The June Boys by Court Stevens is a suspense novel about The Gemini Thief, who kidnaps a boy on the first day of June each year. He takes the boy, holds him for a little more than a year, and releases him on the last day of June the following year. No one can figure out who the Gemini Thief is but the terror is everywhere in the town. One day a boys body has been discovered, leading townspeople to speculate if the Gemini Thief is escalating.

The first half of this book was a little slow for me. There was a lot of backstory, explaining, and the necessary introductions meant to grab the readers interest and attention but I found it hard to follow. Halfway through, things started to pick up for me. And I think the ending was very moving and there was a twist that caught my attention. This was my first Court Stevens novel and I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was a pretty good clean YA story.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I love young adult mystery thrillers. This one had a lot of twists and turns I didn’t see coming, and I loved the mysterious aspect.

I loved all the twists in this storyline and it made me not want to put the book down. There were parts where I thought I knew who the Gemini thief was. Usually with books like these I can guess the person doing things, but I never saw the ending coming. Warning this book does deal with kidnapping and death.

This book is my least favorite Court Stevens book I've read, but her writing is still so lyrical and flows very well. I didn't quite understand entirely where this book went.

Rating: 4 stars

This was such a good intense book. I loved all the characters and the relationships.

The mystery of who the Gemini Thief actually was, was so fun. It had me on the edge of my seat and constantly guessing and I kept changing my mind about who I thought it was! It was the part that made me love this book as much as I did,

I love Courtney's writing, it keeps me on the edge of my seat through every part.

I’m a Gemini, and when the villain in this story was called the Gemini Thief, I automatically knew I was going to enjoy this. The Gemini Thief captures, and hides 3 boys for thirteen months. Ultimately releasing each one unharmed. He is smart. Never leaves evidence and no one knows who he is, even his victims. Such a fantastic thriller.

I have heard so many good things about this book but the formatting issues really made it impossible for me to read. However, from what I could handle before tapping out, I think it has potential. Just not enough to overcome the irritating format

I had no idea what to expect of this book, but what I got I was the total creep factor and I loved it. I thought it was a bit odd that every year in June boys were kidnapped and held for an entire year but then released…strange, right? It had twists and kept me in suspense until the end. There were a few suspects that kept me wondering and thinking it was this person, no that person and I liked that I wasn’t sure who was doing the kidnapping/releasing of the boys. The plot of the story was very intriguing for me and I also liked the characters. Thea’s the MC and her concern for Aulus was endearing to me. She was hell-bent on finding him and I loved her perseverance.

One thing about this book that I have known but it reinforced and reminded me that you never truly know a person unless they reveal those parts of themselves to you, but sometimes there are aspects of one’s character we might never know.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Thomas Nelson for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion which I have given.

Well, that was a disappointing waste of several hours of my life.

So, I will start out with the note that I was really looking forward to reading The June Boys. The premise was fascinating with enough mystery and ethical complexity that I was super intrigued to see where it went.

But the farther I got, the more disappointed I became.

The mood of the book was dismal and purposefully depressed, not to mention slightly confused. I didn’t particularly care for any of the main characters, with the possible exception of Aulus (and was thoroughly wacked out by one or two), but I was pretty hooked in the mystery and was kept on my toes wondering who the Gemini Theif really was. Despite all that, I was willing to let it slide as sort of a “meh” to fairly decent, however, when the author decided to provide her own smug interpretation of Biblical principles and pop an out-of-the blue ending on us, I couldn’t even stomach finishing the last chapter or so.

So to recap, a pretty solid mystery, a lot of potential, and a distinctly disappointing conclusion.

Note: I received a copy of this book for FREE, and a positive review was not required.

Twisty, twisty, twisty! I'm not one to really try and figure it out, I enjoy just going on the ride, but with every twist I was like, "Oh, yeah...I see how it is that person." Then with the twist in the bunker....ugh! The author made me cry....for nothing! Well played.

Thank you to Thomas Nelson Publishing for letting me read an eARC copy of The June Boys.

I was hooked on this story from the synopsis alone! I loved how it alternated between Thea's perspective and Aulus's letters. It gave the story a well rounded feel of knowing what's going on in the outside world and what's happening with the June Boys in that moment. It was a bit slow in the beginning but as the story progressed it picked up very fast and made me want to keep turning to get more info on the Gemini Thief. But that ending though! I would have never thought that was what would happen! If you like twist endings then this is definitely a book you should pick up!

I did have high hopes for this one, as I really love thrillers, but the biggest things that disconnected me from reading were (1) the writing voice, which was hard to follow with weird phrasing and word choices, and (2) the main character literally being unimportant to her own story. The mystery aspect of this book was well done, laid out, but still a shocking twist by the end. But there definitely needs to be a good reason that FBI and cops are willing to tell teens classified case information -- there wasn't here. While Thea and Nick lead their own investigation because Thea's cousin has vanished (suspected to be a victim of the Gemini Thief) and Nick's sister is FBI, there was just NO reason for them to have access to anything. Especially when at the start no one thought the disappearance was related. And Thea? She was only important to the story because of her relation to people suspected/involved in the case. She didn't even have a personality.

There also were a whole lot of disturbing threads that were never addressed: including Thea's dad drained all their life savings (including Thea's college fund) to build a castle (!?) and basically he was an unfit parent the whole time, but "meant well" so that's okay I guess. Then one of the side-characters' parents referred to being Black and being a murderer as the same level of bad. Followed up by that side-character going, "But you know my parents mean well." They're racist, actually. And the reveal of the villain was full of stereotyped gender "reasons" to why they kidnapped the boys.

I just wish the writing style hadn't been so hard to follow, because the ending did feel haunting and the letters from one of the kidnapped boys were gripping to read.

Though I found the writing style to be easily engaging and accessible, which sucked me in, the overall “thrill” fell a little flat. I won’t spoil, but it just didn’t do it for me. However, I do love a good small town southern vibe, and this book did nail that!

The key difference between a mystery and a thriller: what we the readers know. Because the identity of the kidnapper is as much a question mark to us as it is to Thea, this book is firmly in the mystery category. Now, a good mystery should present us with an assortment of reasonable suspects. We should be constantly changing our minds about the criminal's identity. Personally, I had a guess pretty early on that didn't waver much and I was close to right. Honestly, the weakest part of this book was the supposed motivations for the various suspects. It does have it's strong points. Consider the investigation. Thea and Nick aren't succeeding where the police fail. We see the police and the FBI actively investigating at every turn. It's just that Thea and her friends are obsessing over details and find themselves privy to information that the authorities do not have. They only keep things to themselves until they are able to confirm it, and then they hand it over. Yes they are investigating but the ultimate responsibility always belongs to the authorities. That makes this plot less one of chasing after criminals and more of discovering secrets and questioning what you know about the people closest to you. This makes it more contemplative than the standard mystery. Stevens asks us to reflect upon the difference between fact and truth, between what we know and what we believe. This is compelling enough to keep us reading and leaves us with ideas to chew on after the fact.

I was just not captivated by this story. Though it was supposed to be a suspenseful thriller I wasn’t invested in it. The characters were lackluster and had very little identity or unique characteristics that it was just confusing. It’s a fairly big cast and they are all connected in some way, especially living in a small town but they were virtually unrecognizable from each other. I don’t feel like I had any connection to any of the characters and felt little to nothing at the end when things were speeding up in action.

It also seemed like things worked out pretty easily and there was a strong reliance on Christianity that permeated the entire second half that just made me feel uncomfortable sometimes. That could just be me because I have a strained relationship with religion, but I didn’t like it showing up out of nowhere and then taking over the plot.

All in all this was not my cup of tea.

I really loved the mystery aspect of this book. I kept trying to guess who the kidnapper was but I kept changing my mind because of the things that were happening. In the end I was way off with my guesses and I loved that I couldn't actually guess right. The one thing that took away a star for me was the fact that the characters lacked interest other than trying to figure out who the kidnapper was and they were so focused on that that there really wasn't much else to them. I did enjoy the writing and the narration of the audiobook. I will be reading more from this author in the future.

Based on other early reviewers responses to the formatting of the ARC, I will not be reading the ARC copy of this title. It has been shared that the ARC copy has some severe formatting flaws that make the reading experience difficult and confusing. I did not attempt to read this copy myself, and thus cannot accurately rate this title.

Ok.... no, no, no, no. I tried to read this book... FIVE times! You read that right. First, I received an eARC from NetGalley, but the formatting was messed up on my Kindle. Then, I tried my Kindle app on my phone, then NetGalley finally came out with their own app so I tried that, but the formatting was still annoying, then I also received the audiobook for this one on NetGalley, but the narration is terrible and echos at 2x speed, then I tried reading along with the audio at a slower pace, but I just couldn't do it. At that point, I ended up just skimming the rest of the novel very very quickly. I couldn't do it. And, frankly, after reading through the novel, even quickly, I'm glad I didn't give it much attention because the writing was really rough and the plot was terrible. The twist was not at all exciting or interesting in any aspect to me personally. After all the effort I've put in over the last YEAR to read this book, I'm disappointed and frustrated. All in all, not my type of story. I don't know if the formatting issues and repeat attempts at reading it spoiled the fun for me, or if the novel wasn't the best which made it extra hard to get over bad formatting. Some reviewers I really trust received final copies and still weren't fans for the same reasons I found so who knows. At this point, I'm done with it and counting it over with.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas Nelson for, both, an eARC and audiobook of this novel. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

DNF
The formatting of my e copy was messed up. The timeline was all over the place, so I couldn't tell what was happening through the entire story.

I cannot review this book because the formatting of the earc is very wonky and manned it difficult to read.