What a great debut novel. I adored loved this book. This is a Frankenstein-esque tale of magic and consent and personhood.

Rory is a lonely kid whose older sister makes him a playmate out of flowers so he will stop pestering her. As he continues to grow, he becomes obsessed with keeping his friend alive without needing to remake her every season. Daye is the flower girl who slowly develops independence while being bound by the magic of her creator. Full of self fulfilling prophecies, questions of ethics regarding consent and humanity, and the journey of becoming an adult, this book captured my attention and didn’t let go. I felt that many of the decisions made by both characters were true to reality, which made the impending looming doom that much more heartbreaking. Rory's actions reflect those of a growing boy through his teenage and early adult years. Daye's experiences of loneliness and how they ultimately lead to her independence allowed for such a beautiful full circle plot that I found the ending extremely satisfying. There were honest representations of anxiety, and I found myself loving characters I initially hated and hating characters I initially loved. I highly recommend this book, and I think it would be a great book club pick!

4.5/5 stars

i feel like this one hit me on so many vastly different but equally as deep levels. as a true coming of age love story, this accounts the themes of cycles of abuse, codependency, consent, narcissism, and loneliness wrapped up in prose gushing with lush botanical ambiance. it gave notes of both frankenstein and mother! in a whimsical and atmospheric foreground with a gorgeous nature/pagan witchcraft based magic system. while i wouldn’t consider this horror by any means, there certainly were horrific and harrowing scenes that made this so addicting it was hard to put down.

the whole time i was reading, all i was thinking about was how familiar a relationship like rory and daye’s felt to me. while set in a fantastical world, i found a younger version of myself in daye, and caught myself dwelling on both my own past relationships and those of my friends, and considering how much self-growth and reflection has happened for me since adolescence. i realized i know what it felt like to only exist for someone else, to never know or to lose yourself in your relationship, to be dominated and controlled and accept that abuse in fear of loneliness. but, in turn, through the loss of those relationships you gain the freedom to exist for yourself and yourself alone, and rediscovering yourself and who you want to be after being pushed down time and time again is a beautiful revelation. it’s part of why this book hit so close to home for me, was because it felt like healing. it felt like i must have worked through some past trauma as i found my way through this story. and i think others who have found themselves lost or stuck in a cycle they can’t break out of may feel the same way too.

this was almost a perfect read to me, but i do feel like it is being a bit wrongly advertised. i strongly do not believe this should be considered any semblance of a horror read, and while it has some dread inducing elements, they are not scary in the traditional sense. i was expecting a bit more of a conventional pagan horror based on marketing and the kinds of book lists it is being found in on instagram/goodreads, and while i still really enjoyed it, i fear some may be mislead into thinking this is something it is not, which may impact ratings. i also do think this book is quite repetitive, though i could see how this was a stylistic choice in a similar vein to the invisible life of addie larue.

i hope and pray this one takes off upon release, it really deserves it. i would looooove a special edition of it.

Emotional and incredibly atmospheric, Honeysuckle is more fantasy than horror - but the main source of horror is the lengths lonely people will go to.

As a young boy, Rory desires nothing more than a playmate, especially when his teenaged sister has grown out of that role. So his sister, Wynne, builds him a Blodeuwood, a flower girl, to act as his playmate in her stead. What Wynne couldn't predict is how attached Rory would grow to the Blodeuwood, whom he names Daye, a deep and instant friendship blossoming between the two that means when the seasons change and Daye, the girl of summer flowers, starts to break with the season, Wynne rebuilds Daye into an autumn version, and on and on this goes for years. Eventually, Rory learns to take over this transition and becomes obsessed with finding out ways to make Daye able to survive longer through seasons and to ensure she's not so reliant on him. Or so that's how his plan begins . . .

One place where Honeysuckle really shines is its setting - the imagery, whether of Daye and Rory's home or of the city of St. Claire, is so vivid. I'd love to see artwork for this story! And the magic system is very cool, with a mix of academic and folk horror style bits to it. The author did a great job of weaving Rory's two worlds together and making both equally vivid, but an even better job of developing the characters.

I won't say too much, as the development of Rory and Daye, both together and separately, is the main plot of the book, but it was wonderfully engaging to watch Daye develop into herself over the course of this book, especially given her origins. Rory also had incredible character development, though perhaps in a rather different way - but you've got to appreciate the development here.

There are a lot of folk horror elements in the book, from the weaving to the constructs, but at its heart, the real horror is the human interactions and what makes someone human. And, beyond that, if they're not human, then how do we treat them? As the story edged toward its climax and the relationship between Rory and Daye reached a climactic point for them as well, this became a true page-turner to me with no small amount of tension.

A fantastically intriguing and magical story, with no small amount of human horror, Honeysuckle is a wonderful debut and I'll certainly be following along to see where Bar Fridman-Tell goes next with her writing.

Thank you to the publisher, Simon & Schuster, and to NetGalley for the ARC.