SYNOPSIS

Grace Porter woke up on her vacation in Vegas with a wedding ring on her finger. She remembers pieces of the night, and pieces of the girl she married. She remembers being happy, but now they’ve gone their separate ways. A business card and photo left by the mystery woman serve as mementos.

Back in her real life, Grace is feeling lost. Eleven years and a PHD later in astronomy, Grace is sobered by the reality of being Black in a white-dominated field. She’s unsure how to move forward.

What could happen?

RECAP AND REVIEW

This is a contemporary book, featuring queer leads and chosen families. Romance is a part of the book (it opens up with the night after a drunken Vegas marriage), but this isn’t a fluffy romance. More-so, it’s two people who feel lost and different, searching for others who feel the same. It’s told in the third person from Grace’s perspective.

Grace is a perfectionist, to a fault. She was groomed by her military father to be the best, constantly told what it is Porter’s do or don’t do. The need to be perfect naturally makes her an anxious person. She has a plan to follow, and when her plan goes awry, she feels unsure, anxious, and insecure.

This book showed how it feels navigating white-dominated industries as a Black woman. Grace worked so hard to accomplish what she did, and during an interview for a job that was supposed to be hers, set up by her mentor, she sees her hard work get dismissed for no other reason than people’s biases. It was relatable for me reading her experience and her frustration as a result. I was frustrated alongside her and knew exactly where she was coming from. The realization that your work doesn’t matter is sobering and can make you rethink everything.

Grace is also dealing with healing her inner child. She’s financially dependent on her father, who is a hard ass and doesn’t seem to really know Grace and has a distant relationship with her mother, who is too much of a free-spirit. The disconnect and unresolved feelings from her blood relatives, along with the pressure of fitting her father’s image to an extent, aids in her loneliness. Her friends who she’s met along the way become her family, which brings up other issues she deals with in the book. I will say that I feel like the situation with Raj was sudden, and though some of that is by design, I personally feel like context was missing. Maybe that’s just me.

Yuki is a radio host and her relationship with Grace is sweet. They have good banter and when they get each other they get each other. When they don’t, they really don’t though, and I felt like some of their arguments came out of nowhere because it stems from ideas I felt like they would be in agreement on? In hindsight, it might’ve been a way to show how their personalities differ- Yuki being a dreamer and Grace being more of a controller.

There’s also a third act breakup that I wasn’t expecting, but for the purposes of the story, it makes sense. Grace did a lot of running from her problems throughout the book.

After a while, it did became repetitive to read about how Grace internalized her father’s teachings, but she finally began doing the work to unpack and face all of her feelings. All the nicknames also got a little annoying after a while.

OVERALL

Overall, I give this book a 4 out of 5 stars. I enjoyed the banter and compatibility between Yuki and Grace. Some of Yuki’s podcasts made me think about life. Grace’s actions did get annoying after a while, even though I understand where she’s coming from (most of the time). Other times, she was a bit immature.

Honey Girl is poetic. There’s a lot of symbolism, deep thoughts, and darker themes, including systemic racism and mental health hardships, throughout the story. I’d keep that in mind if you decide to read it.

Even though I didn’t give it a 5, because it does feel a little long and I wasn’t sure about it in the beginning, I’d consider it one of my favorites.