parents in this story (and a side character or two + 6 y/o brant as well). but those parents…damn, they went through a lot 😭. i felt so bad for everything they’d sacrificed, what they never got in return, all that they’d lost and every tragedy and shake-up they had to endure - including what this relationship did to their understanding of their family.
November 7, 2025
Miss author better watch out if she ever sees me in the street bc it’s gna be ON SIGHT. What she did with that one character!??? I’m in her walls 👺👺
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
This one’s for Hoda (she wants to see me cry after I made her read older 🤣😭)
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──
This one’s for Hoda (she wants to see me cry after I made her read older 🤣😭)
May 4, 2022
It is 2am and I just turned the last page. I am laying here quietly in my bed trying to process everything I just experienced. I had to raced here to document all my feelings. My chest is tight and my eyes wet with tears. Ugh this author gets me every time. DANG HER! Her storylines are always unique and have me reeling with a variety of emotions.
I have so much to say. I am literally biting my tongue to not go into the details because after reading this book, I know everyone should go in blind. Eek. I highlighted the doo doo out of it. Coming here to write this review is my attempt to remember all the magic of this story that I know will continue to haunt me for days.
Brant and June have a meaty timeline to their story. Truthfully this book explores what could be seen as taboo elements but even at big pivotal moments, the way this story is told, it explains all and changes my perception.
Family, trauma, and of course, love all are part of this book. Its words often feel like poetry and its message is one of hope. Sigh and SWOON. This book is worthy of all five stars and more. Happy Reading Everyone! XOXO
I have so much to say. I am literally biting my tongue to not go into the details because after reading this book, I know everyone should go in blind. Eek. I highlighted the doo doo out of it. Coming here to write this review is my attempt to remember all the magic of this story that I know will continue to haunt me for days.
Brant and June have a meaty timeline to their story. Truthfully this book explores what could be seen as taboo elements but even at big pivotal moments, the way this story is told, it explains all and changes my perception.
Family, trauma, and of course, love all are part of this book. Its words often feel like poetry and its message is one of hope. Sigh and SWOON. This book is worthy of all five stars and more. Happy Reading Everyone! XOXO
June 29, 2025
A sucker punch to the gut. Forbidden love, family love and bit of heartbreak. Its mighty but worth it!
October 2, 2022
Oh, wow. This story had too much intensity; I was kind of overwhelmed after finishing the novel. I didn't know how to deal with it, so had to go out and walk for a while. Honestly, so skillfully written that I felt all the emotions the author wanted me to feel. My heart was broken in more ways than one, and then it was remade again. Brant and his Junebug' will live with me for a very long time.
“𝙅𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙨 𝙬𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙘𝙚 𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚, 𝙬𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙘𝙚 𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙪𝙣𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢, 𝙚𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧. 𝙁𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙗𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙗𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨. 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙛𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙚.”
However, I had to skim a bit because of the slow pace in the middle and unnecessary scene lengths. I also didn't like the idea that Theo (FMC's brother) was killed for more tragedy or to gain sympathy in the story. He had great potential as a side character. Anyway, these are the main reasons why I couldn't give it 5 stars, despite enjoying the book immensely.
“𝙅𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙨 𝙬𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙘𝙚 𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙤𝙣𝙚, 𝙬𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙘𝙚 𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙪𝙣𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢, 𝙚𝙞𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧. 𝙁𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙗𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙗𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨. 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙛𝙖𝙩𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙬𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙚.”
However, I had to skim a bit because of the slow pace in the middle and unnecessary scene lengths. I also didn't like the idea that Theo (FMC's brother) was killed for more tragedy or to gain sympathy in the story. He had great potential as a side character. Anyway, these are the main reasons why I couldn't give it 5 stars, despite enjoying the book immensely.
June 14, 2024
a 23 year old man had a sex dream about his 17 year old adopted sister, need i say more
May 24, 2022
Jennifer, girl you need therapy.
June 13, 2022
**SPOILERS after sexual history**
Slow-burn romance but developed well coz we get to know them from the day h was born & H was 6yo. Liked that H clear from the beginning that he was not h's brother but a close family friend. Others including h were not as clear about it. Good emo with some angst that brought some tears around 70%. Good S tension. Hot detailed bareback S scenes from 65%. H not that alpha but loved how obsessed he became with h.
Sexual history:
18yo virgin h had never been on a date but did kiss other boys in high school during parties. But none could come close to how she felt for H so 24yo H became her 1st & only lover. After they smexxed, she kissed OM once as her way of trying to move on from H but couldn't stand OM's sloppy kisses so stopped.
Very likely that h was H's only other lover, after his ex-GF who he was on-off with for 9 years since he was 12yo. He had 2 periods of celibacy due to h. First time was after he smexxed his ex-GF 1 last time, after 17yo h just kissed him due to a friend's dare that night during her Prom. He went to his ex-GF's house after to smex her to try to purge his feelings of self-disgust & great desire for h. After he & his ex-GF smexxed, his ex-GF confronted him on his feelings for h. Then, he became celibate for 2 years. But he did kiss a female coworker (OW) towards the end of that 1st celibacy. He & h was increasingly dancing around their sexual chemistry while resisting their attraction. So h encouraged him to date OW to help them get out of their taboo relationship. He went to OW's house right after & kissed her but she stopped him from going further. Soon after that, 25yo H and 19yo h finally smexxed the 1st time.
His 2nd period celibacy happened after h's Dad walked in on them naked on H's bed. Since they started smexxing, they carried on with their secret affair for weeks. Her dad demanded that she move to NYC. They all agreed (H, h, and her parents) that would be a healthy move for her so she could focus on her dance career & see if her feelings for H would change with time and distance. So, H became celibate again for the next 2 years. She was also celibate during their time apart.
Slow-burn romance but developed well coz we get to know them from the day h was born & H was 6yo. Liked that H clear from the beginning that he was not h's brother but a close family friend. Others including h were not as clear about it. Good emo with some angst that brought some tears around 70%. Good S tension. Hot detailed bareback S scenes from 65%. H not that alpha but loved how obsessed he became with h.
Sexual history:
18yo virgin h had never been on a date but did kiss other boys in high school during parties. But none could come close to how she felt for H so 24yo H became her 1st & only lover. After they smexxed, she kissed OM once as her way of trying to move on from H but couldn't stand OM's sloppy kisses so stopped.
Very likely that h was H's only other lover, after his ex-GF who he was on-off with for 9 years since he was 12yo. He had 2 periods of celibacy due to h. First time was after he smexxed his ex-GF 1 last time, after 17yo h just kissed him due to a friend's dare that night during her Prom. He went to his ex-GF's house after to smex her to try to purge his feelings of self-disgust & great desire for h. After he & his ex-GF smexxed, his ex-GF confronted him on his feelings for h. Then, he became celibate for 2 years. But he did kiss a female coworker (OW) towards the end of that 1st celibacy. He & h was increasingly dancing around their sexual chemistry while resisting their attraction. So h encouraged him to date OW to help them get out of their taboo relationship. He went to OW's house right after & kissed her but she stopped him from going further. Soon after that, 25yo H and 19yo h finally smexxed the 1st time.
His 2nd period celibacy happened after h's Dad walked in on them naked on H's bed. Since they started smexxing, they carried on with their secret affair for weeks. Her dad demanded that she move to NYC. They all agreed (H, h, and her parents) that would be a healthy move for her so she could focus on her dance career & see if her feelings for H would change with time and distance. So, H became celibate again for the next 2 years. She was also celibate during their time apart.
June 16, 2026
Listen, I know this book won’t be for everyone, but it was absolutely for me 😭
From the very first page, I was completely captivated. This story shattered my heart and stitched it back together again. It was devastating, beautiful, heartbreaking, and hopeful all at once.
June and Brant… my heart 🥹 My star-crossed lovers. I adored them with every piece of me. From the moment June was born on the most tragic day of Brant’s life, their connection felt destined. She was the rainbow that appeared in the middle of his storm, the light that found him when everything else was dark.
Yes, their circumstances were complicated and unfortunate. They were raised together through no fault of their own 😭. But at their core, they were always soulmates. Before they were lovers, they were best friends. Before they were anything else, they were home to one another. Their bond ran so deep that it transcended what other people could see or understand. It was theirs and theirs alone.
This book took me through every emotion possible. I cried. I laughed. I smiled through tears. My chest physically ached for these characters and the love they carried for each other. Jennifer Hartman wrote a relationship that felt raw, unwavering, and profoundly human.
I know not everyone will connect with June and Brant’s story, and that’s okay. But I did. I understood their bond, I believed in their love, and by the end, they completely owned my heart.
A gut-wrenchingly beautiful story that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. 🥹❤️
“I love you so fucking much it hurts.”
“How much?”
“To the moon and back”.
“That’s not enough…”
“Over the rainbow and back again.”
“That’s better.”
From the very first page, I was completely captivated. This story shattered my heart and stitched it back together again. It was devastating, beautiful, heartbreaking, and hopeful all at once.
June and Brant… my heart 🥹 My star-crossed lovers. I adored them with every piece of me. From the moment June was born on the most tragic day of Brant’s life, their connection felt destined. She was the rainbow that appeared in the middle of his storm, the light that found him when everything else was dark.
Yes, their circumstances were complicated and unfortunate. They were raised together through no fault of their own 😭. But at their core, they were always soulmates. Before they were lovers, they were best friends. Before they were anything else, they were home to one another. Their bond ran so deep that it transcended what other people could see or understand. It was theirs and theirs alone.
This book took me through every emotion possible. I cried. I laughed. I smiled through tears. My chest physically ached for these characters and the love they carried for each other. Jennifer Hartman wrote a relationship that felt raw, unwavering, and profoundly human.
I know not everyone will connect with June and Brant’s story, and that’s okay. But I did. I understood their bond, I believed in their love, and by the end, they completely owned my heart.
A gut-wrenchingly beautiful story that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon. 🥹❤️
“I love you so fucking much it hurts.”
“How much?”
“To the moon and back”.
“That’s not enough…”
“Over the rainbow and back again.”
“That’s better.”
May 17, 2022
A touching coming of age story that oh-so-slowly kindles, and when it ignites, hold on tight because oh baby, this forbidden love burns. The angst and steam alone will overfill your taboo-loving heart. Such a beautiful, unforgettable book.
If you loved Sugar Daddy by Lisa Kleypas, this book is for you.
If you loved Sugar Daddy by Lisa Kleypas, this book is for you.
Read
July 28, 2023dnf :(
July 5, 2022
5 Over The Rainbow Stars 🖤🌈
This was such a beautiful, heart-breaking and heart-warming read. The kind of book which gives you nostalgia, the kind of book which makes you document all the moments in your life, the kind of book which breaks your heart and put it back together piece by every piece.
I loved every single second of this read, even though its not dark but surely felt heavy not to mention it circled around epic tragedy 😔
“I’m unsure which pain is worse—the shock of what happened, or the
ache for what never will.”
Story starts with two best friends making promises to protect the princess and making wishes to the clouds unfortunetly their wishes comes true in the most tragic way. They're pushed together to pursue their promises while setting up the boundaries. But every boundary crumble enventually.
"I tried to temper it.
Tried to bury it alive.
But here’s the thing about trying to bury something that isn’t dead—
Sometimes it comes back, madder than ever."
Brant, our H is just 💔 and all he wants to put June, our h first in his life. But the circumtances are cruel and brutal in his life like its always been.
I went in blind and i'm glad i did so i won't give too much away but i cried like its real when the Saver saves the day. 💔😔
"People talk about rehabilitation all the time. Broken bodies learning to
walk again. Impaired minds fighting disease, addiction, and dark
thoughts.
But have they ever had to rehabilitate a heart?
Hearts fall apart, too. Bodies crumble, minds fail us, and hearts turn
hopeless"
Writing was so beautiful 🖤 that i wanted to burn every word to my memory, i learned so much from this and books like this always makes me feel that its so much out there to learn, fight and cherish 💕
"Never underestimate a man willing to wait forever for the woman he
loves, for there is nothing he’s not capable of.
Noble to some,
A fool to many.
But to that woman?
He
is
everything."
Trigger warnings: murder/suicide.
(And its a safe read)
This was such a beautiful, heart-breaking and heart-warming read. The kind of book which gives you nostalgia, the kind of book which makes you document all the moments in your life, the kind of book which breaks your heart and put it back together piece by every piece.
I loved every single second of this read, even though its not dark but surely felt heavy not to mention it circled around epic tragedy 😔
“I’m unsure which pain is worse—the shock of what happened, or the
ache for what never will.”
Story starts with two best friends making promises to protect the princess and making wishes to the clouds unfortunetly their wishes comes true in the most tragic way. They're pushed together to pursue their promises while setting up the boundaries. But every boundary crumble enventually.
"I tried to temper it.
Tried to bury it alive.
But here’s the thing about trying to bury something that isn’t dead—
Sometimes it comes back, madder than ever."
Brant, our H is just 💔 and all he wants to put June, our h first in his life. But the circumtances are cruel and brutal in his life like its always been.
I went in blind and i'm glad i did so i won't give too much away but i cried like its real when the Saver saves the day. 💔😔
"People talk about rehabilitation all the time. Broken bodies learning to
walk again. Impaired minds fighting disease, addiction, and dark
thoughts.
But have they ever had to rehabilitate a heart?
Hearts fall apart, too. Bodies crumble, minds fail us, and hearts turn
hopeless"
Writing was so beautiful 🖤 that i wanted to burn every word to my memory, i learned so much from this and books like this always makes me feel that its so much out there to learn, fight and cherish 💕
"Never underestimate a man willing to wait forever for the woman he
loves, for there is nothing he’s not capable of.
Noble to some,
A fool to many.
But to that woman?
He
is
everything."
Trigger warnings: murder/suicide.
(And its a safe read)
May 15, 2025
If you're looking for an emotional and ANGSTY romance to tug at your heartstrings, well Jennifer Hartmann has once again delivered exactly that. Good news, this is for you if you love forbidden romance, coming of age stories, and trying not to cry for the last 30% of a book.
I'd suggest going in blind, if possible, but definitely check the TWs if needed! At six years old, Brant faces a devastating tragedy that uproots his world. He soon moves in with his best friend Theo Bailey, and not only bonds with Theo's family but Theo's new sister. Told over a period of 30 years, Brant and the Baileys are witness to loss, hope, further tragedy, and most of all, love.
While I love a dark romance, forbidden (& taboo) romance isn't the first trope I pick up. However, Jennifer Hartmann does such an incredible job writing these tear-jerker stories, where your heartstrings are practically yanked out of your body. I'm (clearly) such a fan of her writing style, and I love how she focuses on small details and symbols that have significant emotional impact. In this book specifically, mushrooms and the song Over the Rainbow.
I feel like in a lot of novels similar to this where we have the friends to lovers, "it was always you," trope, the story is written in the present and flashes back intermittently to the past. Though I loved how this was told linearly, from early childhood, teens, young adulthood, etc. That coming-of-age aspect, in dual POV, resulted in maximum emotional damage.
The slow burn was perfectly paced, though the book probably could've been shorter. There were parts that, while I liked the details, probably weren't necessary to the overall emotional impact of the story. And some of the dialogue, love professions, etc., made me cringe/gave me the ick just a bit. But I'm so excited to read more of Jennifer Hartmann's books—Still Beating is still my favorite by her.
I'd suggest going in blind, if possible, but definitely check the TWs if needed! At six years old, Brant faces a devastating tragedy that uproots his world. He soon moves in with his best friend Theo Bailey, and not only bonds with Theo's family but Theo's new sister. Told over a period of 30 years, Brant and the Baileys are witness to loss, hope, further tragedy, and most of all, love.
While I love a dark romance, forbidden (& taboo) romance isn't the first trope I pick up. However, Jennifer Hartmann does such an incredible job writing these tear-jerker stories, where your heartstrings are practically yanked out of your body. I'm (clearly) such a fan of her writing style, and I love how she focuses on small details and symbols that have significant emotional impact. In this book specifically, mushrooms and the song Over the Rainbow.
I feel like in a lot of novels similar to this where we have the friends to lovers, "it was always you," trope, the story is written in the present and flashes back intermittently to the past. Though I loved how this was told linearly, from early childhood, teens, young adulthood, etc. That coming-of-age aspect, in dual POV, resulted in maximum emotional damage.
The slow burn was perfectly paced, though the book probably could've been shorter. There were parts that, while I liked the details, probably weren't necessary to the overall emotional impact of the story. And some of the dialogue, love professions, etc., made me cringe/gave me the ick just a bit. But I'm so excited to read more of Jennifer Hartmann's books—Still Beating is still my favorite by her.
February 4, 2023
I'm sorry but this is the worst book I ever read. Read being used lightly because I mostly skimmed hoping things would get better. Hint, they didn't. I picked this up from a book group recommendation. It came with high reviews stating this would literally rip your heart in shreds and put it together again. I certainly did not feel those feelings.
If I'm being honest, I'm mostly disgusted by this book. Because I absolutely agreed with Andrew's statement about Brant grooming June since she was a child. The whole story gave me weird vibes. This "connection" Brant had with June since she was an infant was absolutely creepy and the fact more people don't see that makes me question society.
I get it, the 2 are not biologically related. However, they grew up in the same household. Brant was 6 years old when he met June as an infant. They went through childhood together. I know he had a traumatic event when he met her but that doesn't change the dynamic when you literally grow up in the same household as someone. They were siblings through and through. You can't change my mind.
The author tried way too hard to make this work. With Brant constantly saying, "she's not my sister." It was so forced and I gagged everytime. Then, there's the age difference these authors love so much. They were 6 years apart. The author made it a point for nothing to happen between the 2 until June was of "legal" age.
Another point, June looked up to Brant as her brother. In fact, she was hurt that Brant didn't consider her his sister. Yet, she still developed these feelings for the guy she considers her brother. Gross.
More power to you if you liked this. But I just couldnt.
If I'm being honest, I'm mostly disgusted by this book. Because I absolutely agreed with Andrew's statement about Brant grooming June since she was a child. The whole story gave me weird vibes. This "connection" Brant had with June since she was an infant was absolutely creepy and the fact more people don't see that makes me question society.
I get it, the 2 are not biologically related. However, they grew up in the same household. Brant was 6 years old when he met June as an infant. They went through childhood together. I know he had a traumatic event when he met her but that doesn't change the dynamic when you literally grow up in the same household as someone. They were siblings through and through. You can't change my mind.
The author tried way too hard to make this work. With Brant constantly saying, "she's not my sister." It was so forced and I gagged everytime. Then, there's the age difference these authors love so much. They were 6 years apart. The author made it a point for nothing to happen between the 2 until June was of "legal" age.
Another point, June looked up to Brant as her brother. In fact, she was hurt that Brant didn't consider her his sister. Yet, she still developed these feelings for the guy she considers her brother. Gross.
More power to you if you liked this. But I just couldnt.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 19, 2022
“Claimed.
I feel claimed.
And after losing everything I love, it feels really good to belong to someone.”
i hate unnecessary/unexpected deaths still sobbing for theo he didn't deserve that ending 😭
I feel claimed.
And after losing everything I love, it feels really good to belong to someone.”
i hate unnecessary/unexpected deaths still sobbing for theo he didn't deserve that ending 😭
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
![Profile Image for ♡Gabi♡ [grad school hiatus].](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1784857563i/137459201._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
May 4, 2024
rtc, but wow what a journey for brant and june to their HEA JEEZ 😭😭🫶🏼
Currently Reading
October 16, 2026another ‘heartbreaking forbidden love story’? fineeeeee
May 15, 2022
4 STARS
June First was a riveting, poignant, and unforgettable blend of emotion and and a one in a lifetime love. It was one of the most unique stories I've read in a long while, and one that is likely to stay with me for quite some time.
My biggest recommendation for you is to go into this book absolutely blind. The blurb sounds vague and give you a little and nothing, but trust me, you don't want more detail.
This is a taboo/forbidden romance, but not in the predictable way. It was unique in all of the best ways. A relationship like this would be almost impossible to pull off without making it almost cringey or have an ick factor. Yet Jennifer Hartmann did it flawlessly.
The story itself is a bit lengthy in parts, with many details and pivotal moments that span years in the life of June and Brant. It spanned their highest highs and lowest lows. At times the details felt slow paced, but I can't think of one page that could have been removed, so there's that.
I laughed, I sobbed, I swooned. I fell so hard for this beautiful romance. And it was beautiful. It was imperfect and painful, and gut wrenching in parts. And it was completely unforgettable. The secondary characters who stole and broke my heart. The love that bloomed in tragedy. The story that I'll never forget.
ARC courtesy of author in exchange for an honest review
Find me on:
June. My sweetest blessing and greatest sin.
June First was a riveting, poignant, and unforgettable blend of emotion and and a one in a lifetime love. It was one of the most unique stories I've read in a long while, and one that is likely to stay with me for quite some time.
My biggest recommendation for you is to go into this book absolutely blind. The blurb sounds vague and give you a little and nothing, but trust me, you don't want more detail.
This is a taboo/forbidden romance, but not in the predictable way. It was unique in all of the best ways. A relationship like this would be almost impossible to pull off without making it almost cringey or have an ick factor. Yet Jennifer Hartmann did it flawlessly.
The story itself is a bit lengthy in parts, with many details and pivotal moments that span years in the life of June and Brant. It spanned their highest highs and lowest lows. At times the details felt slow paced, but I can't think of one page that could have been removed, so there's that.
I laughed, I sobbed, I swooned. I fell so hard for this beautiful romance. And it was beautiful. It was imperfect and painful, and gut wrenching in parts. And it was completely unforgettable. The secondary characters who stole and broke my heart. The love that bloomed in tragedy. The story that I'll never forget.
ARC courtesy of author in exchange for an honest review
Find me on:
July 23, 2025
3.5 rounded up.
I wanted to love this more what really took me out of it was how the childhood relationship was portrayed. I have a five and seven-year-old, and I know kids that age fight constantly…But in this book, these two kids (with a 6 year age gap) were just unbelievably sweet and lovey-dovey with each other, never really fighting or having the kind of normal sibling tension I’m used to. It felt unrealistic and kind of off to me.
It wasn’t that the story felt like grooming outright, but because their childhood bond was so idealized and one-sidedly perfect, when their relationship shifted into romance later on, it was hard not to feel a bit uneasy about it. That said.. the yearning and tension between them once the romantic feelings developed were palpable..I could definitely feel it jump off the page.
the back half of the book dragged a lot. The pacing slowed down so much that it felt like it could have been about 100 pages shorter. That extra length made it harder to stay engaged.
Overall, I was still extremely emotional. I felt the yearning I love Jennifer, Hartman and I would recommend this book.
I wanted to love this more what really took me out of it was how the childhood relationship was portrayed. I have a five and seven-year-old, and I know kids that age fight constantly…But in this book, these two kids (with a 6 year age gap) were just unbelievably sweet and lovey-dovey with each other, never really fighting or having the kind of normal sibling tension I’m used to. It felt unrealistic and kind of off to me.
It wasn’t that the story felt like grooming outright, but because their childhood bond was so idealized and one-sidedly perfect, when their relationship shifted into romance later on, it was hard not to feel a bit uneasy about it. That said.. the yearning and tension between them once the romantic feelings developed were palpable..I could definitely feel it jump off the page.
the back half of the book dragged a lot. The pacing slowed down so much that it felt like it could have been about 100 pages shorter. That extra length made it harder to stay engaged.
Overall, I was still extremely emotional. I felt the yearning I love Jennifer, Hartman and I would recommend this book.
January 19, 2024
This book was like looking at a car accident. It was so bad but I couldn’t stop reading.
June 1, 2026
“There are worse things than loving the wrong person. And that's losing them" 😭😭😭😭😭
This was gloomy since the start, and to b honest, at one point I thought about dnfing it but I'm glad that I didn't. Because this book ripped me apart, I cried so much. The plot is so overwhelming, so full of emotions and I couldn't breathe, reading those words, those epic lines.....however I survived through this. It's really refreshing to read this forbidden love through a different vibe other than the mafia and dark romances one.
Pre read
Starting this on 1st June, befitting for the title of this book. I've heard it's sad.
This was gloomy since the start, and to b honest, at one point I thought about dnfing it but I'm glad that I didn't. Because this book ripped me apart, I cried so much. The plot is so overwhelming, so full of emotions and I couldn't breathe, reading those words, those epic lines.....however I survived through this. It's really refreshing to read this forbidden love through a different vibe other than the mafia and dark romances one.
Pre read
Starting this on 1st June, befitting for the title of this book. I've heard it's sad.
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