Honey Girl Review

 

Honey Girl 

By: Morgan Rogers

Released: February 23rd, 2021

Pages: 241 

My Rating: 4/5

Goodreads Synopsis:

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 women who's name she doesn't know... until she does exactly that. 

This one moment of departure from her stern ex-military father's plans for her life has Grace wondering why she doesn't feel more fulfilled from completing her degree. Staggering under the weight of her father's expectations, a struggling job market and feelings of burnout, Grace flees her home in Portland for a summer in New York with the wife she barely knows.  

In New York she's able to ignore all the annoying questions about her future plans and falls hard for her creative and beautiful wife, Yuki Yamaoto. But when reality comes crashing in, Grace must face what she's been running from all along - the fears that make us human, the family scars that need to heal and the longing for connection, especially when navigating the messiness of adulthood.

My Review:

I'll be honest in saying that when I first saw this as a choice from my book of the month box I did a hard pass on it. I skimmed the synopsis of it (I usually skim all 5 synopsis's because I'm far too excited to pick out my book for that month that I don't want to waste a single second getting in "too deep" with any one of them) and decided I had read a lot of romance lately and wanted something different. Now, I wish I would have just chosen this one from the get go because I chose Girl A instead, and we all know how that went... Anyhow, after this came out I saw so many people talking about how life changing it was and how it made some people cry (we know I love a good cry) and I was immediately intrigued so I scooped it up with my March box and here we are. 

Honey Girl is not the romance I originally thought it would be. Yes, there is romance in the book, but that does not come across as the main plot point. You follow Grace, a twenty something scholar who feels like she has nothing in life figured out yet and drunkenly gets married in Vegas spontaneously. I connected to Grace on a very real level in the sense that adulting is hard and who the heck actually has this all figured out!? If you do, congrats, but I sure do not and it was a nice experience to follow a main character who is on her own journey of finding out who she wants to be. 

I also connected with Grace with how she tries to please just about everyone except herself. You see this with her friends, work, and mainly her family. She really struggles with the feeling that she is letting down her parents if she does not do exactly what they expect of her. I found this to be most relatable because who doesn't fear letting down their parents (hi, Mom!)? Thankfully, I grew up knowing that my mom supported me in just about anything I do, but my dad can be a bit harder to please and I really related to Grace in the scenes with her father. Sometimes it just feels like the bar to hit is higher than what is actually within reach and if you cannot grab it nothing else matters except that failure. BUT, there comes a time in life where you have to start thinking that way and forge your own ways and your own paths. You will make mistakes but no one knows you better than you so you have to trust yourself and do what will make you the happiest.

I found this novel to be an inspiring read and overall, just fun! I really loved all the characters in it especially Grace and Yuki, They were the yin to each others yang and it was great to read about how they both benefited from one another. This is a pretty quick read but man does it pack a nice punch. Have you read Honey Girl? What did you think of it? Do you find yourself to be a people pleaser or are you living your life for you?

Catch you later, 

Molly