Wow! Opening a book about the bubblegum pop era, I expected a fun, light read. I got so much more than that. Honey was beautifully written and truly did justice not only to the hyper-sexualization of teen idols in the aughts, but the tone it set for women for years to come. For decades now we have lived under the impossible standard of being sexy enough but not too sexy, not virginal but not slutty. Honey was not only nostalgic in a lovely way for those y2k years many of us grew up during, but it delivered a powerful message about how impossible it has been to be a woman for decades. I truly hope Isabel Banta has more in the works for us, because she will be an auto-read author for me going forward.

Honey reimagines the lives of the pop icons we adored, criticized, oversexualized, and underestimated. It’s a fresh take on the stories of the superstars who defined an era, offering them the nuanced narrative they deserve.

I’m always going to want to read books about the regular-girl-turned-famous. I grew up during the prime time of pop stars, boy bands & girl groups (Britney Spears was my first concert!) - so, this book was RIGHT up my alley!

Amber knows she has talent, and when she gets an opportunity to pursue her musical dreams she seizes the opportunity. It’s not an overnight success and she has to grind to become a true star, especially in an industry full of misogyny and people who are only looking out for themselves.

As fun as the premise was, a level of detail was missing for me — I wanted to hear more about what it was like to become famous, be behind the scenes, etc. It touched on things like having to sneak out back doors and sign autographs at dinner, but I was hoping for more detail on those experiences. However, her dynamics with the people in her life had the perfect amount of detail to make them feel so real, and gosh was I invested in them.

This book will absolutely have you thinking back to pop stars of the past and thinking very differently about the struggles they may have been facing behind the glossy facade they present to the public. A great summer read!

I found this hard to get into and stay focused on. I even tried the audiobook but I struggled to find anything compelling or interesting after several chapters in.

Thank you NetGalley for the arc of this book in exchange for an honest review. Overall this book had so much potential but just fell flat for me. The summary of it made it sound like the book would be filled with 80s, 90s and 2000s pop culture and nostalgia but aside from a few small comments I really wouldn't have even remembered the years the book took place. The characters were all just meh for me. The main character was fine but not super likable and her love story was dull and hard to root for. The ending needed a little more of an epilogue than just a news story. I just needed more. I've read a lot of books centered around music and a growing pop star career and I feel they wrote the music writing, performing and dealing with stardom parts in a more immersive way

3.5 this was interesting and i loved seeing Amber’s rise to fame, but I wish I had gotten more? A more detailed look into her life post fame, post Wes.

I loved the friendships in this story! Also, i have to say i was lowkey surprised at how much sex-focused this was… Like at some point it was JUST THAT!!!! but it makes sense when u see how the media treated early 2000s pop stars i guess…(britney, christina, gwen stefani…)

4.5 stars, rounding up

I couldn’t put this book down.

Things I really liked:
-The author’s writing style
-The cover
-Watching Amber grow into herself
-All the imagery around honey and amber
-The nostalgia of the late 1990s/early 2000s (fashion, technology, and overall feeling)
-The genuine friendship between Gwen and Amber, and even the friendly relationship Savannah (it was refreshing to see women building each other up instead of tearing each other down)
-The inclusion of some mixed media (e.g., lyrics, articles, and the Wikipedia entry for Amber at the end)

I was initially excited to read this however I was disappointed. I was looking forward to the late 90s early 2000s nostalgia of my youth with mtv, pop stars , and life in general. You don’t get much of anything from this book. I wanted to know what her life was like being a pop singer and famous from such a young age but again you don’t really get anything of what her life was like. I wanted to see behind the scenes of her life, and trl, and the struggles. Amber was an uninteresting character with no depth. She had no ambitions other than to be famous, but couldn’t even tell you what she liked. It was mainly about sex, which yes teens think about sex a lot, but there is so much more to them then that.

If you grew up in the 90s and were obsessed with girl and boy bands then this a must read ! This book is so nostalgic for the 90s and early 2000s ! I really enjoyed Amber's growth during the novel and her friendship with Gwen and connection with Axel. It was hard to put down. There was so much drama in Amber's wild pop star world. This coming of age novel gives you a glimpse into the life of young singers thrust into the spotlight and having to grow up fast. I highly recommend picking this one up and giving it a read.

Thank you Netgalley and Celadon Books for the digital arc in exchange for my honest review.

I don't know if it's because I <i>was</i> the young girl listening to pop music in my room in the late 90's and early 2000s where this story is set, but I absolutely loved this book.

I found Amber's story to be relatable, heartbreaking, and empowering. I felt like we grew up with her as Isabel told her story, cleverly sandwiched between magazine and wikipedia articles. Amber's story felt so genuine and well characterized that it could have been a memoir about any of the popular stars from this era, yet it still felt unique. It definitely makes you think about stars, especially women, in the spotlight and how they are treated as commodities instead of human beings.

If you liked <I> The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo </i>, watching TRL, or had posters of pop stars and boy bands in your room then you should definitely pick this up.

Thanks to NetGalley, Celadon Books, and Isabel Banta for providing me with an early copy for review, all thoughts are entirely my own.

Honey is a fantastic book. I really enjoyed reading it. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC!

I was so excited to buddy read this book with a friend of mine. We were looking for a book that felt like daisy jones but without the men. and boy did we find it.
HONEY is a thrilling story about women in the pop music space and how they are belittled for being what they want to be. The narrative this book told is powerful, and this book will definitely be on my top books of 2024

Thank you NetGalley & Celadon Books for the ARC! 💖

From a girl in the early 2000s who had posters from J-14 & Tiger Beat magazine covering her wall, THANK YOU Isabel Banta. If there’s a book about stardom/the music industry/etc, I’m going to read it and have strong opinions on it, and Honey was hands down a hit. My only critique is that I wanted more. It felt authentic (granted, I was born in 1999, but authentic to what I know the late nineties/early 2000s music scene to have been), it was fun, and heartbreaking when it needed to be. I also think that Banta writes beautifully. Her explanations of Amber’s emotions and feelings towards her music, her relationships, etc were so beautifully written. For a debut novel, this exceeded my expectations and I really look forward to another novel from Isabel Banta (soon!!! i’m begging!!!).

This debut novel reads very much like a memoir which was an intelligent choice for portraying the coming of age time in the life of a young woman in the 1990's. Seeing the pop culture through Amber's senses, at times I felt grief, anger, anxiety, shame, and more as Amber allowed herself to be manipulated by others in the industry as well as other singers/performers seeking approval from the same audiences.

Most of the time reading this book, I felt bad for Amber and how she treated herself, how she allowed the opinions of others define her life, and how she made poor choices often and surrounded herself with toxic people. But, the final third of the novel, Amber meets someone who encourages her to look inside of herself and to be who she really wants to be and not what others expect/want her to be. This made the last part of the book fly by for me.

This book sounded promising based on the synopsis but just fell flat for me. The characters were not likable, and I found myself being annoyed with the main character. I did like the inserted "side notes" which provided interesting tidbits. While I did finish this book I was disappointed.

I will not share my opinion on social media.

I wasn’t sure about this book but I kept hearing good things about it so wanted to give it a chance and I am really glad I did! Thank you NetGalley and Celadon books for allowing me to read this. This book brought me back in time and really gave a great story related to the pop stars of the early 2000’s. What a great coming of age story about a rising popstar navigating through fame, love, and growing up. A great story about finding yourself amidst chaos and having great friends along the way. The only criticism I have is some of the book felt a l’utile disjointed and I didn’t feel like I got resolution until later. I would recommend this book as a good easy read with characters you want to root for!

This was supposed to be a “fresh, multifaceted story” about the rise of a 90’s/2000’s pop star, but it was so unrealistic and one dimensional that it only ended up frustrating me horribly.

Amber Young’s a talented teen, selected for a girl pool group who lackadaisically goes solo at age 19 before the girl band even does one single thing. She is following two other female solo singers, so she’s constantly compared to them and she gets way over sexualized. Despite those set-back themes to her career (which aren’t even that bad) she has an incredibly successful decades long run in the music industry.. She never finishes high school, but still is extremely intelligent and emotionally sound, despite a detached upbringing. She has very few problems emotionally and gets to live happily ever after….

So. Unrealistic.

It was hard to swallow this story, knowing the actual damage teen pop stars truly suffered. Amber gets an abortion at one point and the author writes about it as if Amber were simply popping a pimple. She performs later that night and literally NEVER struggles with it. NO.

So that’s my beef with this book in a nutshell. It lacked depth and was too unrealistic to be enjoyable in any way.

I do want to thank NetGalley and Celadon for the e-ARC of the book in exchange for my honest opinion.

It was mid :/

This is a confusing review to write because I don't know exactly how to explain it, but what keeps coming back to me is that the tone was off. Amber's point of view is very matter of fact and kind of flat but then in exchanges with other characters she was emotional and funny.

I think the intent was to highlight all of the ways a pop-star in the early aughts was treated by both the public and the music industry, but this "peek behind the curtain" lacked depth. Isabel Banta would offer quips and metaphors to articulate Amber's emotions and reactions instead of letting her live them.

The most genuine scene for me was when <spoiler> Amber and Gwen have the fight about her lying about Wes and then the subsequent call amber makes to Gwen asking for her forgiveness because she values they're friendship. That vulnerability and realness is what I wished for her whole narration. </spoiler>

It was difficult for me to get through the first half, the second half was more engaging <spoiler> Axel, I love you and your whole character deserved more time as did the romance. WHY wasn't the best part of this book fleshed out?! Amber and Axel was the tiny bit of gold that just needed more space. </spoiler>, the ending was abrupt and felt unfinished.

3 stars for me because, while this review is mostly critique, there is something about this debut that still sparkled. I am looking forward to Banta's sophmore or junior novel because I think she is going to get better and better.

This book follows Amber Young’s life as she tries to become an actor and later a pop star during the late 90s. It felt very nostalgic to me as I was a teen during the late 90s and early 2000s myself. I loved the boy bands and female singers of the time, and this book took me back! I enjoyed seeing a kinda inside glimpse of that world and what Amber went through and how it affected her. The cattiness of other girls around her, the ruthlessness of music execs, and how people just wanted to use her. She had to find out who she could trust and it wasn’t always easy.

Overall I enjoyed this one and felt it have a deeper understanding of the time period it was written about.

Thanks to @isabelbanta and @celadon for the eARC through @netgalley.

I loved this book! As a super fan of 90s/00s pop, this was right up my alley. The main character is complicated, relatable, and so lovable. It also feels so relevant as we see today's pop girlies fight back against the narratives that pit them against each other. If you have ever seriously discussed your thoughts on Britney vs. Xtina vs. Jessica, you'll enjoy this read.