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A review by bookish_notes
Honeythorn by Marina Vivancos
1.0
This review is also posted on my blog.
I have thoughts about this book. Least importantly, the blurb says this book is a novella. But I can't remember the last time a 300 pages book was a novella. This is a full-length novel with only the last 4% or so of content filled with an author's note and a look into the author's other books.
Some spoilers ahead.
And aside from that, I don't even want to go into the last 20% of this book because there's more important issues at hand I want to talk about. The last 20% is ridiculous and absurd, and there could've just been another sex scene and an epilogue with the puppies or meeting the MC's family and the story would have been fine without the added drama of an abusive ex coming back with a scheme to take the love interest's entire estate. It was very unnecessary.
Trigger warnings for abuse, mentions of rape, mentions of emotional manipulation, and PTSD. This book does not contain any mpreg, but is heavily implied that mpreg exists in this world.
This story is about an Omega, Milan, who has gotten himself into an arranged marriage with an Alpha he's never met. There is very little world building outside of a few things thrown into the story. The actual reasons and setup for the arranged marriage is not explained well. But what we do know about Milan, is that he's outgoing and used to be from a big family that is full of love and warmth. He travels for weeks alone from his home in the South into the colder estates up north to meet and marry his husband. He is taken aback by the chilly response of his future husband and even if he comes to believe that he and Lord Raphael will not necessarily fall in love, Milan still hopes that they can be friends.
However, this turns out not to be the case when Lord Raphael turns him away at every opportunity and then denies him even a touch of their hands.
I admit that I am not familiar with A/B/O books and the dynamics in those stories. I've only read two before this one, and it was only from me not reading the blurb in full that I stumbled upon them in the first place. I'm familiar with bonds and knotting, but this book plays up the neglected bonds as part of the storyline and I'm not sure if that's a standard in A/B/O books? What this means in the context of this story is that Raphael has an ice cold demeanor and even after their initial bonding, starts refusing Milan's touch and this slowly kills Milan from the inside out since Omegas need skin-on-skin contact regularly with their bonded to survive.
And I'll circle back to this to tie all my issues with this book back together.
So, other than the cover to know that our MC, Milan, isn't white, is the one of two references to his skin color - the first happens 17% of the way into the story. As this is a first-person story, it wouldn't make sense of Milan to refer to the color of his skin all the time. That would be weird. But it does seem like Milan is a POC character by name only. And what I mean by that is that there's really nothing to say this book is a diverse book outside of it being a m/m romance and it's implied that both MCs are gay, because every other character in this book is white and Milan has been separated from everyone and everything he's ever known.
And that's what makes this story give me a twitch in my eye to read. There are different implications to a story if the two MCs were white. Instead, the one with the power in this dynamic is the Alpha Raphael, who very much a white man living in the North, and the Omega is a Black man from the south of the Great Continent (this is an assumption because of the cover, because the book only describes Milan as having brown skin. He could also make the assumption that Milan is Southeast Asian but we're going to assume he's Black based on the cover).
Milan is ripped away from everyone he's ever known and even Raphael's servants look at Milan with scandal and pitying looks for not knowing their "customs" and yet, never once offers to teach him their ways but expecting him to fit in with them with no help.
I mean, I hate to say it, and I know so many people smarter than I am could say this much more eloquently and could critique this book much better than I can, but this book gives off a setting that is very akin to slavery in the United States even if the story takes place in a Regency-era steampunk setting hiding within A/B/O dynamics. It's very uncomfortable to read.
It also gets worse.
So, circling back to the neglected bonds storyline...Milan knows that he's dying and that trying to tell Raphael what's happening in case he didn't realize, or anyone what's happening, isn't possible. At every turn, people would believe the rich Alpha instead of the Omega and everyone keeps telling Milan to HIS FACE that Raphael is a good man. Milan is literally dying. He's never felt more alone. This is abuse. The fact that this story tries to excuse it all away with a sad backstory for Raphael so that the reader will feel sad for Raphael because it was all a misunderstanding and ignorance on Raphael's part, and his abuse towards Milan is only because of previous trauma he suffered previously at the hands of another Omega, is really gross.
To try to turn the focus away from the pain and suffering of a Black character and focus on the pain a white character has gone through, and expecting the Black character to have to be the one to forgive or excuse all actions he's suffered the past 50% of the book is A BAD LOOK.
In addition to all that...Milan's best friend when he arrives North is a white woman Alpha named Katerina. Which, you know. We know she's very white because the first time we're introduced to her, Milan remarks in his thoughts that she has "porcelain" skin. When Milan was dying and incapable of moving much and put her off, she didn't even come to check to see if he was okay. Instead, she just gets angry at him the first time she sees him again for not answering her letters. After she hears Milan's story, she does get mad on his behalf and is suspicious of Raphael's motives for a time, but is easily won over by him offering her some of her favorite sandwiches? I don't know. She seems like an awful best friend, and comes across as a typical white woman who won't care about anything outside her own little sphere. So I don't know what what more we could've expected when she suddenly decided Milan was going to be her new best friend out of the blue. It's implied that she's a lesbian and is attracted to an Omega named Gianna, but if this is the best f/f rep we can get in this book, that's pretty sad.
This book is just not good. I'm not saying for authors to not put Black characters into their books, but maybe evaluate the implications of the story when you put a Black character into the book because it will absolutely be different than if the character was white.
I have thoughts about this book. Least importantly, the blurb says this book is a novella. But I can't remember the last time a 300 pages book was a novella. This is a full-length novel with only the last 4% or so of content filled with an author's note and a look into the author's other books.
Some spoilers ahead.
And aside from that, I don't even want to go into the last 20% of this book because there's more important issues at hand I want to talk about. The last 20% is ridiculous and absurd, and there could've just been another sex scene and an epilogue with the puppies or meeting the MC's family and the story would have been fine without the added drama of an abusive ex coming back with a scheme to take the love interest's entire estate. It was very unnecessary.
Trigger warnings for abuse, mentions of rape, mentions of emotional manipulation, and PTSD. This book does not contain any mpreg, but is heavily implied that mpreg exists in this world.
This story is about an Omega, Milan, who has gotten himself into an arranged marriage with an Alpha he's never met. There is very little world building outside of a few things thrown into the story. The actual reasons and setup for the arranged marriage is not explained well. But what we do know about Milan, is that he's outgoing and used to be from a big family that is full of love and warmth. He travels for weeks alone from his home in the South into the colder estates up north to meet and marry his husband. He is taken aback by the chilly response of his future husband and even if he comes to believe that he and Lord Raphael will not necessarily fall in love, Milan still hopes that they can be friends.
However, this turns out not to be the case when Lord Raphael turns him away at every opportunity and then denies him even a touch of their hands.
I admit that I am not familiar with A/B/O books and the dynamics in those stories. I've only read two before this one, and it was only from me not reading the blurb in full that I stumbled upon them in the first place. I'm familiar with bonds and knotting, but this book plays up the neglected bonds as part of the storyline and I'm not sure if that's a standard in A/B/O books? What this means in the context of this story is that Raphael has an ice cold demeanor and even after their initial bonding, starts refusing Milan's touch and this slowly kills Milan from the inside out since Omegas need skin-on-skin contact regularly with their bonded to survive.
And I'll circle back to this to tie all my issues with this book back together.
So, other than the cover to know that our MC, Milan, isn't white, is the one of two references to his skin color - the first happens 17% of the way into the story. As this is a first-person story, it wouldn't make sense of Milan to refer to the color of his skin all the time. That would be weird. But it does seem like Milan is a POC character by name only. And what I mean by that is that there's really nothing to say this book is a diverse book outside of it being a m/m romance and it's implied that both MCs are gay, because every other character in this book is white and Milan has been separated from everyone and everything he's ever known.
And that's what makes this story give me a twitch in my eye to read. There are different implications to a story if the two MCs were white. Instead, the one with the power in this dynamic is the Alpha Raphael, who very much a white man living in the North, and the Omega is a Black man from the south of the Great Continent (this is an assumption because of the cover, because the book only describes Milan as having brown skin. He could also make the assumption that Milan is Southeast Asian but we're going to assume he's Black based on the cover).
Milan is ripped away from everyone he's ever known and even Raphael's servants look at Milan with scandal and pitying looks for not knowing their "customs" and yet, never once offers to teach him their ways but expecting him to fit in with them with no help.
I mean, I hate to say it, and I know so many people smarter than I am could say this much more eloquently and could critique this book much better than I can, but this book gives off a setting that is very akin to slavery in the United States even if the story takes place in a Regency-era steampunk setting hiding within A/B/O dynamics. It's very uncomfortable to read.
It also gets worse.
So, circling back to the neglected bonds storyline...Milan knows that he's dying and that trying to tell Raphael what's happening in case he didn't realize, or anyone what's happening, isn't possible. At every turn, people would believe the rich Alpha instead of the Omega and everyone keeps telling Milan to HIS FACE that Raphael is a good man. Milan is literally dying. He's never felt more alone. This is abuse. The fact that this story tries to excuse it all away with a sad backstory for Raphael so that the reader will feel sad for Raphael because it was all a misunderstanding and ignorance on Raphael's part, and his abuse towards Milan is only because of previous trauma he suffered previously at the hands of another Omega, is really gross.
To try to turn the focus away from the pain and suffering of a Black character and focus on the pain a white character has gone through, and expecting the Black character to have to be the one to forgive or excuse all actions he's suffered the past 50% of the book is A BAD LOOK.
In addition to all that...Milan's best friend when he arrives North is a white woman Alpha named Katerina. Which, you know. We know she's very white because the first time we're introduced to her, Milan remarks in his thoughts that she has "porcelain" skin. When Milan was dying and incapable of moving much and put her off, she didn't even come to check to see if he was okay. Instead, she just gets angry at him the first time she sees him again for not answering her letters. After she hears Milan's story, she does get mad on his behalf and is suspicious of Raphael's motives for a time, but is easily won over by him offering her some of her favorite sandwiches? I don't know. She seems like an awful best friend, and comes across as a typical white woman who won't care about anything outside her own little sphere. So I don't know what what more we could've expected when she suddenly decided Milan was going to be her new best friend out of the blue. It's implied that she's a lesbian and is attracted to an Omega named Gianna, but if this is the best f/f rep we can get in this book, that's pretty sad.
This book is just not good. I'm not saying for authors to not put Black characters into their books, but maybe evaluate the implications of the story when you put a Black character into the book because it will absolutely be different than if the character was white.