The Honeys Review

*SOME SPOILERS*

Mars has always been the lesser twin, the shadow to his sister Caroline’s radiance. But when Caroline dies under horrific circumstances, Mars is propelled to learn all he can about his once-inseparable sister who’d grown tragically distant. Mars’s genderfluidity means he’s often excluded from the traditions — and expectations — of his politically-connected family. This includes attendance at the prestigious Aspen Conservancy Summer Academy where his sister poured so much of her time. But with his grief still fresh, he insists on attending in her place.

Mars as a character I enjoyed but didn’t connect with as much as I would of liked to. I think because the start of the book is so jarring and intense it took me a little longer to get situated in the plot and understand what was happening. I thought Mars’ reasonings for wanting to go back to Aspen Academy was fair and if was in his place I would of wanted to go back too. I just thought it took him too long to really make a move and start to fully investigate the honeys and Aspen as a whole.

All the other characters aside from Mars were kind of hard to distinguish between. None of them really felt fleshed out to me and were kind of blurred together (I’m even having a hard time remembering any of their names). I just felt like because this was titled as the honeys and they were the ones who were closest to Caroline before she died we would of got to know them a lot more than what we did.

I could in no way predict how this book was going to end. It took a turn for the weird and strange and I wasn’t prepared for it so it definitely took me by surprise! I liked how broad the scope of the book got and it wasn’t just isolated to Aspen and the fact that Mars wasn’t able to escape from the inevitability of this organisation.

The prose was very lyrical and beautiful but almost a little too flowery for me. I think the overly descriptive language and the perceptive shifts that occur throughout the course of the plot kept confusing me which may have been intentional by the author. I don’t really enjoy for the most part not fulling knowing and understanding what was going on so that kind of pulled me out of the story a bit.

⭐️3/5 stars Loved the premise, the pacing was just a bit off