If you want a relatable book, you might want to check out You’re Enough, June Nelson by Jessi Hansen. This book was published on December 17. It’s a time travel book, which I normally don’t like a lot, but I feel like this was handled really well.
The Story of June
June is 34 years old. She’s a semi-successful writer who’s boyfriend recently left her. Despite her career success, she feels a bit lonely. Thirteen years ago, she had a huge fight with her best friend, Dina, and they haven’t spoken since. She’s also struggled to form meaningful close friendships since her fight with Dina. On the way to a launch party for her latest book, June asks for a sign. A stop sign hits her in the head, knocking her unconscious. She wakes up as her 17-year-old self.
My Thoughts
I really enjoyed this book. I felt like the characters in general were very relatable. There was one character who bothered me because while he’s supposed to be a high school student, he seems to react to things as though he’s about 5 years old. While it’s not addressed, I did wonder if he had some sort of social disorder. Other than him, though, I felt like the reactions of the characters were age-appropriate.
I think we all have things we’ve done that we regret or times in our lives when we wonder if things would have turned out differently if we hadn’t made a specific decision. June gets the chance to go back and relive a few days of her life, seeing whether she could have done things differently.
I like that this wasn’t a book where our main character, June, went back and everything was fixed. Instead, it’s a book where she goes back in time, notices things she didn’t notice when she was 17, and realizes that she misjudged some people. While I would say that it has a happy ending, it didn’t have a “life is perfect” type of ending.
This is a minor spoiler, but ultimately, two people realize that June has time-traveled. Both are 100% fine with this explanation. I would think they’d question it a bit more, especially since the story is realistic overall. This was my biggest issue with this story and the main reason it didn’t get the final half-star.
Was This Clean?
This book is clean. There’s no swearing, sexual content, or violence. It does deal with death, a parent abandoning a child, step-families (including a bit of an evil step-mother vibe), a parent manipulating an adult child, and other similar issues. I like that the author kept this book clean. In looking at the descriptions of some of the other books by Jessi Hansen, it appears not all of them are clean. Even though I did enjoy this book, it might be the only one I read by her.
This is a book that I would recommend. It’s so relatable. I think most people can find similarities between some of the book’s characters and people they knew in high school. While I wouldn’t say I hate time travel books, I don’t generally seek them out. This one did a good job with the time travel aspect of the story.
