Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Honey Girl

I needed this book four years ago, when I was also 28 and having a millennial crisis.

Grace Porter is a beautifully flawed character who has spent so much of her life building plans around what other people expect from her, what others think she can't accomplish. I initially thought this book would be about her romance with the girl she marries in Vegas at the beginning of the book. What this book was actually about: a messy, chaotic, beautiful young woman trying to figure out who she actually is and what she truly wants for her life.

Elements I truly loved:

Grace's found family in Portland: they support her constantly and are super affirming, even when she's falling apart and is generally a really terrible friend
Yuki's radio show: no spoilers, but just read and appreciate
the constant references to how we're all part of the universe really spoke to my galaxy-obsessed soul (even though I'm not a science nerd like Grace is)
representation of what it's like to be Black in an academic field: this is super important and eye-opening
mental health representation: I loved that Grace not only gets a therapist, but that she has to try out a couple ones first — this is how it actually is and I loved getting this representation

What didn't work for me:

to be honest, the writing just left something to be desired... I'm not a fan of the 3rd person present tense style narration, especially in a character-driven story
sometimes, the corny, lovely found family stuff got really cringe-y to me... but this could be my reading because I'm honestly jealous and wish I had friends like Grace does
I wanted more: more of the quirky queer side characters, more of Grace working through her traumas, more steam between her and Yuki... I just wanted more. I think this author will really blossom in future writing and I look forward to reading them!

Overall, while I don't think this book is for everyone. But for those of us that it speaks to... wow, I am so glad I finally made time to pull this off my never-ending TBR. Thank you, Morgan Rogers, for writing a book that helped me feel less alone in how long it took me to figure out the path I truly wanted.

Content Warnings

analenegrace's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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nerdysread's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A really beautiful book about mental health, found family, love. But also about finding your place and yourself while taking care of you. You’re a 20 something that doesn’t know what to do with your life (like me?) then, this book is for you !

Rep: Black Lesbian M.C, Japanese lesbian l.i, Queer characters of Color, Bisexual S.C, Polyamourous character, Queer characters, Characters of Color

Content Warnings

thebibliorriquena's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Grace’s internal conflict resonated so deeply with me; likely because I’m feeling—in my own situation—very similarly right now. But what I loved about this novel were the cast of characters—the found family that she has chosen to surround herself with. I wanted to spend more time with them. That said, I thought the novel overall was just okay. Still worth a read, though.

Content Warnings

darkmattersoybean's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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queerolderdaughter13's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

(I don’t think this have spoilers but read at your own risk I guess)

FIRST OF ALL,WOW.

HOLY SHIT.

PLEASE READ THIS BOOK.

This is a wlw book but it focus more in mental health than in the romance but the romance is like super cute and real and the mental health is so fucking accurate and I really related to that as someone with a shitty mental health.

Just wow.

The main character is a black lesbian,who have a PhD in astronomy.The love interest is a Japanese lesbian,who have owns a podcast.

The main character is named Grace and she went to Las Vegas and accidentally married this girl she doesn’t know.Now she’s trying to find the girl while dealing with her own mental health as all her plans for future crash down because being an adult is fucking complicated.

The mental health representation,the racism representation,the lgbt representation,etc etc is just wow.

I love this.So much.

I see this book (in my personal opinion) as a love letter to blackness,to space,to the confusing universe.To those who never give up,and to those who do give up.A love letter to people with bad mental health,to sapphic love,to the lgbt community,to those with childhood trauma,and who were forced to grow up too quickly.To the stars,and to Orange trees,and to nature,to astronomy,to different cultures,to those who struggle with living in a racist homophobic and sexist society,who feel like the world is crushing down in top of them.To those who don’t know what to do with their lives.A love letter to found family,to friends,to mythology,to radio podcasts,to those who have high hopes and expectations for themselves,and to those who were seated those expectations in themselves at a young age and now than they don’t full fill them,and they feel worthless.

A reminder to breathe,let your body and mind rest.Seek help if you need it.

Check tw’s before reading.
(TW’s:
-discussion and depictions of mental illness
-self-harm (scratching skin, nails digging into skin as anxiety coping mechanism)
-past suicide attempt by side character
-depictions of anti-Blackness and homophobia in the academic and corporate settings
-casual alcohol consumption
-minor drug use (marijuana)
-discussions of racism experienced by all characters of color
-past limb amputation due to war injury (side character)
-past parent death (side character) )

(+ some of my fav quotes than maybe convince you to read it?)

“She is okay because she must be, to muster the strength to set up more job interviews. She must be as formidable as the black, swirling universe. It keeps going, and so shall she. She has to.”

“I think lonely creatures ache for each other because who else can understand but someone who feels the same dark, black abyss?”

“No one told her astronomers, the ones that publish research every few months and get tenured at universities and navigate programs at NASA, that those astronomers don’t have sun-gold hair. They don’t have sun-browned skin. Those astronomers don’t have ancestors that looked at the stars as a means of escape and not in awe.”

“It is all in us, Professor MacMillan said of the bits and pieces collected in her office. These things, essentially small rocks and stones now, were once a part of the universe. I know many astronomers think I take a romantic approach to the science, but how can we not when presented with such grand facts? That something so small was once a part of something bigger than what our human brains can grasp?”

“You are made up of stars and the black glittering universe,” she says quietly. “It may be too romantic for most of the people in this field, but it’s true. But you are still just a human. Just a small thing that has to find its way like everyone else in this enormous world. It will not be simple, Grace Porter, and it will not be easy. You may have to make a lot of noise, and the universe’s silence can be oppressive and thick. But you want them to hear you, and they will. So do not, not even for one second, stop making noise.”

“Grace
7:39 p.m.
having an existential crisis. lol text it.

Yuki
7:45 p.m.
[fuckboi voice] wow...without me?”

“Yuki
8:04 p.m.
um excuse me this is what wives are for. in my gay fantasies growing up i always wanted my wife to text me late at night then we’d run away together and join like a circus”

“But it’ll be hard whether you’re in Portland or Florida or the North damn Pole. I don’t want you to stop because it’s hard. I know that’s real easy for me to say, but it’s true. Stop if you need a break, honey, but don’t stop because they want you to. You got too much potential.”

“Grace sighs and stares at her phone. It’s hard to explain that you are tired, bone-deep, rib-deep, belly-deep tired. It’s hard to explain that someone held their hand out to the stars and said all of these can be yours, and you believed it. You believed the climb and the barrier and the gate would not break you. You spent eleven years ignoring that your mind and body said, Stop, breathe, be kind to yourself, and you punished yourself for even thinking it.”

“Even as a child, I wondered why so many of the bad things, the scary things, were women. I asked my grandmother once, and she told me it was the way of the world. Sometimes monsters became women, because women who deviated were monsters. I didn’t understand that until later.”

“This is a story about how deviation from the norm can create scary, monstrous things. What my grandmother didn’t know was that years later, society would still create Yamauba. We would still be seen as dark, terrible things simply for refusing to fit a particular narrative. Perhaps the truly terrifying thing is to step away from what you’re supposed to do and what you have planned. Perhaps you, the monster that you are, find yourself feeding on what you could not bear yourself.

“Perhaps Yamauba were created because we did not want to name something we brought forth with our own hands,” Yuki says. “Perhaps flesh- eating monsters are simply people who break their molds and their boxes, and find themselves demanding all they have been denied.”

“Sometimes people feel ownership over the things that make us us,” Yuki says into the mic. “Sometimes the things that are familiar to us and feel safe to us, remnants of our childhood and old lives, are locked away by someone who wants us to be different and look different and follow their rules. Sometimes lonely creatures are not of their own making.”

“My ‘capitalism is a plague’ radar was going off,” she says. “Figured I’d come join the fun.”

“Everything that is buried will be unburied. Everything that is pushed down will find its way out. It is the way of the universe.”

Content Warnings

sls0369's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a really lovely book. From my experience with mental illness -- both personally and with loved ones -- this book seemed spot-on with dealing with the issues of various characters. I really enjoyed Grace and following along her journey.

Content Warnings

beforeviolets's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I'm going to steal a quote from my dear friend Rach, who was kind enough to gift me this book:
"How do I talk about a book which felt like it had torn open my chest and stared into my soul?"

This book terrified me. This book tore me open and picked apart every ounce of myself and broke it all down. I cried countless times reading this.

I can't put my thoughts into too many words out of fear of ruining the magic for those that have not had the opportunity to dig their claws into this masterpiece yet but this is easily the most beautiful and most touching story I've ever read.

<i> "...To my fellow lonely creatures out there, waiting patiently in the dark... Are you there? I hope you're listening." </i>

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