Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine – Audio
ARC from Ballantine Books, PRH audio and Netgalley for an honest review
Book Blurb:
Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master’s daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, while she spends her nights secretly roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie.
When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie’s life, she commits a desperate act—one that rouses Minnie’s spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her. She enlists the aid of Caleb, the guests’ coachman, and their friendship soon becomes something more. Yet as long-held truths begin to crumble, she realizes Bellereine is harboring dark and horrifying secrets that can no longer be ignored. With time ticking down, Junie begins to push against the harsh current that has controlled her entire life. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we choose love and liberation, what must we leave behind?
My Review: 4 stars
Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine is a beautifully written novel with a main character that I cheered on from the very first page until the last.
This book takes a deep look into the incredible strength of sisterly bonds, slave life on a plantation, arranged marriages, ghost stories, and both family drama and trauma. I loved how much Junie hankered to read anything she could and how important it was to her as a means to freedom. Her sister Minnie, that recently died, came to Minnie in a supernatural way. It was as if Junie’s actions were being watched by Minnie and evoked her spirit. For those of you who shy away from the supernatural, in this one it really works well. Caleb, the Taylor’s coachman was another favorite character of mine. I loved his relationship with Junie.
I found that Violet’s story to be one that was systematic for the time period (pre – Civil War) and that her job was solely to get married to someone with great wealth. It was no matter if the man was kind or cruel.
Learning that this novel is based on her own family’s history was incredibly fascinating. You must read the author’s note for this one.
Quotes I liked:
I just think you deserve more than a pretty view, Delilah June. You deserve to take all the beauty of this world and hold it in your hands. You deserve to bite it like a peach and let the juice drip ’til your fingers get sticky.”
“She told me that when you first lose somebody, the grief feels like the strongest tea you’ve ever tasted, so bitter and sharp you don’t think you’ll ever be able to swallow. But that every day, another drop of water falls into that cup, and it gets a little easier to taste. That bitterness, that pain, it don’t ever go away or get smaller. But it does fade.”
“Reading and writing are pleasures worth any punishment, something they can never understand.”
“See, in this life, we’re all just floating down the river. You might
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