🥀 Arc Review 🥀
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Comes out - March 24th 2026
I am absolutely obsessed with this one. I was hooked from start to finish and have been thinking of it nonstop ever since. This book was heartbreakingly beautiful, the writing was breathtaking and exquisitely detailed.
Our main characters Rory and Daye were so captivating and beautiful, it was such a lovely experience to watch them now together.
This story was everything I hoped it would be. From the plot of the story to the unique characters within it.
this amazing authors has created such a beautifully unique story and I absolutely cannot wait to see what else they will do.
I cannot wait for you all to be able to jump into this fantastic world and fall deeply in love with it!

Bar Fridman-Tell’s Honeysuckle is officially one of my favorite reads of the year.

We follow Rory and Daye, a Blodeuwedd companion created by his sister, through their adolescence as they navigate codependency, consent, and exploitation. What truly defines the line between altruism and greed? When is it too late to acknowledge your mistakes?

Daye’s decomposition at the end of the season is inevitable, and Rory starts to become obsessed with extending her lifespan. When Rory’s experiments and research start to spiral out of control and take on a morally questionable route, Daye begins to question her purpose—not just to Rory, but as a whole.

Fridman-Tell is an incredibly captivating writer. This piece is both beautiful and deeply disturbing. Packed with enticing metaphors and atmospheric descriptions, it will leave you wondering how something so harrowing can occur in such peace. This novel explores narcissism, objectification, the conditionality of accepting imperfection, and the development of resentment.

I stayed up all night needing to know how it ended. It isn’t often that you find yourself as devastated for a pair of characters as I did for Rory and Daye. Their perspectives differ tremendously, and the writing is so impactful that I found it difficult to disapprove of a character’s problematic standpoints.

I have already recommended pre-ordering Honeysuckle to some friends! I truly believe that Fridman-Tell’s debut novel will grow into a must-read piece of feminist literature. I will absolutely be recommending this book for a long time and hope to see more work from this author… an immediate auto-buy!

This book discusses sexual and emotional abuse, grief, some gore and animal abuse.

Thank you NetGalley and Bloomsbury for the eARC.

I LOVED THIS SO MUCH.

The genre is hard to pin down - I'd say a dark academia horror fantasy romance. Which sounds like a chaotic mess but it's perfect.

It reminded me of Anne of Green Gables, because the writing is gorgeous, with its atmospheric descriptions of each season, creating a painting you just sink into. It made me love and long for each season as we rotated through them.

This was like Frankenstein, as Rory obsessively studied and experimented with prolonging his girlfriend made from flowers, but the Monster is Rory as we watch him shift from innocent boy to controlling, objectifying man.

It reminded me of Sally Rooney's Normal People, as Rory and Daye blossom together, become codependent, but then grow apart, with Rory bringing about the very thing he aims to prevent through his crazed obsession.

Rory and Daye are captivating as you watch them either sink into monstrosity or expand into freedom. You understand and weep for both of them. The story is incredibly surprising and well done, especially for a debut book, and I can't wait for more from this author.

Honeysuckle is a compelling tale that starts off sweet, and slowly evolves into something darker. Lines are blurred, and eventually crossed, as Rory's love for Daye grows into obsession. With a combination of Welsh mythology and Frankenstein-vibes, Honeysuckle is one unsettling read that you won't want to put down!

I know it’s early, but this is definitely one of my favorite reads of the year.

Bar Fridman-Tell’s writing is absolutely stunning! The gothic tone, horror elements, and Welsh mythology, are perfectly intertwined throughout the story. Not only does it add so much to the story itself, but to the setting and descriptions as well. It creates a moody, haunting, and unsettling read! If you’re looking to start reading gothic folklore, start with this book. It’ll leave you wanting more!

I was hooked from the very start! In the beginning, this story is about a lonely boy, who is looking for a friend to spend his time with, while his sister is off at university. What it manifested in to, was a problematic power dynamic between a man and his “lover”. It tells of how quickly, and subtly, innocence can be turned into toxic obsession.

“It’s strange- to yearn so much for something, and dread it at the same time.”

Deeper elements of abandonment, non consensual relationships and sexual relations, misogyny, and toxic obsessive behaviors are explored in this book. Everything about the dynamic between Rory and Daye was unsettling, and the multi POV amplified the tension for me!


Thank you Netgalley, and Bloomsbury, for this arc of Bar Fridman-Tell’s debut novel! All opinions are my own.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this story since I finished it. I will definitely be recommending it to my customers!

Truly one of my favorite reads of the last year. Uncomfortable in the best way. The prose is the definition of lush. I can't wait to see what Fridman-Tell writes next.

I'm not familiar with the mythological background of this work, but Fridman-Tell does a fantastic job of weaving the folklore into her own world. The development of both Rory and Daye because of their environment and their relationship/reliance on one another give us such a tense and heartbreaking story. I would love to start a book club just so I could talk to other people about this book, because there are so many things to analyze. Without giving too much away, this story captures a lot of the themes & discussion of Frankenstein, and I love it.

Okay I LOVED this one. Reading Honeysuckle was like watching a train slowly speeding towards an inevitable collision and not being able to look away--I was filled with an ever-increasing sense of horrified dread but could not put the book down.

A haunting gothic retelling that manages to also be a fairytale horror with dark academia vibes, it's one of those books that slips its way fluidly across genre lines. With delicious prose, it deftly deals with nuanced, important themes of consent, bodily autonomy, power differentials within romantic relationships, patriarchal entitlement to the female body, and the snarled-up emotional complexity that can happen when someone you love turns into someone who hurts you. Highly highly recommend.

Honeysuckle is the aching, gothic fairy tale of our time — fantasy horror, done to perfection. I must applaud her for creating the next must-read piece of feminist literature. A gleaming exposition of consent and the right to bodily autonomy. Beautifully written and paced, the whole book rolls off the tongue.

I was hooked from the start, making every gut-wrenching detail that much more invasive. This book serves morose cottage-core in a way that both complements its characters and setting, and leaves behind the subtle tinge of feminine resentment. My heart broke in so many ways I wasn’t prepared for, both for Rory and for Daye. In the end, the grand crescendo melted away all suspense and tension within.
In short, this is the perfect book for your next book club read, something all genders could take from.

Bar Fridman-Tell has created something deeply unsettling in the guise of a fairy tale. Daye, a girl woven from flowers and words, exists because a lonely boy needed a friend. But this premise, which could be whimsical, instead becomes a meditation on autonomy, consent, and the violence of love. Rory loves Daye. This much is clear. But what does it mean to love someone you literally created? Someone who exists because you made her exist? As the line between friendship and romance blurs, Fridman-Tell forces us to confront uncomfortable questions about the power dynamics inherent in their relationship.
Daye's seasonal death and rebirth isn't just a magical constraint - it's a metaphor for control. Rory must weave her back together, or she falls apart. He literally holds her existence in his hands. And as Rory becomes "desperate to break this cycle," we have to ask: is he doing this for Daye, or for himself? Is this love or ownership?
The brilliance of the novel lies in Daye's growing awareness. She begins to "wonder just how much control she really has over her own life" - a question that resonates far beyond the fantasy setting. How many relationships, in our world, involve one person holding the power while the other exists at their mercy?
The Blodeuwedd myth provides the perfect foundation. In the original Welsh tale, a woman created from flowers eventually rebels against her creator. Fridman-Tell's loose reimagining asks: what happens when something created for someone else's happiness develops its own desires?
Honeysuckle succeeds because it takes a childhood fantasy - having a friend made just for you - and follows it to its logical, disturbing conclusion. It's enchanting and inventive, yes, but also deeply unsettling in its exploration of how love can become a form of imprisonment.

This wasn’t even on my radar, but it arrived on my doorstop and immediately I knew it made it to the right person. Gothic romantic horror, coming of age, with academic and creator/creature vibes. This is 100% my style. I loved everything from the writing to the pacing. It felt like I was slowly racing towards a cliffs edge. And talk about just dropping me off it with the ending.