Honey Girl: A Novel

Lovely book, easy read. Well written. Would recommend.

This was not exactly what I was expecting. From the description and things I had heard about Honey Girl I just kind of assumed it was primarily sapphic adult romance but that is not the case. While the romance is a prevalent aspect of the story it is not the main focus, instead Honey Girl focused a lot more on Grace discovering herself as an adult, what she wanted from her life and learning how to love herself.Regardless that this wasn't what I expected I did like the characters and I still really enjoyed reading it, I think it could be a good book for you if you're of a similar age, it can be quite comforting to read about an MC with some of the same doubts and fears.

I knew I was going to love Honey Girl the moment Morgan Rogers announced it, but it got me right in the feelings in a way I really wasn't expecting.⁠⁠When Grace Porter lets loose in Las Vegas after completing her PhD, she wakes up to find herself married, with only vague memories of a beautiful girl who smelled of sea-salt. All that remains is a business card to a mysterious podcast, and a terrible hangover. ⁠⁠So far so good, so romance novel. But this isn't a traditional romance novel. As the story progresses, Grace ponders whether to reach out to her wife, Yuki, while struggling with her place in academia as a Black woman, the pressures of her father's expectations, the responsibilities in her life. At breaking point, Grace flees to New York and to Yuki in order to explore the life she could have.⁠⁠This really is a story about running as fast as you can through your twenties, and when you finally get a chance to breathe realising you don't know what the hell you're doing or why, it's about wondering if you've pushed too far, too hard, for too long, and trying to work out what really matters to you. It is entirely relatable content, and very beautifully written.⁠⁠I really want to press this book into the hands of anyone who is going through that awkward, frustrating stage, or has survived it, because I think it's handled and explored so incredibly well by Rogers. ⁠

I gave this book a 3.5 stars I expected a little more fluffy romance than I I however I really enjoyed this book it was funny, fun, emotional.The author deals with some really important topics and wow she does it so well. This book is a lot more than just a romance. Irs about a girl learning to be herself to discover what she wants in life and deals with mentle health.It's wrote really well.The only reason I gave it 3.5 stars was because I would have liked a little.more romance between Grace and Yuki

Grace Porter, newly graduated Doctor of Astronomy, has done something VERY un-Grace-Porter-like. She appears to have met a girl in Vegas and gotten married - but she has no idea who the girl is. Left only with a photo and a business card for a late night radio talkshow in Brooklyn, Grace needs to figure out what happened and work out if she has just made the biggest mistake of her well-planned life, or if her future really was written in the stars.I adored this book so much. It's beautiful. It's emotional, funny, relatable - the author does such a wonderful job portraying Grace's sheer exhaustion at wanting to stick to "THE PLAN", please her parents, but also find happiness for herself. By Grace's age (28), we're expected to have everything fiured out, but Grace is stuck. Racism and Sexism hinder her job prospects, and she's drowning in her father's expectations. This beautiful mystery woman may just be the push to the surface she needed - but Grace still has to learn to swim to shore.This is a beautiful story about finding your way even when you have a path, and about defining what "success" actually means for you. It's also a look at mental health, familial & societal pressures, and the extra expectations placed upon Black women entering the workplace. A stunning #ownvoices debut.

Stunning. This is a beautiful, slow, lyrical book filled with incredible characters and amazing words! It's so refreshing to read a new adult queer romance, especially featuring a queer Black lead. This didn't disappoint.

Stunning, lyrical prose. The emotions invoked were extraordinary and varied. The addresses of systemic racism, depression, mental illness as a whole, medication, self harm, love, lgbtqqip2saa, poc... I am deeply moved by this raw, real story. I can’t relate to all, but it certainly made me question myself, the systems that allows these issues to exist and the world itself.

There’s this half indescribable feeling I get with some books. An ache in my chest, an ache in my heart more specifically as I read. And it’s as if the book is saying to me, I hear you, I’m listening, and all I want it is for it to crawl its way into my chest and replace my heart because I know so completely that it would pump blood through my veins just as my heart does. I think that Honey Girl is one of those books.I read Honey Girl twice before writing this review. Mostly because I was scared. Did I read it too fast? Does it only feel like home the first time? Can I get that feeling back if it goes? I’m being too poetic I know, but there’s no way to be impartial about something so profoundly personal. When Honey Girl was first announced I was so afraid it was too good to be true, a black lesbian astronomer? As the main character in a book? The specific niche that I happen to fall into? I shouldn’t get my hopes up. Right?But Honey Girl is a call out to the lonely creatures of the world, and therefore it called out to me. Are you there? I said. Are you listening? And I’m here, it replied, I’m here. When I say that the prose knocked the air out of my chest made me cry at least 20 times all while feeling comforting and truthful, I’m not joking. And maybe it’s the truthful part that gets you; this book won’t let you lie to yourself just as it doesn’t let Grace lie to herself.So what is Honey Girl even about? Anxious Virgo Grace Porter gets drunk married to a girl she only remembers in flashes while on a celebratory trip to Vegas after finishing her PhD in Astronomy. She’s spent 11 years pushing herself further in the field, and now she has to fight a fight she’s not quite ready for. Getting a place to give her, a black lesbian, a position she’s qualified for is already proving to be difficult, and Grace has spent her life striving so hard for the best she can’t accept anything else. But maybe her mystery wife who hosts a radio show about creatures and myths, who speaks to the lonely creatures and asks, are you there, is the key to helping Grace get out of her head. So Grace goes to New York to get to know her wife Yuki and to figure out what she’s doing with her life now.I could write entire essays on every character in Honey Girl. Grace’s character arc was amazing and painful to watch as she hits her breaking point and spirals and then tries to put the pieces back together. Even still, Grace is triumphant, and every step she takes to helping herself felt like a personal triumph to me as a reader.Grace finally breaking down after years of avoiding it felt personal. She hit a wall that I seem to hit every 5 years and have to build myself back from, so Grace’s anxiety and bone-deep sadness hit me hard. The depiction of mental illness and mental health care throughout Honey Girl is exactly what I look for in books. There’s a positive depiction of therapy and medication, of getting help when you need it, and sorting through what is making your life harder.Grace’s struggle with fighting her way through academia was all too real. The sad reality of what strides you have to take to be taken seriously when you’re so outrageously outnumbered by people you can’t relate to pulled no punches. And as someone with the same marginalizations as Grace who’s also pursuing Astronomy, too much of it has already hurt me. I literally can’t write about this without crying, so let’s move on.Honey Girl calls to the want to escape that exists in so many of us and the soul-deep loneliness that can prevail even when among your closest friends. With everything that it so perfectly handles I know I’ll be keeping it near and dear to me for years to come.

Wow, just wow. I thought this would be a cute, fun read about a sapphic relationship, and don't get me wrong, it was, but it had no business making me feel the things it did and reading me so deeply.I didn't expect all this focus on Grace finding herself and her path in life and what she wants to do "when she grows up", but it got me right in the heart, and for this reason, this novel will stay on my reread shelf for a long long time.I like Yuki's stories a lot, they made me think a lot about my own life and my personal issues.My only "complaint" is that I wish there was more romance, more cute easy moments with Yuki and Grace as a couple, I wished there were a few more chapters after the epilogue, like "a day in the life" or them settling in their new life.

This book is so sweet and hard too. It can tell you things about yourself. The characters are well written, the storytelling too. I will remember this book and won't mind reading it again.

Drei Sterne für die Kombination aus meinen (zugegebenermaßen ganz schön vom Marketing geschürten) Erwartungen und der Qualität des Buches.Vermarktet wurde mir Honey Girl als Romanze plus Coming-of-Age, mit Fokus auf der queeren Identität der Protagonistin (letzteres hat für mich den Kaufausschlag gegeben). Bekommen habe ich die Geschichte einer gebeutelten Absolventin, die mit Rassismus, den Erwartungen ihres Vaters, und einer für lange Zeit undefinierten psychischen Erkrankung zu kämpfen hat. Das ist erstmal kein Werturteil, allerdings eine ziemliche Abweichung von dem, was mir versprochen wurde.Dazu kam, dass ich der Geschichte selbst nicht allzu viel abgewinnen konnte. Ich denke, jemand der sich mehr mit Grace identifizieren kann, als ich das getan habe (speziell, was die Erwartung des Elternhauses und den systemischen Rassismus angeht, beides Themen, die mir nicht persönlich nahe sind, aber sehr im Mittelpunkt der Geschichte stehen), nimmt wesentlich mehr mit als ich. Die Themen sind nicht schlecht behandelt; man merkt, wie nahe der Autorin viele Punkte sind. Sie sind nur nicht das, was ich üblicherweise gezielt aussuchen würde.Davon abgesehen leidet das Buch auch unter einigen handwerklichen Schwächen. Stellenweise wirken Dialoge sehr hölzern, blumige Beschreibungen werden endlos wiederholt, und neue Charaktere werden fast schon mit einer Liste an Persönlichkeitsmerkmalen vorgestellt, die in einigen Fällen die *gesamte* Persönlichkeit ausmachen. Gerade Yuki ist weniger komplex, als ich mir das gewünscht hätte, und erinnert sehr an den Manic Pixie Dreamgirl-Tropus, ohne dafür ein Gegengewicht zu haben.Über das Ende bin ich mir sehr unschlüssig. Einige Aspekte waren perfekt gewählt und die logische Schlussfolgerung der Ereignisse. Andere wirkten sehr an den haaren herbeigezogen.Wer mit den richtigen Erwartungen liest und den Hauptthemen etwas abgewinnen kann, für den ist Honey Girl sicher einen Blick wert. Für mich wird es wohl kein zweites Lesen geben.