goodnight june

goodnight june
sarah jio
fiction/contemporary
plume
published 2014

June Andersen is professionally successful, but her personal life is marred by unhappiness. Unexpectedly, she is called to settle her great-aunt Ruby’s estate and determine the fate of Bluebird Books, the children’s bookstore Ruby founded in the 1940s. Amidst the store’s papers, June stumbles upon letters between her great-aunt and the late Margaret Wise Brown—and steps into the pages of American literature.

I was so pleasantly surprised by this book!  This was one of those sweet beach reads that takes barely any time to read and you feel like you know where the story is going, but there are surprises here and there.

The book is told in part through the letters that June finds and I just loved it.  But I didn't think the book would revolve so much around family and the relationships between sisters both blood and the sisters you choose to share your life with.  I actually could have done without the romance part of the story because I felt like June didn't really need to find someone right away.  That her staying in Seattle could be just for the bookstore and the life she needed to carve out for herself and not because she fell in love, but it was wonderful nonetheless.

I think maybe loving the book might have to do a bit with how it reminded me of You've Got Mail which is one of my favorite movies of all time.  A little children's bookstore struggling, part of so many memories.....good stuff.