Honey
Ratings6
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings6
Average rating3.8
A coming-of-age story that follows the meteoric rise of singer Amber Young as she navigates fame in the late-90s and early-2000s era of pop music superstardom
It is 1997, and Amber Young has received a life-changing call. It’s 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.
With the captivating style of Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter and the raw honesty of Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died, Isabel Banta’s debut novel, Honey, redefines the narratives of some of the most famous pop icons of the ’90s and 2000s. It reimagines the superstars we idolized and hated, oversexualized and underestimated, and gives them the fresh, multifaceted story they deserve.
Reviews with the most likes.
This book was slow and did not grab me. I found myself skimming pages and just not caring about the characters. I think this might be a soft dnf for now but we will see
I’d like to thank both NetGalley and Macmillan Audio, from whom I received an ALC of Honey (from Celadon Books) for review. These opinions are my own.
You can’t read the synopsis of Honey without thinking of Britney Spears. I was a young teenager when she became a household name. I wasn’t even a fan (I wasn’t allowed to listen to her music 😂), but I remember the constant rumors about her and the grown men on news channels arguing over whether or not she’d had a boob job and speculating on the status of her virginity. I remember how weird it made me feel about my own body, my own sexuality, and my own right to privacy when it came to those things.
Honey touches on those topics and more through the eyes of Amber Young, a teen pop star, as she rises from mediocrity to the kind of fame she’s always dreamed of. Although most of us have never been pop stars, many of us have been over-sexualized, treated like we are just our bodies, and it’s easy to relate to the way Amber feels when she’s treated that way by men. Part of me wishes Isabel Banta had gone a little deeper when it comes to the concepts of misogyny and exploitation in the music industry. There were instances of these things throughout the book, but it felt like they were just stated as facts rather than truly explored. But either way, I’m glad that the 90’s pop star experience wasn’t completely glossed over and glamorized.
While Amber deals with the disgusting problematic behavior of the men around her (and society in general), she also deals with a lot of internal struggle, including her desperate need to feel loved, and I imagine readers will relate to that very strongly. I enjoyed Amber’s journey and I like that the book covered the entirety of it. The inclusion of Amber’s friend and fellow pop star Gwen’s journey as well, though we didn’t get to see as much of it, was an excellent choice.
Of course, I want to talk about the audiobook, which was fantastic. Honey is written in first-person from Amber’s POV and the narrator, Brittany Pressley, either has the perfect voice or used the perfect voice for Amber. The lyrics to a few of Amber’s singles are in the book, and one of my favorite things about the audiobook is that when Pressley read the lyrics, there was pop music playing in the background. The music was different for each song and was really cool! It added so much to the listening experience, and to the book as a whole. I was fully immersed, even bobbing my head to the music a little. Because of this, I’m fully convinced the audio version is the best way to read Honey.
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I had a good time with this! I've read enough pop star memoirs/fictionalized accounts of pop stars to be pretty familiar with the beats of this but I liked Amber's voice.
If you like the kind of book this is, you will like this book.
I did the Honey by Isabel Banta #celadonreadalong with some amazing bookstagrammers.
@pawstoodream
@allthebooksalltheways
@thenerdybookwormsblog
Thank you ladies for some interesting chats and here are my thoughts on the book.
Amber Young dreams of being a singer and in 1997 she gets the call that changes her life. Escaping her small town life, she ends up in LA with other up and comers like herself. Her dreams of being in a girl band end when Gwen, the lead singer, decides to go solo.
As Amber heads in the same direction, she finds her fame reaching new levels of insanity. Feeling the sting of exploitation, Amber realizes that her life is under a microscope and one wrong move can shatter her already fragile career.
The book had great bones. It was well written and easy to stay engaged with. I did feel like it was attempting to be the YA version of Daisy jones. As a teen in the 90s myself, I was hoping to connect more to the story. It felt a little juvenile in places and in others it hit heavier.
The pace was decent enough but the tone didn't change much and that was a real shame. I also felt that we were kept slightly distanced from the characters. I didn't feel as submerged into the story as I normally do. I felt like I was looking down watching the story rather than feeling it and I think that was the biggest part that was missing. I felt left out.
I would like to give the audio a go, sometimes it takes a different voice to bring the magic of the page to life. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the book, I think I was expecting more and it just slightly missed the mark for me. The characters felt familiar and maybe it's because I can see the Britney/Christina vibes in the book. I wonder if because anyone who grew up in the 90s on the music, are now complaining of back pain, and are in their 40s, whether this should have had a more adult tone to the book.
3.75 stars - rounded to 4 for #goodreads.
Thank you to @celadonbooks for my gifted copy and for including me in your readalong!
