A review by bladelikesbooks
Honeybloods by I.S. Belle

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Honeybloods is a YA Horror Romance novella about two girls who were once best friends rekindling their relationship to honour a blood vow to hide a dead body and go on a revenge road trip to murder the indie band that turned one of them into a vampire. 

After reading Babylove, I knew I had to read every other book by this author and this one definitely didn’t disappoint. Firstly, the cover art is absolutely beautiful, and it’s so nice to see a plus size character actually be represented as plus size in their character art and especially on the cover. 

It’s a very quick and easy read with lots of gore, teenage angst and multi-layered characters. Sadie has her own family and personal problems she wants to escape from and uses isolation to protect herself, and Honey, while labelled ‘the typical queen B popular girl’ is struggling with the loss of her best friend and her sudden, non-consensual introduction to vampirism. The girls reconnect to find a way to turn Honey back into a human and along their road trip rekindle their friendship and old romantic feelings for each other resurface.

The main plot is to find the indie band that turned Honey and make them turn her back into a human before the beginning of senior year. I’d definitely say you can tell that this is part of a series because it does feel like an introduction book to a series but I wouldn’t necessarily say that makes the book feel slow paced because plenty happens in this portion of the story. While I did feel like it was fanfiction for Jennifer’s Body, it was still very enjoyable and I think the next book will definitely bring more separation from the movie that inspired it and set it apart as it’s own independent story.. at least that’s what I’m hoping for anyways. 

I definitely sympathised with Sadie a lot during this and kind of developed this dislike for Honey considering the way she’s treated Sadie but that’s probably because I related to her so felt very protective over her. In conclusion, this was a really fun story and I’m excited to see where the author takes it next!

TWs/CWs - Alcoholism, Animal Death, Blood, Blood Consumption, Body Horror, Cannibalism, Corpses, Dismemberment, Gore, Murder, Parental Abandonment, Stabbing, Underage Drinking, Vomit

Rep - Bisexual (MC), Lesbian (MC), Plus Size (MC), Sapphic (MCs/SCs)