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A review by sarah984
Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
I can see why other people like this book and I do think some of the commentary on race and perfectionism is worthwhile, but I just did not like this book at all.
The writing style is very florid and full of repetition (yes she smells like sea salt I KNOW) and annoying fanfic tropes (they keep calling each other by their full names??). The main character is an astronomer but does no astronomy in the book, barely thinks about it despite apparently loving it, and doesn't seem to know why she liked it in the first place. The one piece of "astronomy" in the book (aside from some poetic "you are made of star stuff" nonsense) is a paraphrase of an annoying Tumblr post about a mars rover. I think this felt so glaring to me because I read "The Disordered Cosmos" so recently and it's by an author who is theoretically so similar to this character - a Black lgbtq+ astrophysicist - but had such a strong enthusiasm for the subject matter.
The characters are mostly meant to be pushing thirty but all read very young and immature. There's a character who is a candy striper or something who reveals someone’s private medical details without their consent and no one cares. The love interest is essentially a manic pixie dream girl (also she's Japanese and this is handled very weirdly) and loves the main character even though she treats her badly. The whole thing kind of feels like a fantasy where everyone else puts aside their problems to hold your hand - no other characters’ issues that are brought up are resolved. It also feels like every character just sort of parrots the author’s political opinions despite their actual situation - the main character living off her parents’ money (she's 29 and her dad is paying her rent!) is required to make the plot work but she's joking around about how she's a broke millennial who will never be able to retire and ragging on people with "generational wealth".
The writing style is very florid and full of repetition (yes she smells like sea salt I KNOW) and annoying fanfic tropes (they keep calling each other by their full names??). The main character is an astronomer but does no astronomy in the book, barely thinks about it despite apparently loving it, and doesn't seem to know why she liked it in the first place. The one piece of "astronomy" in the book (aside from some poetic "you are made of star stuff" nonsense) is a paraphrase of an annoying Tumblr post about a mars rover. I think this felt so glaring to me because I read "The Disordered Cosmos" so recently and it's by an author who is theoretically so similar to this character - a Black lgbtq+ astrophysicist - but had such a strong enthusiasm for the subject matter.
The characters are mostly meant to be pushing thirty but all read very young and immature. There's a character who is a candy striper or something who reveals someone’s private medical details without their consent and no one cares. The love interest is essentially a manic pixie dream girl (also she's Japanese and this is handled very weirdly) and loves the main character even though she treats her badly. The whole thing kind of feels like a fantasy where everyone else puts aside their problems to hold your hand - no other characters’ issues that are brought up are resolved. It also feels like every character just sort of parrots the author’s political opinions despite their actual situation - the main character living off her parents’ money (she's 29 and her dad is paying her rent!) is required to make the plot work but she's joking around about how she's a broke millennial who will never be able to retire and ragging on people with "generational wealth".
Content Warnings
Graphic: Mental illness
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, and Medical content
Minor: Biphobia, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Racism