Review of Mad Honey *SPOILERS AHEAD

Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan

Balantine Books, 464 Pages, October 4, 2022

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Admittedly, I have never read Boylan but as a long-time Picoult fan, I was very excited for this latest novel and intrigued. Picoult never disappoints, even if some of her novels can be formulaic at times. She usually does provide for a big, unexpected twist. When reading Mad Honey, though, I found myself waiting for some big reveal despite there actually being a big reveal halfway in. None of these characters were redeeming. I couldn’t get behind any of them through their respective ordeals. I was supposed to like Olivia right away, but I didn’t. I found her whiny, selfish and annoying. Her lack of backstory and our direction to just assume that she and her son Asher are close and inseparable was frustrating because if we as readers were along for the ride of that development, we may have more sympathy for her struggles as a single mother and all she overcame with an abusive husband. Rather, we are left with a seemingly absent and bored mother wrapped up in her own world and a lame obsession with bees and beekeeping, which is surely not the intent of the authors.

Asher seems to care not one iota about his mother throughout the course of the book, until the end when he’s forced to entertain her company. His secretive nature detracts from the novel and wholly eliminates my suspension of disbelief. For being supposedly close with his mother, and raised solely by her, he’s oddly uncaring about her and whatever it is she is doing. As a mother of two boys, I don’t buy this, especially given the traumatic experience they both came from. He is equally as uninteresting as Olivia and neither induce any sort of reaction other than eye rolling, lest of all sympathy.

In Mad Honey, Olivia’s difficulties seem like a half-hearted backdrop to the real crux of who we should be following and supporting: Lily. I would even venture to say we should get more from Lily’s mother, Ava - also a single mom doing all she can to overcome struggles and arguably much more interesting in her support of her daughter. Those parallels should be beautiful and make for a great arch and a track of two worlds colliding. But it is never explored and we are found wanting. Perhaps told a different way or without the incessant buzzing of the beekeeping narrative, I would have received more satisfaction in these reflective tracks.  It’s clear two people wrote two different stories. Though the prose was artful and beautiful for both, the paths never crossed meaningfully enough to craft the smash novel they were hoping for.

To Read or Not To Read: Don't Read

Opt to skip this title. If you're on the hunt for a Jodi Picoult novel full of amazing twists try Perfect Match, Nineteen Minutes, small great things, or The Storyteller.