This isn’t a typical romance novel so much as it is a coming-of-age story, a realization story, with a romance that occurs as an element of the protagonist’s journey. Grace Porter feels aimless and uncertain about what she wants the next step in her life to be; her military father’s expectations have always seemed unachievable and her nomadic mother has never been available to her. Of course she goes to Vegas and ends up marrying a woman she doesn’t even know! But what that one night sparks for her is a transformation that involves Grace learning to find herself first and then realizing she’s ready to fall for the person she married. A terrific debut that read more like stream of consciousness prose (even if sometimes it got a little repetitive with certain motifs), but overall lovely and engaging and emotionally satisfying.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Grace Porter has always had a plan: graduate with her PhD and get a good job. But on a trip to Vegas to celebrate her graduation, Grace does something that is definitely not in the plan: she drunkenly marries a woman she's just met. Grace's whole world is shaken up, and as she gravitates to her new wife, Yuki, she also finds herself questioning everything around her. ⁣As post-school life becomes more and more daunting, Grace decides to leave the West Coast and spend the summer with Yuki in New York. She finds solace in Yuki’s love but as the end of the summer looms closer, she’ll be forced to confront what’s next for her, and for them.
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Honey Girl is a beautiful, tender love story meets coming-of-age. Grace is in her late 20s and after spending years in academia, she's feeling burnt out, disenchanted, and is struggling to know what she wants. She's an authentic character, and her feelings of being lost and unsure of her path will resonate with many readers. This novel also addresses the experiences of marginalized folks in academia. As a biracial Black lesbian, Grace has difficulty finding spaces where she feels safe and valued, and is often treated as being a problem-starter because of her identities. After years of school, she’s questioning whether there’s really a space for her in the world of astronomy. This is such a necessary and important conversation, and I loved seeing it incorporated into a new adult novel.

Honey Girl also explores themes of family. Grace has a strained, complex relationship with each of her parents: her mother is a free spirit who hasn’t always been there for her, while her father is a strict military dad who’s always pushed Grace to be perfect. Her father has pushed her to keep her head down, continue with school, be the best, and get the best job. The pressure is mounting, and Grace is struggling to breathe underneath it all. And more than that, she’s struggling to articulate how she feels and to ask for help. Honey Girl is very much about mental health and how expectations can feel suffocating.
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One of my favorite things about this novel is the deep, meaningful, and intimate friendships that Grace has! Her two roommates, Ximena and Agnes, are a huge part of Grace’s support system, and I love the intimate friendship the three of them have together. Ximena and Agnes are also queer, and I think the relationship between the three women really reflects how valuable found family can be within the queer community. Grace also shares a familial bond with her coworkers at a tea shop, Meera and Raj; I particularly loved the brother-sister relationship between her and Raj.

This is definitely a character-driven story, and it centers primarily around Grace and Yuki. Grace is an incredibly relatable character dealing with anxieties and fears. She’s not sure what’s next for her, and she’s afraid to find out--I think she’s a character that so many readers, especially millennials, will see themselves in. Meanwhile, Yuki is very different from Grace. She knows exactly who she is, and she’s not afraid to ask for what she wants. While Grace’s passion is in the stars, Yuki’s is in stories: she loves myths of creatures and the paranormal. There is a certain whimsy embedded in their characters, which I loved.

The relationship between Grace and Yuki has so much love and beauty written into it. They begin their marriage as near-strangers who have a chance encounter in Las Vegas. They both leave Vegas with each other burrowed into their hearts and minds, and neither is able to forget the other. Yuki gives Grace the space to figure things out, and their relationship blossoms naturally. It’s a marriage that starts out on a whim, but grows into a multi-layered love story.

Honey Girl has an intersectionally diverse cast: Grace is a biracial Black lesbian, her wife Yuki is queer & Japanese-American, and there are a number of supporting characters who are queer & trans, Black, Asian, Latinx, and Indigenous. ⁣Honey Girl also has some valuable mental health rep: Agnes struggles with her mental health and it’s openly discussed throughout the book, and Grace struggles with her own anxiety.

Honey Girl is a love story, but it is definitely not a rom-com. Morgan’s writing is soft, poetic, and lyrical. It’s the kind of writing that is subtle, and seems to sneak up on you and flood you with its beauty before you even realize it's happening. Honey Girl is a slower read that is character and relationship driven, so if you’re a reader who needs a fast-paced, plot-centric novel, this might not be the book for you. But if you love lyrical writing full of gorgeous imagery, and stories that delve deep into relationships and emotions, you’ll adore Honey Girl.

Loved this book so much! The writing style was amazing and the main character was very relatable! Well done!

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.

A great commentary on what it feels like to be a young, high achieving, woman of color in today's world.

[CW: self harm, anxiety]

Nearly fifty years ago, Joni Mitchell sang, “we are stardust” and Carl Sagan famously said that we are made of “star stuff.” The protagonist in Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers is indeed the child of the cosmos. The universe conspired to make her. And inspired her to dream of becoming an astronomer.

Honey Girl is a narrative that is rooted in a storytelling tradition, and Rogers’ lyrical language is unafraid of its own imaginative richness. The quintessence of the story is about finding one’s place in the world. Rogers shows us that while Grace used to be an uncompromising perfectionist in her pursuit of academics, it is through meeting Yuki that she learns that loving is a skill attained through the same deliberate effort as any other pursuit of human excellence. If you’re as fascinated by found families as what poet Leeya Mehta says, “We seek the company of others as a way of making our own life whole, fitting missing pieces of melody into our own life’s symphony,” this is the book for you.

Full Review: https://frolic.media/book-of-the-week-honey-girl-by-morgan-rogers/

This story was a triumph! I can’t wait to read more from Morgan Rogers. After reading the premise, I expected this story to be tropey and require a suspension of belief. However, while it was full of all the delicious tropes you love to read, it also had a very real, relatable element. Bravo!

I'm sure this book will work really well for a lot of people, but it was way too sappy and woo-woo for me. It's like the book version of a manic-pixie dream girl. Everyone in this book is Quirky™ and behaves like they're in a highly stylized indie film. So much of the dialogue made me cringe into myself. Like, seriously, who the fuck talks like that? It's all just so damn corny.

I also struggled a lot with the depiction of diversity and queer culture. My friend, with whom I was buddy reading this, had this to say: "It almost feels like they perform their social identities and their realities are refracted through these essentialist snippets of what it means to be part of that social identity." Which I think is just so apt. Everything about these characters' identities feels so performative.

But I mean, who knows. The people in this book hit really close to a very specific subset of Brooklyn yuppie liberal, so maybe there are people who are this corny in the real world, and it's just so far from my experience it feels unrealistic to me (even though I am a queer woman of color living in NYC!).

The writing was sometimes really pretty, sometimes really over the top. A lot of scenes and conversations felt random and contrived. I preferred the book a lot more when Yuki, the love interest, was out of the picture. Honestly, if I hadn't been buddy reading this, and if it hadn't been so short, I probably would have DNF'd it. It felt like the worst combination of pretentious literary fiction and sappy romance. It was like walking through a cotton-candy soaked fever dream; nothing in it felt real.

I just couldn't bring myself to finish this book. The characters were likable, but didn't read like late 20's, early 30's. They felt like immature teenagers. There were too many inconsistencies and things that just didn't make sense. It was distracting. The language is repetitive, which is a style choice, but is boring to read after a while.

Honey Girl is one of the few books I've been unable to finish. I wanted to love this book: it engages with themes I'm passionate about, like burnout and millennial dread and struggling to make it in the job market as a marginalized woman. But the prose feels overwritten and indulgent in its ethereal voice, and the stuffed cast of characters demanded that I care about and track too many people. I wanted more depth for a select few characters and a stronger plot. I DNF'ed at around 60%, and it broke my heart to admit to myself that this book just wasn't for me. There's a gem of a book underneath all of the bulk, and I wish it had been stripped down to its core.

Honey Girl is an absolute queer celebration - of queer friendships and relationships and love, of personal resistance and tenderness.

Grace wakes up in Las Vegas to discover that she got married to a stranger the night before, and the stranger has only left behind a business card and a note in Grace's hotel room. Flash forward a few months and Grace has just gotten her doctorate in astronomy, has had a disaster of an interview for her dream job--and decides to move across the country for the summer to live with her wife, Yuki, taking a break from job searching. As the summer goes on and she and Yuki fall in love, Grace has to confront what *she* wants for her future, not what her father planned for her, and whether her future has a place for Yuki.

I loved every single element of this book. The writing is lyrical and hazy and dreamy. The narration is inward-focused, so we get to know Grace intimately over the course of the novel. Every single character (and there are a lot) are multi-dimensional and bursting with life, and I fell in love with all of them, and I loved watching them interact and have their own relationships beyond their connection to Grace.

I also really love that, while the intense friendships provide the characters with so much support and strength, the friendships aren't a replacement for therapy. The characters in the novel make therapy the norm, but the characters don't go to therapy with the expectation that they'll get "fixed." Mental illness and needing help and support are normal, not derided or treated derogatorily.

This is refreshing to read. It's joyful and full of life and depth, with stunning friendships and strong connections.

What a fabulous contemporary novel! Initially I was drawn in by the cover- the artwork is beautiful. The overall story was great. It unpacked the difference between being along versus being lonely, which is a conversation that is not normally discussed in literature (in my experience). The narrative unpacks this so well, and it is important as it discusses this concept for someone in their late twenties. It hit very close to home; however, the topic is applicable to all age ranges. I loved the diverse cast of characters, who all play an important role in the main character's life. The side characters are not discussed as much (we sort of get snippets), but the growth of Grace, the main character is developed nicely throughout the narration. The writing was smooth- the story was definitely more of a character driven piece, which for developing these themes was a fine vehicle. I was intrigued throughout, and I did not want to put it down.

I thought at first the premise was a bit cliche or trope heavy- getting drunkenly married in Vegas to a stranger, just finishing your education and trying to figure it out, etc; moreover, I was worried that there would be an outside chance it would be a sappy romance. Yes, there were lighter aspects in the book that are paralleled to a fluffy romance, this book was far from a cliche. So many important, realistic topics were brought up throughout, like the struggles of being a queer black woman in the STEM field , dealing with mental health, balancing friendship, and struggling with family dynamics.

Honey Girl is a must read. I thoroughly enjoyed the narrative, and it is a book I feel I will revisit many times!

A gorgeous debut! I'm glad I read a couple of reviews that mentioned that this is a contemporary novel with a large focus on character development that also happens to include a lovely romance (rather than a straightforward romance nove) prior to picking up the book. Think a more serious The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, or a slightly more lighthearted (and romantic) Chemistry or Transcendent Kingdom. Rogers is masterful at crafting believable, compelling friendships on the page, and we get to know Grace best when we see her thinking about and speaking with her community—her best friends, the adoptive siblings she works with at her day job, her mysterious wife and quirky New York roommates, her academic advisor, and her parents and step-parents. I'm already looking forward to Morgan Roger's next book.

A beautifully written, wonderfully lyrical book that immediately became one of my favourites the moment I finished it. It is not only beautiful in writing, but the characters were amazing as well.

Honey Girl is the debut novel by author Morgan Rogers and first came on my radar when saw it was a February Book of The Month choice. It was intitally categorized in the romance genre (I believe it has since been updated!) which I think might have confused some readers because it is really is much more of contemporary fiction and coming of age story. As a reader who much prefers those types of novels, this was a delightful discovery, but could have also lead some readers to be a bit disappointed. While there is certainly romance in this book, I would classify it much more about self-discovery and the journey to loving oneself.

We meet Grace, a Black and queer woman, who has worked tirelessly to obtain her PhD. in astronomy, only to still feel like she is floundering under both family and societal expectations. Most of us can relate to the feeling of trying so hard to keep up that we ultimately crash and burn and Roger's authentic and nuanced writing made me feel like I was along for this ride.

We follow along with Grace as she upends her life both literally and figuratively on the path to self-discovery and healing. Honey Girl has the perfect balance of being insightful and also incredibly cathartic. The impactful messages woven within this storyline highlighted the beauty of slowing down, opening up, and the power of connection. The reminder that no one has it figured out and that many of us have felt lost and lonely too.

The realistic depiction of mental health was such a powerful part of this nook and I loved how Rogers just had it as another part of this multifaceted storyline. From the heaviness Grace felt to the struggle to find the right fit in therapy, it all just felt so spot on and real. Grace's friends and her relationship with Yuki were such unique and endearing parts of this novel and I loved the messages of a chosen family and that it is always okay to ask for help. I highly recommend this book and really look forward to reading whatever Morgan Rogers writes next.

Thank you to Harlequin Park Row for my gifted copy. My full review is up on genthebookworm.com

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers is the sort of book I want to see more of! It's got love and friendship, and it addresses core issues like mental health.

Plus, the representation in this book is off the charts! It's a queer love story with two strong female leads - one of whom is in STEM. Grace and Honey are a pair you'll ultimately be rooting for, even though their start is a bit bumpy.

Many thanks to the author, NetGalley, and publisher for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

There’s this half indescribable feeling I get with some books. An ache in my chest, an ache in my heart more specifically as I read. And it’s as if the book is saying to me, I hear you, I’m listening, and all I want it is for it to crawl its way into my chest and replace my heart because I know so completely that it would pump blood through my veins just as my heart does. I think that Honey Girl is one of those books.

I read Honey Girl twice before writing this review. Mostly because I was scared. Did I read it too fast? Does it only feel like home the first time? Can I get that feeling back if it goes? I’m being too poetic I know, but there’s no way to be impartial about something so profoundly personal. When Honey Girl was first announced I was so afraid it was too good to be true, a black lesbian astronomer? As the main character in a book? The specific niche that I happen to fall into? I shouldn’t get my hopes up. Right?

But Honey Girl is a call out to the lonely creatures of the world, and therefore it called out to me. Are you there? I said. Are you listening? And I’m here, it replied, I’m here. When I say that the prose knocked the air out of my chest made me cry at least 20 times all while feeling comforting and truthful, I’m not joking. And maybe it’s the truthful part that gets you; this book won’t let you lie to yourself just as it doesn’t let Grace lie to herself.

So what is Honey Girl even about? Anxious Virgo Grace Porter gets drunk married to a girl she only remembers in flashes while on a celebratory trip to Vegas after finishing her PhD in Astronomy. She’s spent 11 years pushing herself further in the field, and now she has to fight a fight she’s not quite ready for. Getting a place to give her, a black lesbian, a position she’s qualified for is already proving to be difficult, and Grace has spent her life striving so hard for the best she can’t accept anything else. But maybe her mystery wife who hosts a radio show about creatures and myths, who speaks to the lonely creatures and asks, are you there, is the key to helping Grace get out of her head. So Grace goes to New York to get to know her wife Yuki and to figure out what the fuck she’s doing with her life now.

Every aspect of Honey Girl is spectacular, so I’ll stick to my personal highlights.

I could write entire essays on every character in Honey Girl. Grace’s character arc was amazing and painful to watch as she hits her breaking point and spirals and then tries to put the pieces back together. Even still, Grace is triumphant, and every step she takes to helping herself felt like a personal triumph to me as a reader. Her relationship with her parents is done so carefully that you understand just how different components of Grace’s upbringing worked to shape her as a person and how parts of her parents’ good intentions hurt her.

Grace finally breaking down after years of avoiding it felt personal. She hit a wall that I seem to hit every 5 years and have to build myself back from, so Grace’s anxiety and bone-deep sadness hit me hard. The depiction of mental illness and mental health care throughout Honey Girl is exactly what I look for in books. There’s a positive depiction of therapy and medication, of getting help when you need it, and sorting through what is making your life harder. Grace sees a few therapists before she finds the right one, which as someone who has seen something like 10 different therapists, I really appreciate. By taking the step to give Grace’s feelings a name and diagnosis along with showing a side character with a highly stigmatized disorder secured this as one of my favorite books that discusses mental health (plus there’s a short little speech given by that character about it that quite literally could’ve been stolen from conversations I’ve had with my friends).

Grace’s struggle with fighting her way through academia was all too real. The sad reality of what strides you have to take to be taken seriously when you’re so outrageously outnumbered by people you can’t relate to pulled no punches. And as someone with the same marginalizations as Grace who’s also pursuing Astronomy, too much of it has already hurt me. I literally can’t write about this without crying, so let’s move on.

Grace’s friends/found family were all so endearing to me (I have an especially soft spot for Agnes) that I’d want to read a book about every single one of them because they all felt so real to me even as side characters who at some points weren’t very present. The way they support each other felt reminiscent of my friendships, making the depiction all the more comforting. I read a lot of books and I’ve had a lot of side characters fall flat for me due to a large cast, but that’s not a problem here. Even the characters I felt l knew the least about, Yuki’s own found family Fletcher, Sani, and Dhorian, felt real. The glimpses and snapshots of Grace’s interactions with them were done in a way that indicated closeness and friendship that there just wasn’t room to depict in more detail.

Now, Yuki Yamamoto, the Aquarius love of my life who’s alma mater is the college I go to, is exceptional. Yuki cares so much about people and about other people’s loneliness and about examining her own that it carries through everything she does. She feels so full of something I can’t quite place and everything she said made me want to crawl inside her head and figure out exactly what’s going on up there. Yuki and Grace fit together well as both chaotic and sure puzzle pieces and how they feel about each other is clear with both their quiet confessions and the unspoken words between them. Their relationship felt like a comforting inevitability. I knew no matter what that Grace and Yuki would find their way back to each other. Maybe that means I believe in fate?

Honey Girl should be read late at night when you feel most lonely, or in the middle of a crowded room when you don’t feel like you’re really there, or you should read passages back and forth with your closest confidant and whisper the words into the space between you. It doesn’t matter where you read it, just that you do. If you’re even remotely anxious or high strung or lonely or yearning or want to run away from your life or are exhausted by how the world keeps beating you down or want to understand other people you need to read Honey Girl. There’s so much in it, so much that pulls at you to think about, to contemplate, to dissect, as you follow along Grace’s journey to do the same.

Honey Girl calls to the want to escape that exists in so many of us and the soul-deep loneliness that can prevail even when among your closest friends. With everything that it so perfectly handles I know I’ll be keeping it near and dear to me for years to come.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

I was really excited to pick up this book, since there is A LOT of hype for it in the internet, but for me it fell flat. The writing style is really good and the story is too, but the characters and the pacing was the point where I was let down. I could connect with the main character in some aspects but some of the things they did were just flat for me, without a motive or something. Another thing was that everyone that talks about this book describe it as " she decides to go with her now wife" and that didn't happened until 50% of the book or more, which for me is a spoiler therefore I knew what was going to happen in the book and that made me loose interest. I loved the character of the wife and the main character best friend and how their stories and occupations were described in the book.

In other words, the book fell flat for me due to how people in the book community were describing it and the slow pace. But I think is a really good book for those trying to change from middle grade to YA or from YA to Adult. As well as for those, like me, who are not used to read romance. Is a good book too for those struggling to find their place in the world, especially the laboral world.

Unfortunately, this wasn't for me. It was an odd experience, because I know the book is well written and I was so captivated by the premise, but I couldn't get into it. I love that it's a sapphic love story and I appreciated all of the diverse characters. However, the nose to the grindstone "Porters never back down" theme really grated on me. I loved her friendships and the side characters, but it was a little to ethereal for me. I might come back to it on audio- with her wife's podcast, the format might work for this better.

A thank you to Netgalley for sharing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I guess you could say that I went into this one blind. As soon as I saw that cover and learned that it was a Black LGBTQ #ownvoices novel, I was all in. Didn't read the description and was anticipating that it would be a great way to coherce myself into reading a light romcom type read (not my norm.) This was not that and while initially disgruntled because I'd read a slew of emtional books, once I set that aside, I was blown away. The author has a deft touch and not only is this debut beautifully written, but so respectfully explores so many important and still often taboo subjects that in less accomplished hands, it may have seemed over the top. Here it fit. I loved the sweet love story and eclectic and incredibly diverse characters, but I also appreciated how the romance bit was only a piece of Grace's journey - more of a backdrop than the primary focus. On a whole, the book was quite extraordinary.

This book was so warm and comforting in its familiarity. A definite recommend for readers that love the found family trope, especially queer found family, which is truly at the heart of this book. The way Grace, the main character, feels so lost and unmoored in her late twenties after years of careful planning for her future and eleven years of rigorous advanced academia rang uncomfortably true for me, and I imagine for many people feeling unsettled in the uncertainty their lives.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a free eARC in exchange for my honest review.