The Honeys

Woah. Just woah.

This book oh my word this book.

This was completely not what I was expecting. The beginning had me hooked for a book that was nothing like this, but that's not a bad thing. This book led me in so many directions that I wasn't expecting that once I finished it I sort of had to just sit there and try to take it all in.

We begin the novel with the protagonist Mars's (who is genderfluid and uses he/they/she pronouns) sister Caroline coming into his bedroom in the middle of the night and smashing him over the head with a sundial. As she continues trying to murder Mars, they fall through the banister and plummet to Caroline's death. Just, what a beginning.

This entire book has such a horrifying atmosphere (obviously, since it's a horror) but all of the bee imagery and also the treatment of Mars by the other campers at camp Aspen, where Mars once left, but returned to after their sister died. Everything with Callum and Brayden and all that was so upsetting to read about.
The book really gets creepy once Mars and her supervisor (and crush) Wyatt venture into an abandoned hotel and find Brayden, where he proceeds to literally melt in the most disgusting and horrific scene I have ever read in a book!!

Although this book is a horror, I did find quite a bit of it quite homely and relaxing; mostly when Mars is with the Honeys or Wyatt, and things are actually going okay for him. The end did become very confusing with many plot twists and finally ended with Mars becoming queen of the hive and all of that confusing stuff that I really struggled to understand. This book ended in a completely different direction to what I expected, but not in a bad way.

I found the ending, where Mars was talking to Wyatt after everything, and how scared and traumatised he (Wyatt) was, and Mars explaining about how they didn't feel like themself to be quite a depressing ending and I sort of felt like crying after I finished, after everything that had happened in the book. This book was my first horror and I utterly loved it! Just, wow.