Review: Honey Girl, Morgan Rogers

Honey Girl is one of the most hyped books I’ve seen floating around the book community in the past year. Let me reassure you for a second: this is not the (main) reason why I read it, even if the hype influenced me a tiny little bit. When I first read the synopsis, I was excited. For a story about someone lost in their twenties, for the exciting, unplanned drunken-in-Vegas wedding… I had hopes and, let’s say they weren’t, unfortunately, totally met. Let’s check out my review, shall we?

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers
Published by Park Row on February 23, 2021
Genres: adult, contemporary
Format: eBook
Buy on Amazon, Book Depository, Bookshop, Blackwell's
Goodreads

With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls’ trip to Vegas to celebrate. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know…until she does exactly that.
This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father’s plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her father’s expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.
When reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along—the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.

☂️ TRIGGER WARNINGS:

self-harm, anxiety, depression, physical injury, alcohol consumption, loss of memory, borderline personality disorder, military themes, racism, suicide attempt (in the past), parent death (in the past).

☂️ DIVERSITY:Biracial Black & lesbian main character with anxiety, queer & Japanese-American love interest, queer, trans, Black, Asian, Latinx & Indigenous side characters.

.

There are no spoilers in this review.

This blog post contains affiliate links. If you buy something on my recommendation, I will receive a small commission. Purchasing via these links will not cost you any extra and will help me cover the costs of book blogging. You will find more info on my privacy policy and disclaimer pages. Thank you!

I ENJOYED…

☂️

• One of my favorite parts of Honey Girl was, without a doubt, the themes handled in the story, which deeply echoes with me. Grace has spent and gave so much of her time, of her life to education, getting her PhD, trying to be the very best that she can be and chasing perfection, only to fall when job searching comes around and start questioning everything, even the path that brought her here. Questioning her own happiness, the time she spent there, what she’s supposed to do and how she’s supposed to have it all figured out when everything just feels like a mess. Stuggling with other people’s expectations for you and what you really want to do. It’s just, a theme I loved loved reading about and found myself in so, very much as well.
• I enjoyed following Grace’s journey as she tries to find her place, what she really wants to do and who she really wants to be, while putting into perspective her own and other’s expectations for her. I especially liked her journey with her anxiety and mental health as a whole, how she comes to terms with it and tries to find a therapist to help her through it all.
• The relationships between the characters were lovely to follow as well. I especially appreciated the friendships between Grace, Agnes and Ximena and how they’re always here for each other and will fiercely protect each other, no matter what. They made my heart soar okay.

• Another thing I particularily enjoyed was the complex relationship between Grace and her absentee mother. I really liked seeing them together, tentatively at first, then softening and slowly mending fences, just as well. This warmed my heart a whole lot.

I HAD A HARD TIME WITH…

☂️

• Okay, so you can put this down as a “me” thing, but Honey Girl didn’t entirely work for me because of my own expectations. When I first read the synopsis, I expected this to be more of a love story than it actually was. Instead, Honey Girl focuses a lot more on Grace’s journey, navigating through academic burn-out and it’s not about the romance, at all. So… unfortunately, it wasn’t exactly what I imagined it to be.
• I, unfortunately, ended up feeling a bit disconnected from the story, at times. Yes, the themes in the book were so wonderful, but, from the beginning up until the very end, I mostly felt disconnected from it all. Some moments I deeply appreciated, gave me the “wow, this is so, yes, I agree with that”, but aside from that… I had a hard time getting into it. It may be because of the writing, or my mood, or something else completely, but… well. I’m sad.

OVERALL

☂️

If any of the themes I mentioned above appeal to you, I still recommend reading Honey Girl. It’s been a hit read for a lot of people out there, and I feel like the fact that I didn’t quite connect with it as much as I thought I would is really a “me”, thing.

FINAL RATING : 3 stars!

Buy this book:

📌 Pin the book review of Honey Girl, by Morgan Rogers on Pinterest!

Did you read Honey Girl, or do you want to? Do you have any recommendations for me of books with main character in their twenties? I’d love to hear from you in comments!

Twitter ☂️ Bookstagram ☂️Goodreads ☂️ Bloglovin’ ☂️ Support the blog