Rating: 
Summary: A Wonderful Book
Review: I loved this book. It's witty, it's fun and it's a fast read. Typically, when I finish reading a book, I journal my favorite passages. Journaling Julia Glass is like trying to capture Wallace Stegner. It's nearly impossible to enter all of the great excerpts. There is a broad range of characters in Three Junes. Sweet, senstive Paul... His colorful wife, Maureen,... The description of Paul's caretaking of the dying Maureen was incredibly tender and touching (yes, I cried on the airplane while reading it). Fenno, the son of Paul and Maureen, is an introspective sort with a good soul and a hilarious, cynical friend Mal. Mal's description of a friend going through fertility treatment: ... There is much sensitivity and life wisdom peppered throughout the book... That hope and optimism is indeed the essence of this wonderful book.
Rating: 
Summary: Loved the Writing But...
Review: I read this book almost all in one sitting and it's not an easy read. I was very impressed by the quality of the writing and I didn't want to put the book down. I was particularly impressed by Glass's ability to write convincingly from a male point of view. But I found the last third of the book the least interesting, and the second section too long. I think Glass has some fascinating characters here--but the McLeod characters deserved more room. I also thought the flashbacks worked against the power of the story and I think the story would have worked better if told chonologically. I also thought the character of Mal became a gay stereotype and I cringed when he told Fenno to "live" like a character out of Auntie Mame. Mal's mother also borders on a stereotype. I'm sorry to be this critical--there is much I admired in this book, particularly the sections in Scotland, and Fenno's relationship with his family. There just should have been some more editing. For instance, the character of Veronique who we're told over and over again is unlikeable has too much weight in this book. And although I liked Fern and Fenno meeting, I found Fern's story pretty boring. I'd still recommend this book, though, and as I said, I read the book almost entirely in one sitting, which means it grabbed me despite its flaws.
Rating: 
Summary: A little too precious
Review: Julia Glass is a very good writer but seems to try too hard, especially in the first section, to mine metaphors, so the writing comes off to me as studied. The middle section, on Fenno, is much better but I got tired of him rather quickly. With his friends, he is accommodating and charmingly reticent, but with his family members, somewhat of a peevish bore, quick to take offense and see a slight where none may exist. There is a part of the book where he feels quite put-upon when he is asked by his family to contribute something of himself. I find this ironic since it's the very thing he freely dispenses to virtual strangers in somewhat furtive encounters. Also, the world Fenno inhabits in New York, particularly with his friend across the street, is presented as rarified; i.e., their tastes in art, food, music, etc., are so much more cultivated than those who aren't part of their circle. This got tiresome. The overall writing skill of Glass, however, despite these criticisms, is very good.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing.
Review: I tend to read first novels of upcoming authors. Most often, the novels are much better reads than those from seasoned pros. I suspect the reason to be that their first story has been rolling around inside their heads for some time before they decided to commit them to paper. And, that story is most-likely the REASON they become novelists. That's a shame with Ms. Glass' first time out: this attempt had little plot and no point. It doesn't give me much enthusiasm for any of her future endeavors. While this book was somewhat of a tough read (although I suspect the typeface used more the culprit than Ms. Glass' writing), Ms. Glass' is a good writer. At times, phrases and passages jump out at you, giving you false promise that the book will indeed redeem itself. It never does. What we need here is more plot and substance. Actually, we need a plot and substance. Sorry to break the four- and five-star ratings other reviewers gave this, but, quite frankly, I'm really sorry I wasted the time in reading this.
Rating:
Summary: An uplifting, heartbreaking, beautiful book...
Review: This book isn't my standard cup of tea, but the reviews were so universally good, I decided to give it a try. It was wonderfully well worth the time. This is not a book you can idly pick up and scan for a while, then return to it as time allows. It is a well-told family story with personal intrigues and family secrets, none of which are so outlandish that we don't have a few of them littering our own closets. Because she needs for us to know the Scottish McLeod family well in order to propel the story along, Julia Glass takes a lot of time and pages to get us acquainted. For the reader who requires action to move a story along, this is a bit of a test, because it is the unfolding of the characters themselves that moves the story along, beautifully, heartbreakingly. It is easy to become impatient with Fenno, our main character and mini-hero, because he seems so paralyzed by his life, but read on and you will come to appreciate the many fine qualities of his character and those of his well-meaning family. I felt very satisfied upon finishing this - and ready for a trip to Greece (subplot)!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful family story that left me somewhat unsatisfied.
Review: Paul McLeod takes a very uncharacteristic trip to Greece the year after his wife dies. He struggles to understand what his marriage meant to him and to his wife, and to decide how to live his life from then on. A chance encounter with Fern, a young American girl, changes the course of his life significantly. Six years later, Paul dies. His oldest son, Fenno, returns home to try to understand his own life while figuring out that of his parents, his brothers, and his brothers' wives. Again, his life is altered in a small but ultimately significant way. Finally, Fern returns in the last section of the book, pregnant and having to decide whether to tell the father about the child, and whether she is really in love with him. In a random meeting, Fenno helps her make up her mind and also takes on a role that will probably keep him in her and her child's life. The writing of this book is beautifully modest. The story it tells is complex, but presented very simply. It is the story of real people, with no dramatic secrets but with layer upon layer of history that ultimately makes their relationship complex. It is the story of how different people can love very differently but just as truthfully. I loved this book until the final third. I was disappointed that it did not follow one of the McLeod family members. I was also disappointed that actually opened further Fenno's relationship to his mother and brother, instead of offering closure. The final third was true to the McLeod family story - with layers of history continuing to be added - but it left me somewhat unsatisfied.
Rating:
Summary: an admirer
Review: Three Junes is a nuanced, layered book. After I finished it, I re-read the first section and realized how beautifully the pieces of the book fit together. Glass is too sophisticated, too knowing of the realities of life, to come up with pat endings or make everything fit together too neatly. However, even small characters that are introduced in the first section, Fern's friend Anna for instance, are re-introduced in the later sections with appropriate follow-ups. She shows how different the world can be viewed from various perspectives. For example, in the first section, she details a character, Marjorie, a schoolteacher from Devon, who gets on the nerves of Paul, the main character. Later, Marjorie shows up at Paul's funeral and they seem to have remained in touch through the years. The reader assumes: she kept pushing herself into his life. Paul's son Fenno has a different take on Marjorie-and he wonders-were they good friends. NO , no you want to cry-she got on his nerves-but Fenno never gets to realize his father's take on herth-nor would most people in real life, after someone has died.
Bravo!
Rating:
Summary: Worth reading!
Review: The Scots like the Brits take exceptional pride in their mastery of the English language and so, also, does author, Julia Glass. Glass uses a Scottish family, named McLeod, as the medium through which she tells a complex story about family life, detailing in poetic terms its most intricate phases and transitions. The main character is Fenno McLeod, a gay, rather inward man, who time and again is swept into friendships as if by default. He is a listener, more than he is a talker, a watcher rather than a doer, and he frequently allows those more dominant than he to steer the course for his own life. Fenno is an ordinary man who constantly rises to meet the extraordinary challenges presented and is ultimately rewarded with a serene understanding of life and all the complexities and joys that go along with it. This modern day story is told in a genteel writing style reminiscent of earlier generations. A welcome change of pace.
Rating:
Summary: Heartbreaking, hopeful, and hugely entertaining
Review: "Three Junes" is elegantly written and highly entertaining, though its compelling plot is difficult to describe succinctly. It's partly a family saga (the story of three generations of the Scottish McLeods), but it's also an elegiac story of New Yorkers in the era of AIDS and a hopeful meditation on impending motherhood by a 30-something single widow. The book is both heartbreaking and hopeful; it's about the fragility of life, whether it is extinguished in a single act of terrorist madness or by the modern plague of AIDS or cancer. "Three Junes" is filled with articulate, civilized characters--witty, intelligent sophisticates--who must face the inevitabilities of life--birth, love, and, of course, death. (Those elemental themes, I think, give the novel a remarkable urgency, helped along with a great deal of narrative skill; it's a literary page-turner.) These people face life, for the most part, with grace and dignity and decency; virtually all of them are compelling, vividly sketched and fully realized. And the scenes that propel the reader forward are incredibly well delineated, from an emotionally draining funeral to an impromptu dinner party in Amagansett'the narrative momentum is intense. An interesting subtheme concerns the world of pets--collies and a spectacular parrot--and how their life cycles mirror (and sometimes transcend) those of their human counterparts. The writing is lyrical, painterly and often poetic, but never narcissistically so. This novel is a real accomplishment--difficult to fathom that it's a first novel--and should be very engaging to anyone interested in contemporary fiction.
Rating:
Summary: Good Enough
Review: But not great. Nothing so wrong with this book except that it just isn't vibrant enough for me. The people are so ho hum. The story just doesn't get me excited as when I read MIDDLESEX or even the better works by J.C. Boyle. Or, actually, some of the Southern writers out there. Ms. Glass is published and lauded by the mainstream press when a real gem, SIMON LAZARUS by M.A. Kirkwood, deserves so much more. If you want a reading experience that will transcend the quaint and predictable, SIMON LAZARUS is the ticket. Now that is a read!
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