Review: Honey by Isabel Banta

Honey

by Isabel Banta

Release Date: June 4, 2024

2024 Celadon Books

Softcover ARC; 336 Pages

ISBN: 978-1250333469

ASIN: B0CFJTQVFL

Audiobook: B0CKM1XSYB

Genre: Fiction / YA / Contemporary

Source: Review copy from publisher

 

2 / 5 Stars

 

Summary

It is 1997, and Amber Young has received a life-changing call. It is a chance thousands of girls would die for: the opportunity to join girl group Cloud9 in Los Angeles and escape her small town. She quickly finds herself in the orbits of fellow rising stars Gwen Morris, a driven singer-dancer, and Wes Kingston, a member of the biggest boy band in the world, ETA.

As Amber embarks on her solo career and her fame intensifies, her rich interior life is frequently reduced. Surrounded by people who claim to love her but only wish to exploit her, and driven by a desire for recognition and success, for love and sex, for agency and connection, Amber comes of age at a time when the kaleidoscope of public opinion can distort everything and one mistake can shatter a career.

 

My Thoughts

Honey is one of those books that had many elements that I enjoy, but the execution was very much lacking for me.  The premise sounded really good; I mean, who doesn't love a book about 90s pop music and all the hype that went along with that? And while the writing wasn't terrible, and there were moments that were quite interesting, overall, both the story line and the characters lacked development and I had to push myself to finish this book. 

 

Amber is the main character of the story, and while I enjoyed following her process of becoming a pop star, I didn't really connect with her as a character. Part of the reason for this is the author's writing style as it felt like Amber was constantly on the outside of the scenes in which she participated. If this doesn't make sense, I don't know how else to explain it other than she wasn't controlling her own narrative, but seemed to be following everyone else's story. All the people in her relationships seemed to be doing it bigger and better than she was, and she was just there for whatever reason. I would have liked to have seen more character development rather than this rag doll who doesn't really do anything. And the other characters are portrayed the same way, flat and one-dimensional which makes it really difficult to connect to them on an emotional level.  It got to the point where I didn't care what happened to them, or I was hoping for some major drama just for a change in someone's personality.  Basically, none of these people seemed relatable/real, Amber being the worst of them all. She constantly talks about how she wants control of her writing, her career, her life, but doesn't do anything about it. I also think the author may have wasted an opportunity here to show how little control these singers had over their lives, if that was the message being portrayed, something that could have sent a powerful message throughout the book.

While the author definitely has talent, this book tended to lean too much on the telling rather than showing the reader what is happening. I wanted to feel Amber's emotions when she sang on stage during her concerts, how people reacted to her. I wanted to know what happened at her press conferences. I wanted to know what it was like for her when she met her fans. There was little of this and this would definitely have helped us understand Amber's life as she grew more famous.  I really had no idea how the fans were reacting to her music and to her, nor did we get a glimpse of that from the other singers. Why not? We hear she's a good singer from those around her, but what do the fans think? Again, the author doesn't sink us into that part of her world, focusing more on her sexual escapades and how she doesn't believe she needs to hide her sexuality from the world rather than on her music.  I didn't mind that aspect of the story, but like everything in this book, written and explored at a superficial level. So much focus on her body and how it was developed. WE GET IT!! She was developed. Now move on. 

Verdict

Honey had a lot of promise, but didn't capitalize on the themes in this book to showcase the control music empires had over their singers, how they pit their singers against each other, and the rather strict expectations they had. I found the relationships to be somewhat shallow and was even disappointed in how Amber's relationship with her mother was portrayed, as yet again, instead of showing how it impacted her life, it was relegated to the background as unimportant.  Overall, I didn't feel like I learned very much about Amber as there was little character development, something that left me detached from the book and the story. I don't regret reading it, and I will probably try another book by this author as there is a lot of potential here, but this one was a miss for me.