Review: Honey Girl

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Finished on May 15, 2021

Favorite Scene/Quote: Her trip to Florida

I really love this book, especially because Rogers doesn’t shy away from the bad things. The writing is excellent, and I’m a bit surprised to learn that this is a debut novel from this author.
    
Grace goes on a trip to Vegas to celebrate getting her doctorate. While she’s there she meets a girl at the bar and stays with her through the night. When she wakes up the next morning, she finds that she managed to get drunkenly married to the other woman. The woman has left behind her card and the Grace learns that her name is Yuki, and she has a radio show. She eventually contacts her and, after life gets stressful and hard, she goes to New York to visit her wife.

Rogers did a great job at writing the emotions of the main character. She writes the confusion, the stress, the haze, and everything so well that it made me grow very attached to Grace. I wanted her to be okay, even when it was clear that she wasn’t. You don’t really get to see into the other characters that much, but even then, Rogers’ writes them in a way where you understand their emotions as well. You can tell when Grace’s friends are mad and Yuki is unsure.

The best thing about this book, to me, is Rogers’ insistence on not shying away from things. She doesn’t paint a beautiful color over the bad things in life. One of Grace’s best friends has to take medicine every day and her friends help her on bad days. Grace has serious stress issues and other things and eventually it gets to a sort-of breaking point with her. Grace’s other friend is working a job he doesn’t like and pissed that Grace just off and goes to New York. These characters are real with real situations and I love them for it. With their sharp sides and mean tones, with their insecurities and doubts, with their flaws and bruises. I love them. I want more of them.

I didn’t know what to expect out of this book at first. I heard that it was good, but I was still a bit wary. This book is fantastic. I love it because it portrays characters as people, as messy. They aren’t perfect, they don’t have everything figured out. This is a great book for someone in their 20s.