First Published: 2012
June Elbus is a fourteen-year-old girl, who has a very special relationship with her uncle Finn in 1986.
Finn is an artist but is very sick with AIDs, as he knows he has his days numbered, he wants to paint June and her sister, Greta. The relationship between June and Greta is complicated; they were close when they were younger, but now Greta treats her scornfully at times.
Uncle Finn dies, and June receives a phone call from some unknown man but she gets so nervous that she hangs up. The day of the funeral they see a young man outside the funeral home, and her mother and grandmother look at the man nastily, and then Greta tells her that the man is Finn's boyfriend, and he killed him because Finn contracted AIDs because he passed it to him. So everybody hates him.
Some days after the funeral June receives a parcel, and she notices that the postman looks at her strangely. Inside the parcel there is a teapot which belonged to her uncle, but there is a note. The note, which is from someone called Toby, explains that he loved Finn as much as June did, and Toby wants to see her. So he tells her to meet her at the station some weeks later. June doesn't want to do anything with Toby because he is the reason that she lost her uncle. However, she eventually goes to meet him. They talk little, and they travel to New York by train, and Toby gives her some money that was her uncle's. June has mixed feelings about the encounter. She wants to hate this man but she wants to know more about her uncle. When they part ways, Toby tells her to call him, but she thinks that this will be the last time she sees Toby. I think this won't finish here.
I am enjoying this book and the way June sees the world. I love the narration and how peculiarly sweet June is.
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