A review by nytephoenyx
Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

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

4.0

Honey Girl spoke to me deep inside, where it hurts. I can’t begin to understand the occupational struggle, daily microagressions, or parental-induced trauma Grace deals with on a daily basis because my life is so much different than hers. Her feelings, though? I get it.

At first glance, Grace Porter seems like she has everything together. She has a PhD, she has a supportive group of friends, and she has A Plan. Honey Girl reminds us that our expectations and the reality of this world will never line up, and it is twice as hard for women of color. Four times as hard for gay women of color. Grace feels like she’s letting down everybody around her and she’s mad because things aren’t working out the way they are supposed to. In most ways, this is out of her control. It still hurts, it is still hard to handle, and throughout the course of Honey Girl, we watch her break down. It hurts if you know that feeling. For me? It’s another one of those cases of the perfect read at the perfect time.

Rogers digs deep into her character’s psyche and draws out the question: what do we do when our plan fails and we feel like we’ve lost control? There are moments when her writing feels like poetry, and as somebody who would rather say someone’s hair is “starlit sky” then just call it “black”, I absolutely adored this tone. The language evoked glittering images for me while the themes and questions dug into my own brain and heart and made me ask the same things that Grace was struggling with herself. At times, I felt uncomfortable hearing my own vulnerability laid flat in the pages in front of me.

If I took out my emotional response, Honey Girl is a different book. The “drunk wedding in Vegas cliché” is overplayed, and the relationship that follows is unlikely at best. I like the romantic nature of it, the way Yuki lays herself bare to Grace and lets her in so easily. I both adored the refuge Grace found in Yuki‘s arms, and noted it for the escape it was. As if the rash marriage wasn’t enough to lend pause, Grace’s financial situation would make any reader ask questions. For a girl who relies on her father to pay her rent, is a tea room server, and has eleven years of student loans to pay back, I don’t understand how she is able to just run off to New York City for a summer, or jump on a plane last minute to run away from a conversation. I guess Grace had enough problems to deal with without thinking about money, but it was something I had to keep telling myself to ignore. What is she contributing financially to the household? Was Yuki just feeding her and letting her go around town and do whatever on her dime? I don’t get the money situation in this book at all.

If you don’t think about the technicalities though, if you look at Honey Girl from an emotional place and open yourself to the story, it’s a tale of vulnerability and discovery. I adored Yuki‘s radio show wisdom and the orange grove in Florida. Honey Girl bruised my heart little, but I’m not sorry for it. If you haven’t picked this one up already, it’s an artistically written story about a girl who’s not ready to admit she’s lost, and who is going to discover that she can’t run away forever. I would read it again.

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