Mad Honey
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
June 2024
5 out of 5
Books N Hooks Book Club
“People want the world to be simple. But gender isn’t simple, much as some might want it to be. The fact that it’s complicated—that there’s a whole spectrum of ways of being in the world—is what makes it a blessing. Surely nature—or god, or the universe—is full of miracles and wild invention and things way beyond our understanding, no matter how hard we try. We aren’t here on earth in order to bend over backwards to resemble everybody else. We are here to be ourselves, in our gnarly brilliance.”
“If you want to understand something, you first need to accept the fact of your own ignorance.”
Mad Honey is about a young boy named Asher and a young girl named Lily who fall in love, but Lily is found dead by Asher and he is put on a murder trail. While his mom, Olivia tries to raise her son as a single mother dealing with a horrible past of her abusive ex husband, finds a new beginning in NH. Lily and her mother also try to find a new beginning by moving but this is due to other home issues with Lily’s father not being as supportive in a situation. “Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.”
“you don’t ever recover from losing someone you love—even the ones you leave behind because you’re better off without them.”
Dual POV
Dual timeline
Murder/ Mystery/ Suspense
Mad Honey/ Bees
Romance
This was an amazing book, although I did not like how much it focused on a certain topic (can’t say or it will alter how you read the book, go in blindly) it was a typical Jodi Picoult book by talking about topics in an educational way, without persuading you. Jodi’s writing has always been one of my favorites because it is easy to read, educational and gives you a topic that can be hard to discuss but she does it with such ease. This book was captivating and made me wanting more the whole time I was reading. At one point I didn’t want to finish it because I didn’t want to know how it ended and didn’t want to finish the book because it was so good, and the ending took me by surprise. I think the dual POV and dual timeline was executed perfectly and made sense on why some of the situations happened, what it could’ve been like or why people said the things they did.
“We are all flawed, complicated, wounded dreamers; we have more in common with one another than we don't. Sometimes making the world a better place just involves creating space for the people who are already in it.”
