3.5 stars rounded up
A coming-of-age story of the pop sensation Amber Young as she navigates fame, life, and relationships in the late-90s/early-2000s.

This one was full of nostalgia from my childhood, the age of boy bands, Britney, and Christina. I appreciated the commentary around child stars, especially young girls as they grow up in the public eye - oversexualized and shamed in the most vulnerable time of their lives.

I enjoyed the story, but at the end of the day I just didn’t feel invested in the characters or their relationships. The writing was well done but the narrative was very matter of fact as a series of events. I just wanted…more. What was it like being famous, rich - who was she outside of the media/her relationships. There was plenty of drama, but the delivery was surface level.

🎧 The audio narration by Brittany Pressley was great and kept me listening. It reminded me of I’m Glad My Mom Died, meets a Behind the Music documentary.

All in all a solid debut, I’ll be looking forward to more from Banta.

This book COULD NOT be better timed with the current hype around Female Pop-stars. Think of your favorite fictional celebrity dramas — Daisy Jones & the Six… Verity… Never Lie… The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Most of these start with the story of the author/interviewer before jumping into the subject’s life. I usually find the subject to be the more interesting timeline.

“Honey” skips the interviewer and jumps straight into the subject’s story. I enjoyed this style waaaay more! Amber is telling her life in her words 🤩🤩

Amber wants to sing. It’s the only thing she’s passionate about. She meets Gwen when they audition for a girl’s group but separate to be solo artists instead. Gwen is picked up immediately with her pink hair, wholesome image and dance skills. Amber’s career lulls behind because the label markets her as the sexy & worldly opposite. But she hustles and goes on tour with the boy band ETA, and her childhood crush Wes… who is in a fake relationship with Gwen.

But this is more than a romantic drama. Since it’s first person pov, you get all of Amber’s thoughts on girlhood. I was highlighting every other line! She really took me back to my teens and 20s. The “mortifying” stage of life between girl and woman. Everyone’s commenting on your body and policing your identity before you’ve even had the time to explore your own morals and opinions.

This novel is thoughtful and reflection AND delivers adult romance so thoroughly. You will be taken back to the years you pined for NSYNC (or the Backstreet Boys, respectfully) while marveling at Brittany and other young 'divas'. Best of all, there is a HEA for all involved and it has a healthier resolution than I would have anticipated from the genre. I think I'm going to reread it -- that's how deeply it's burrowed into my mind.

If you grew up in the 90s listening to spice girls, Christina, Britney or Alicia then this book will be so fun and nostalgic for you, throwing you right back into that magical era.

The plot follows a singer named Amber who is “discovered” at a young age and thrown into the chaos and glam of being a famous pop star on the rise, all the hurdles and challenges she has to overcome and how the industry can be corrupt and toxic especially towards young susceptible females.

It reads as a coming of age story along with some heavier important topics which ring true specifically now when we are seeing the dark side of the fame industry on the media on a daily basis and witnessing the likes of Beiber and others open up about what they went through at a young vulnerable age, it seems like a very apt time for this book to come out.

Thank you Celadon Books and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review. Publish date: available now

Honey is about a young girl in the 1990's who escapes her life through singing, and is discovered at a talent show. After Star Search and a brief stint with a girl band, she sets out as a solo artist. She's a self-reflective person...which sometimes made me as a reader forget that she was so young throughout the book. Her mom's character was disengaged. Her best friend was somehow a relationship that often rang false. Her relationships are a mess. Most of that seems congruous with a very young adult on her own in a difficult, demanding career. I enjoyed most of this book, but I never really connected with Amber or any other character. I couldn't make myself care about what happened to her or most of her vapid friends. A decent debut though, and I would read other future works from this author!

Growing up in the 90’s and loving the pop music back then, reading this book was so nostalgic for me! It had total Britney and Christina vibes and I was here for it! This coming of age story was different than others as it followed the rise of pop singer Amber Young and how she handled fame at such a young age. Banta did a fantastic job of showing how the music industry sexualized these young girls and put them against each other to sell albums. I felt like the misogyny was accurately portrayed in this book and at times it was tough to read.

While I loved this book and how it invoked wistful memories of my younger years, I can see how this might not be for everyone. If you didn’t grow up in this era then you may feel lost at times reading it. However, I think that it’s a poignant story and one that females of all ages can relate to.

Thank you Celadon Books and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

A debut novel by Isabel Banta, "Honey" brings readers through the life and career of Amber Young in her attempted rise to stardom.

What I really enjoyed about this novel was the focus on growing up in the spotlight. Amber Young starts off innocently enough, auditioning for her dream roles and, ultimately, getting denied in favor of more youthful talent. When Amber eventually gets her big break in a girl's group called Cloud9, her adventure really begins. I loved how Amber took on this career on her own- her mother was supportive in the beginning but with rejection after rejection, eventually mom fades away and allows Amber to truly seek her own path.

The focus of this novel is on Amber's rise to stardom. The thing is, her stardom isn't unrealistic. She doesn't immediately rise to number one. In fact, she never gets to number one. Instead, Banta details the sacrifices and lifestyle changes Amber has to make in order to become famous in a mid-tier celebrity category.

The relationships in this book led much to be desired. While it was a nice balance between career talk and romances/friendships, the relationships as a whole did not feel fully developed. It left me wanting to know more about these characters long after the novel drew to a close. I also wished Banta touched a little more on situations that popped up throughout the book- the mental turmoil experienced with negative press, binge eating and anorexia, more serious issues to shed light on.

Overall, this book was fun pop bubblegum to sit back and enjoy. Banta puts together a solid debut novel that remains realistic on the path to stardom.

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC.

I DNF'd at 40%, unfortunately this book was not for me.

You might enjoy if you like:
-coming of age in the spotlight
- stories of pop stars
- nostalgic, 90's vibes

Thank you so much for letting me read this fantastic story! I felt like I was reliving high school - in a good way! The details of the 1990s/2000s was perfect. I adored each of the characters, and hope there is a sequel! I'm impressed with the amount of research this author did, since the details were fantastic.
Thank you again!

Honey is an intimate look behind the scenes of stardom.
Thank you to Celadon for my gifted ARC for review!
Amber Young wants to be a performer. Famous. Her mom takes her to auditions for acting roles, but it becomes clear Amber is meant to be a singer.
Amber joins the girl group, Cloud9, then embarks on a solo career. She goes through the teenage norms of making friends and navigating love and relationships, but in the 1990s and early 2000s public eye. Magazine features, news articles, song lyrics and such appear between chapters.
I'll admit, it took awhile for some of the characters to grow on me. Meeting them through the lens of the main character who is living her own experiences, keeps them at arm's length from the reader, to a degree.
I very much enjoyed what debut author Isabel Banta has created here, and look forward to reading more from her.
Recommended!
For release on June 25.

Sometimes a song sounds exactly the way you want your life to feel.

So says Amber Young, a teenaged girl with a fantastic voice and a desperate desire for a better, happier life. In the early 1990’s, she lives with her divorcée (and alcoholic) mother and older brother in a small and pretty crappy apartment. She developed early and her body readily attracts boys to her, and she figures that her looks and her voice are basically all that she has to offer the world. When she performs in her school’s talent show, an agent (Angela Newton) there to cheer on a young relative is impressed enough with Amber to contact her and offer her the opportunity to formally audition for her. Angela offers to represent Amber, and her first attempt to chase her dream of singing stardom begins. After multiple failed auditions, she is offered a slot on Star Search…..but comes up short, losing out to boy singer Wes Kingston. Her mother decides that its time for Amber to return to reality, but six years later Amber returns to Angela with new demo tapes and begins to carve out a career. With a new agent, Sonny, she lands a place in a four person girl band called Cloud9 where she meets Gwen Morris, another member of the group. Gwen, more driven and focused on her career than Amber, becomes a mentor, and before Cloud9 can even launch Gwen has decided to leave the group to pursue a solo career instead. Amber follows suit, . It is the heyday of girl pop singers and boy bands, and while Amber and Gwen are friends they are also de facto rivals. The boy Amber met years ago, Wes, is now part of boy band ETA, and his management company publicly link Gwen and Wes together as a couple. It is also decided by the older men who run the music studios and the careers of these young artists that Gwen is the good girl (her first single is tellingly called “Bubblegum”), while Amber (her single: “Sweat”) is the sexy bad girl who mothers and critics love to hate. Unfortunately, Gwen and Wes have no attraction to one another, while Amber and Wes definitely do….but business trumps romance, and the public pretense continues. The truth sneaks out eventually, the country despises Amber for “breaking up” the perfect couple, and the girls’ friendship becomes the first casualty. From NYC to LA to Oslo, albums are recorded, worldwide tours spool out, and each singer will work to carve out a career that they control, and secure the happiness in life they assumed would come with fame but instead seems to be precluded by it.
If you ever read teen magazines, watched MTV’s TRL, or remember the days when Britney Spears and Cristina Aguilera, Debbie Gibson and Tiffany, and ‘NSync and the Backstreet Boys ruled the airwaves, Honey is a must read. What propelled these talented young kids to the heights of stardom….parents looking to profit from their childrens’ gifts? The sometimes sleazy people (mostly men) in the music business who played God with these vulnerable people, warning them that there were hundreds of equally talented performers just waiting to take their place if they didn’t blindly follow the adults’ guidance? In Amber, there’s a young girl who has been abandoned by her father and whose mother’s addiction makes home a less than happy place to be….she wants attention, love, and a life better than what she has. Gwen, Wes and the others in their orbit all have their own motivations and pressures, but to achieve success they will have to play the game according to the rules set forth by people who do not have their best interests at heart…all at what will become a high cost. For readers who enjoyed Taylor Jenkins Reid’s “Daisy Jones and the Six” or Caroline Leavitt’s “Days of Wonder”, or couldn’t wait to watch Andrew McCarthy’s documentary “Brats”, looking back at the Brat Pack, grab yourself a copy of this novel that combines nostalgia for a time in cultural history with a realistic look at the less-than-glamorous underbelly of the industry that fed children into a virtual wood chipper by those looking to capitalize on the latest trend, Many thanks to NetGalley and Celadon Books for allowing me access to an early copy of Honey and for taking me back to the days of pop princesses and harmonizing boy bands.

Amber Young was a young teenager when she was scouted by an agent. She was just performing at a school talent show when another parent heard her sing and thought she had talent. She spent the next several years going into New York City for audition after audition. She even made it onto Star Search. But Amber lost to a young singer named Wes Kingston. She even gave up for a while, letting go of the auditions and just spending time being a high schooler.

But she wasn’t happy and decided to give fame another try. But no more auditioning for commercials or for musicals. She wants to be a singer. And she gets an audition for a producer who was putting together a girl group. Amber made it into the group and quickly made friends with another girl there, Gwen Morris. Gwen helps Amber with the choreography, and after a couple of months of long days working with the group, Gwen tearfully admits the truth to Amber. She’s leaving the group. Gwen’s mother thinks that she’ll do better as a solo artist. And she thinks Amber should do the same.

It’s the 1990s, and one of the hottest new acts is a boy band named ETA. They’re a bunch of clean-cut guys who are finally getting some attention with their album Lightning in a Bottle. Gwen and Amber get a chance to meet the ETA, and Amber is happy to recognize one of them, Wes, who beat her on Star Search. As Gwen and Amber start on their solo careers, their lives intertwine with the ETA guys through their tours, recording, TRL on MTV, and awards shows. Publicly, Gwen and Wes are together. But Gwen isn’t interested in him that way, and Amber is, making it look in the media like Amber is the bad girl, trying to come between America’s Sweethearts.

As the years go by, Amber has to fight to find her voice, to tell her story. The media sexualize her, her fans worship her, record labels want to market her package her to sell, and producers tell her what to perform. But she is a smart woman, despite not finishing high school. She has her own opinions about her music, about her sexuality, about her future. Amber knows what she wants, and she is willing to sacrifice to get it. But is she willing to sacrifice her friends? Her family? The man she loves?

Teenagers and then 20somethings, growing up in the spotlight, working almost constantly, the life of a pop star is insane and complicated. And the 1990s exploded with young pop stars all over. Honey offers up a behind-the-scenes view of all those young pop stars who took over the music industry for a while, the boy bands and the teen magazines with their posters and the girls screaming and the mall tours. All of it comes to life in author Isabel Banta’s coming of age novel that brings to mind all those kids who grew up in the spotlight, singing and dating and dancing right in front of our eyes. And seeing it from their eyes is quite a ride.

I listened to the audio book of Honey, with narration by Brittany Pressley. I thought the reading of this book was just marvelous. Pressley brought the voice of Amber to life, and I could feel her passion through each chapter. I really liked Honey. It’s an enjoyable read with a lot of interesting characters. I will admit that I expected more drama, more scandal, but then this is the week that a very famous former boy band singer got pulled over for a DUI, so maybe it’s good that fiction is less like real life in this instance. I admired Amber for her personal convictions, for how hard she worked to find her own voice, and for her dedication to her friends. This is a lovely story of a young woman finding her voice in a male dominated profession, but I did think it lacked a little of the public drama of the actual era of the young pop stars.

An early copy of the audio book for Honey was provided by Macmillan Audio, and egalleys were provided by Celadon Books, both through NetGalley, with many thanks.

The cover and description are what drew me in on this one, following the rise of a 90's pop star. The story was a little choppy throughout and it felt too surface level overall but I still enjoyed it. Thanks to Celadon Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy - pub day is today!

As someone who was a teenager in the early 2000s, this book was wonderfully nostalgic for me. As the mother of a preteen girl, the coming of age story spoke to me.

I found Amber, the protagonist, compelling, and enjoyed reading about her rise to fame, and her development of self advocacy in the process. I found the story really interesting - the characters of her mother, Wes, Gwen and Axel were all well written. I loved the writing style itself - it is written in present tense, making the reader feel like they are on Amber’s journey alongside her. I also loved the small snippets of other types of writing between the chapters, for example song lyrics and magazine interviews, which further centered the book in the time period.

Overall a solid and enjoyable read.

Honey honey honey….what can I say.
This book was what I expected. Nothing too crazy, but I didn’t hate it either.

This is my first title by the author, and while it was written well….in a sense… I had some issues with characters and the unnecessary ******* in the book. (Don’t need to say too much, but you’ll figure it out.)

<b>I DO LOVE HOW ITS 90s-00s theme. Really brought the nostalgia out for me, but overall, the book was okay.</b>

It’s a coming of age story and most if not all stories like this are really an “okay” rating. So maybe my opinion is too biased, but that’s just how I feel. Not my genre I guess, but the stories are worth a try to read.

This story reminded me of Britney Spears life in a way. It’s triggering if you really think about it. But this story really can portray a life of those in the media. Especially pop star singers

Thank you to @celadonbooks and @Netgalley for this #gifted book in exchange for an honest review.

This book brought me back to when I was a young, teeny bopper, in the90’ns, absolutely enthralled in all things pop music. I listened to the music, bought all the magazines that had pop stars in them, and constantly begged my parents to let me go to a concert. I could actually hear the music as I was reading the book. It probably helped that the book is structured like a song and we were also shown song lyrics & articles to help tell the story.

I particularly liked that we were shown both sides of the life of a popstar: the flashy and fun side, along with the nitty-gritty behind the scenes.

I read Honey as part of the Celadon Read Together Initiative.

“Honey is a coming-of-age story that follows the meteoric rise of singer Amber Young as she navigates fame in the late-90s and early-2000s era of pop music superstardom

Isabel Banta’s debut novel, Honey, redefines the narratives of some of the most famous pop icons of the ’90s and 2000s. It reimagines the superstars we idolized and hated, oversexualized and underestimated, and gives them the fresh, multifaceted story they deserve.”

I’ll be honest—Honey is not a book I would have chosen or been pulled to pick up off bookstore shelves myself, but it is one I’m glad I read and am also surprised with how much I enjoyed it. Finding good books that I wouldn’t normally read is probably one of my favourite things about ‘readalongs’ and ‘readtogethers’.

Right off the bat, this book screams 90s. It brings you right back into that pop world that was so prominent of the ‘90s and early ‘00s. Amber Young reminded me soo much of Britney Spears and I couldn’t help but think of her as I read about Amber’s Journey into fame and stardom.

Although this book is heavily focused on a young girl’s dreams of becoming star, it is also so much more than that—it is real, emotional, heavy and raw. Amber’s story pulled at my heartstrings, and even though there were some points in the story where I was frustrated with Amber and the decisions she made, there were other times where I wanted to just hug and console her. Amber was SO alone and had to go through so many hardships alone and I just wanted more for her.

I did love the fact that she had a strong friend in Gwen, but it’s also very sad that this friendship was mostly sustained through missed phone calls and voicemails.

I would recommend this book to anyone who grew up in the 90s or loved following the pop world of the time. I would also recommend the audiobook because it was excellent and Brittany Pressley’s voice added so much emotion to the high and lows of Amber’s journey into stardom.

Thank you to Celadon, LibroFM, Macmillan Audio & Netgalley for the gifted copies.

Big thanks to NetGalley and Celadon Books for the ARC!

Taking place during the rise of 90s pop music, Honey follows the career of young singer, Amber Young, from girl group member to adult solo artist. As someone who always had a Britney Spears or N’SYNC album in my CD player growing up, I was excited for a fictional take on pop stardom, hoping for an “inside scoop” into the music industry. And while parts of the book checked that box, especially when Amber steps into her own as a lyricist, a good portion focused on her love life vs. experiences with fame, which didn’t hook me as much.

The writing, however, was wonderfully descriptive from start to finish, and there were some passages that spoke directly to my millennial soul! For me, the lyrical tone was the real star of the show and I’m looking forward to seeing what this author has in store for her future novels.

Thank you to Celadon Books and to NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

I loved this book and felt like I took a trip back into time. This book reminded me of when I was a teenager and listening to Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, and all other girl singers and girl groups of the time.

I had never read anything by this author, but I really enjoyed this one and will look for other things by her.

I don't understand why so many books these days lack the hook. You know those first ten pages that are supposed to draw you in making you want to invest your time in reading the authors words. Instead, we get this, " This is why I hide my voice away, I think. I have pushed all my urges down, past my ribs and into my gut, because I am afraid of the hair growing between my legs, the hard buds in my chest. When I asked about these changes, arriving too soon, my mom said, "You're becoming a woman," and I started to cry.

It makes absolutely no sense.

The main character was underdeveloped and lacked substance.
The writing is very chopping.
I wasn't sure if she was writing in first person or making stuff up as she goes.

I gave it two stars just for the cover.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley for my honest review.

I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH.

This was SO nostalgic, I felt like I was transported back in time. YM magazine, HOW DID I FORGET. Asides the complete nostalgia, I thought it had such a 2020 internal dialogue from the greasy producers, to the identity crisis' these young girls had at the time, and their relationship with sexuality. This felt like 90s popstars meets "Lullabies for Little Criminals"

It was not always a pretty read, but I loved seeing that Wikipedia entry at the end with a HEA.

On that note, I loved that the chapters were broken up by years, and her journey was shown through songs, interviews, apple genius etc.

Thank you to the author, Celadon and Netgalley for the ARC.