[Skye’s Review:] Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

A refreshingly timely and relatable debut novel about a young woman whose life plans fall apart when she meets her wife.

With her newly completed PhD in astronomy in hand, twenty-eight-year-old Grace Porter goes on a girls’ trip to Vegas to celebrate. She’s a straight A, work-through-the-summer certified high achiever. She is not the kind of person who goes to Vegas and gets drunkenly married to a woman whose name she doesn’t know…until she does exactly that.

This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father’s plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn’t feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her father’s expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.

In New York, she’s able to ignore all the annoying questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamamoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she’s been running from all along—the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

One of the main reasons I was super excited to read Honey Girl was because of the main character Grace. Grace has finally finished her schooling and now has her Ph.D. in Astronomy. She’s been working on her degree for 11 years. Now, she’s not sure what she wants to do. So much of her life has been about attaining her Ph.D. What does she do now that she has done that? Ugh. I related to this so much–I’m sure most people can. This is exactly how I felt when I finished undergrad. We spend so much of our life in school; it’s a weird feeling when we are done with school. We’re expected to know what we want to do for the rest of our lives and we’re expected to go do that as soon as we graduate. It’s an enormous amount of pressure. Morgan Rogers wrote Grace’s struggle with this and the pressure from her father to be successful very well. I saw myself in Grace–especially because Grace strives to be the best. So not only is she dealing with pressure from society and her family, but she is also pressuring herself. 

Honey Girl deals with a lot of topics. It deals with racism, homophobia, anxiety, depression, self-harm, healing, and self-love. I love that Morgan Rogers incorporated all of these elements into Honey Girl. This book is special; it’s one that will certainly resonate with a lot of people. On top of tackling these issues, Morgan Rogers also has incredible representation in her book. This book truly has something for everyone. There’s LGBTQ+ rep, mental health rep, and found family rep. Seeing Grace’s healthy, loving relationship with her friends was a breath of fresh air. A lot of times in books, especially with female friendships, we don’t see the healthiest of friendships. I’m glad that wasn’t the case in Honey Girl. Lastly, as I’m sure most of you know, this book is also a love story. Watching Yuki and Grace fall in love was heartwarming. They had an indescribable connection from the moment they met on the page. I loved watching them get to know each other. 

I think everyone should read Honey Girl. Grace’s story is one of healing and self-acceptance. It’s about learning how to take care of yourself and your mental health. It’s about bettering yourself. It’s about life.

TW: racism, homophobia, self-harm, mental illness, and anxiety.

Skye

Hi, I’m Skye! I’m a college student by day and a bookstagrammer and book blogger by night. 😉 I’m also fluent in the language of sarcasm, so my kryptonite in any book is great witty banter.

Check out my Instagram account if you want to see my latest book obsessions! Also, feel free to reach out to me on social media if you ever need someone to fangirl with! I love meeting new bookish friends. 🙂