Honestly, I’m still thinking about that red door. If you’ve finished Adrienne Young’s The Unmaking of June Farrow, you know exactly what I mean. It’s one of those books that leaves your brain feeling a little like a frayed cable—sparking, messy, and slightly disconnected from reality.
Jasper, North Carolina, feels so real in this book you can practically smell the mountain laurel and the old farm dirt. But the "madness" haunting the Farrow women isn’t just some southern gothic metaphor for mental illness. It’s way more literal than that. It’s about time quite literally coming apart at the seams.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Farrow Curse
A lot of readers go into this thinking it’s a standard "magic house" or "secret history" story. It’s not. The Farrow curse is basically a biological glitch in time. In the town of Jasper, everyone thinks the Farrow women just "lose it." They see things. They hear things. They eventually wander off and never come back.
But June Farrow isn't crazy. She’s seeing a different reality because she’s already lived it.
The hallucinations—the sound of wind chimes that aren't there, the smell of cigarette smoke, and that persistent red door—are actually "frays." Think of it like a double exposure on an old film reel. Two timelines are trying to occupy the same space in June’s head.
🔗 Read more: Shamea Morton and the Real Housewives of Atlanta: What Really Happened to Her Peach
The Rules of the Red Door
You can’t just hop back and forth like you’re in a Back to the Future sequel. There are rules, and they are brutal:
- The Three-Crossing Limit: You only get three chances to pass through the door. After that? You’re stuck. If you try a fourth, you risk "unmaking" yourself entirely.
- The No-Duplicate Rule: You generally can’t exist in a time where you already exist. If you try, the timelines fight back. This is why June’s mother, Susanna, had to send baby June away.
- The Memory Tax: This is the part that hurts. The more you stay in a "foreign" timeline, the more your original memories fade. You become the person that time needs you to be.
Why Eamon Stone is the Key to the Mystery
When June finally steps through that door and lands in 1951, she’s met by Eamon Stone. And here’s the kicker: he already knows her. He loves her. To him, she isn't a stranger; she's his wife who has been missing for a year.
It’s heartbreaking, really.
June is looking at a man she’s never met, while he’s looking at the woman he’s built a life with. Adrienne Young does this thing where she shows us a "second chance" romance, but one of the people doesn't even know it’s a second chance yet. Eamon has been waiting, raising their daughter Annie (who we later realize is Birdie—yeah, wrap your head around that one), just hoping June would find her way back.
💡 You might also like: Who is Really in the Enola Holmes 2 Cast? A Look at the Faces Behind the Mystery
That Ending: Let's Break Down the Loop
If the ending left you squinting at the pages, you’re in good company. Basically, June discovers a loophole. By choosing to stay in 1951, she chooses a life of "fading" into that era to save her daughter from the curse.
The "Unmaking" isn't about her dying. It's about her original 2023 self—the one who grew up in Jasper without a mother—ceasing to be the dominant personality. She chooses to become the June who stays, the June who loves Eamon, and the June who breaks the cycle.
The "Birdie" Revelation
Finding out that Birdie (the old woman in June’s "present") is actually her own daughter Annie grown up is the moment the book clicks into place. Birdie spent her whole life waiting for the moment her mother would reappear, just so she could guide her back to the past to become her mother in the first place.
It’s a massive, emotional bootstrap paradox.
📖 Related: Priyanka Chopra Latest Movies: Why Her 2026 Slate Is Riskier Than You Think
Actionable Insights for Readers and Book Clubs
If you're still processing the book or preparing to discuss it, here are a few things to keep in mind to really "get" the depth of what Young was doing:
- Track the Objects: Pay attention to the locket and the photographs. They aren't just mementos; they are anchors that prove the physical movement between 1951 and the present.
- Look at the Flowers: The Farrow flower farm isn't just a setting. The "wildness" of their garden mirrors the wildness of time. When the garden is thriving, the timelines are usually stable. When things get weird, the environment reflects that decay.
- Question the "Madness": Think about how many women in history were labeled "mad" just because they saw a reality the men around them couldn't acknowledge. Young uses time travel to give a voice to that historical gaslighting.
If you’re looking for your next read after this, you’ll probably want something with a similar "atmospheric mystery" vibe. Spells for Forgetting is the obvious choice since it’s also by Adrienne Young, but The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow hits those same "mysterious doorway" notes perfectly.
Take a second to look back at the clues Margaret left for June. Once you know the ending, those early chapters read like a completely different book. Every "hallucination" was actually a memory waiting to be reclaimed.