⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫(4.5)

🎧🎧🎧 🎧(4)

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Format: Audio 

Status: Borrowed via Libby

Published: October 4, 2022

Soundtrack mood: Make You Feel My Love – Adele 

This book is about love and what it means to navigate the world as a woman. The love in this book is powerful from first loves, how love makes us blind to things others see as faults, and the boundless unconditional love of mothers. Most importantly, we have the power to love people for who they are at their core when all the things they hide behind are stripped away. Taking place in a small New England town, Mad Honey tells us the tale of Olivia and her popular star of the hockey team son Asher. Asher falls hard and fast for Lily, cellist and new girl. In the opening chapters of the book, Asher gets accused of Lily’s murder and our story unfolds through the months before and after her death. Through dual points of view and various timelines, Lily and Olivia lead us not only through Lily and Asher’s relationship but also through Lily and Olivia ‘s individual pasts. Additionally, Olivia grapples with the man she knows her son to be versus her deepest fears of who he might be. The authors essentially each wrote a POV, yet they integrate seamlessly. Further, they encompassed many aspects of womanhood, from the difficulty of being a teenage girl to the turmoil of being a mother to a teen. 

Mad Honey takes us from high school hallways to Olivia’s bee colonies to high-stakes courtroom drama. Sprinkled throughout, Olivia gives us bee knowledge, which helps keep the heaviness of this book from dragging you down. Mad Honey has several scenes that were challenging to read, specifically in relation to the lack of power many women have in their day-to-day life. I felt these delicate topics were handled with extreme care. 

The writing is beautiful, thought-provoking, and filled with an engaging twist that makes this book even more special! This book took me by surprise, brought me to tears, and ultimately left me wanting to hug my babies extra tight. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

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