Rating: 
Summary: Lovely, moving novel
Review: I bought this book because it has a gay protagonist and then sat down to read it after it won the National Book Award. Contrary to one reviewer, I think the writing is extraordinarily fine--the reviewer seems unable to understand that there are literate and articulate people who do speak like Fenno and his friends and family--realism need not simply be the scratchings and cursings of too many of today's novels. Fenno is a wonderful character--Jamesian in his psychology and sensibility--and the movement between his present-day narrration and his memories of his life with Mal is fascinating and genuine. The framing of his longer narrative by that of Paul and Fern works quite well, I think, without ever feeling forced. That not all is resolved seems to me a plus rather than a negative (though, of course, I, like everyone else, wanted Fenno and Fern to connect the dots--someday, I suspect they will).
Every so often I read a book and wish I had the gift for language and storytelling the author did: this is so with the novels of Jane Hamilton (with whom I went to high school--and I envied her writing even then), and The Lovely Bones, and it is true with this one. I look forward to Julia Glass's next novel--though it will be hard to top this one.
Rating: 
Summary: How did this book win the National Book Award?!
Review: I bought this book because of the reviews. I'm astonished. This book is not only second-rate, but it is genuinely irritating; the characters are cardboard cutouts and elicit nothing from the reader. This embarrassing attempt by an American writer to create the dialogue and lifestyle of a Scottish clan conjures up one word---faux. The book is peopled with characters who seem to exist solely to blurt out 'witticisms,' which unfortunately are created by a writer with a tin ear. To make matters worse, there is no character development, which makes the lines all the more absurd. Open any page of this book, and you'll see what I mean. Ok, try page 160, and check your cringe level.
--"Oh Fenno, your education has left your brain too full to be smart. I am asking you to be the--I think it's called, ironically, 'health' proxy--on my living--ironies everywhere--my living will. The job is, basically, to keep me from getting stuck full of tubes." He walked to a window........He sighed. "And I find you dependable, and I like you, and you have a cold enough eye not to go all rubbery if and when you have to pull the plug." He lauged again, and coughed again. He leaned out the window until the coughing had passed. When he turned back to me, he said, "I wish the pear trees would bloom all summer long."--
The book is filled with this stuff. To all of you truly talented writers out there, don't give up. Quality always prevails. I guess the National Book Award is not that different from the Miss America contest. Who knew?
Rating: 
Summary: Builds to something wonderful
Review: I must admit that at the start of this book I was unimpressed. I had quite a hard time getting involved, and while it was technically speaking a decent read I felt uninvolved and worse uninterested. Then somewhere toward the middle of the book I found myself enthralled. All of a sudden it was clear that yes, this book did in fact win the National Book Award for a reason. Julia Glass masterfully weaves a heartfelt and captivating narrative that is deceptively simple and light. The characters have depth and are well drawn out and realistic, particularly Fenno. In the end it is hard not to like Three Junes, and I would indeed recommend that you read this delightful tale of love and relationships, in all of their forms.
Rating:
Summary: Elegant Prose, Rivetting Plot
Review: What a wonderful story, what elegant writing, how neatly it came full-circle! If this is Julia Glass' FIRST effort, imagine what we lucky readers will have to look forward to!
Rating:
Summary: "smart, beautiful dogs."
Review: Three Junes is a novel for poetry lovers, written with acuity and precision. The first two parts have as background two vivid, full-of-life characters who are lost to premature, awful diseases, first Maureen, then Paul McLeod. The family lives in Scotland and raises sheep and sheepdogs. The second section is narrated by their eldest son Fenno, a sensitive, introspective gay man who has moved to the New York's West Village, and opened an electic bookstore featuring avian lore and a talking multihued parrot. In developing Fenno's fully drawn character, the author has described an outgoing, animal-loving mother and, like Fenno, a quiet, unassuming father. Maureen's vivacity breathes much life into the first part, which was previously published as an award winning novella called "Collies." She gives much of herself to raising her "smart, beautiful dogs," and it seems that Fenno carries with him a bit of a burden from an early displacement of human affection.Glass writes musically, and she writes about lacunae, the air between people. Her voices are mostly male and her prose is written in a slight Scots accent, not challenging like Irvine Welsh, and sometimes too simple, identifying its origin by substituting "boot" for car trunk, for example. Another small quibble concerns references in the second and third parts, events taking places successively in months of June, to the first section. This makes it a little too obvious that "Collies" was published separately. But this is a small detraction and doesn't hurt this beautiful saga of family and friends, the spaces between them, the effect they have on each other without sometimes knowing. I have left out quite a few finely drawn characterizations; the novel's strongest point is that it is full of them.
Rating:
Summary: Lovely
Review: Three Junes is a lovely read, one that begins strongly and only gets better. The story concerns a Scottish family and begins in June 1989. Paul McLeod, recently widowed, takes a tour to Greece, contemplating his future, his past, his family. Jump ahead six years and we are in Scotland, where Paul's three sons are preparing for his funeral. Jump again four years, to Eastern Long Island, a weekend get together with two of Paul's sons and Fern, a woman Paul met on his trip to Greece. It is hard to do justice to this novel in a few pithy sentences. The writing is beautiful and Glass gives us characters we can care about deeply. Their lives are complicated, but without any melodrama or pyrotechnics. Her writing is simply beautiful and I believe gets stronger as the novel progresses. I thoroughly enjoyed this beautiful novel and highly recommend it. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: lyrical beauty, startling clarity.......amazing first novel
Review: Three Junes is an authentically startling novel both in it's lyrical beauty and in the emotional openess and fragile self assessments that ensue. This novel takes place over a ten year period, focusing on the pivotal month of June in three separate years. The story begins with a widower Paul, in Greece with a tour group, taking a clear look at his life, what his dreams were, what his desires were and where his life took him. Did he settle and consider himself lucky, does he decide to turn things around and direct his future from his true heart? In the next section of this novel the focus is on Pauls' oldest son, Fenno. He is a quiet, bookstore owner who left Scotland for America in order to live his own life and now ponders these same thoughts after the death of his father. His return home for the funeral opens his eyes to many paths in life, those taken, those not taken out of fear and those that remain open. The final portion of the novel involves a young widow, pregnant less than two years after her husbands death. She too approaches these life lessons from a different perspective and yet with very much the same results. The author, Julia Glass creates a beautiful novel in which people are pulled outside of their lives and given the opportunity to examine their past. The characters take the chance to look at the map of their life and make the decisions to alter their path to continue the journey and to take it to where they choose for it to go.
Rating: 
Summary: WARNING
Review: audible.com audiobooks may or may not work. may or may not take longer than reading the book. tech dept keeps banking hours and has one phone line.
Rating:
Summary: Curiously Circular
Review: A curiously circular contemporary family saga that meanders from Scotland to Greece to the United States. A tale of 3 brothers and their family, told mostly through the eyes of Fenno (the gay son) and Paul (the widowed father) and Fern (who unexpectedly intersects these lives). I struggled a bit with a certain lack of identification with the distant Fenno, and the meandering plot. Charm, grace and tension share the pages of this very interesting generational study. Ms. Glass exhibits maturity as well as a skillful and artistic ability in this writing. I have to wonder how she developed and understood the Fenno character, who was without a doubt an eccentric and atypical protagonist.
Rating: 
Summary: over-hyped
Review: After reading all the glowing reviews on this book, I couldn't believe how bad it was. There are loose strings all over the place. The novel seems to be 3 short stories put together, but with no resolution on any of the significant issues that could tie everything together. The best characters are not well developed, although there are hints that these characters could have made up a compelling story. The main character, who is well drawn, is completely uninteresting with unclear motives. There is no denying that some of the writing is exceptional. But a novel commands that there be a plot and that it has characters that the reader will care about. Neither happened in my case. I only finished the book, because I kept hoping that something would happen and because I am reading the book for a book club. Fluff isn't enough. I would recommend this book to no one.
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