Honey
A Novel
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4.2 • 10 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
*Named a best book of the summer by PEOPLE, ELLE, PureWow and Our Culture, Electric Lit, and a Goodreads Editor's Choice and IndieNext Pick*
A coming-of-age story that follows the meteoric rise of singer Amber Young as she navigates fame in the late-90s and early-2000s era of pop music superstardom
It is 1997, and Amber Young has received a life-changing call. It’s a chance thousands of girls would die for: the opportunity to join girl group Cloud9 in Los Angeles and escape her small town. She quickly finds herself in the orbits of fellow rising stars Gwen Morris, a driven singer-dancer, and Wes Kingston, a member of the biggest boy band in the world, ETA.
As Amber embarks on her solo career and her fame intensifies, her rich interior life is frequently reduced. Surrounded by people who claim to love her but only wish to exploit her and driven by a desire for recognition and success, for love and sex, for agency and connection, Amber comes of age at a time when the kaleidoscope of public opinion can distort everything and one mistake can shatter a career.
With the captivating style of Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter and the raw honesty of Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died, Isabel Banta’s debut novel, Honey, redefines the narratives of some of the most famous pop icons of the ’90s and 2000s. It reimagines the superstars we idolized and hated, oversexualized and underestimated, and gives them the fresh, multifaceted story they deserve.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Banta debuts with a sweeping if surprisingly dreary ode to the pop princesses of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Amber Young is just 10 when she's first scouted by agent Angela Newton at a 1990 New Jersey talent show. Two years later, she signs on with Angela and they set out in pursuit of stardom, though Amber consistently feels like she's falling short of her rivals, beginning with a disappointing appearance on Star Search. As the years pass, she puts out hit records and music videos, but she's repeatedly compared unfavorably to her industry peers, accused of being too overtly sexual in contrast to performers with a girl next door image. Her best friend, Gwen, is one of those seemingly wholesome pop stars, but Angela knows there's more below the surface of Gwen's story. Their friendship gets complicated when Amber disrupts Gwen's made-for-PR romance by sleeping with her heartthrob boyfriend. Interviews, song lyrics, and liner notes punctuate Amber's first-person narration, which chronicles the singer's efforts to break free of her industry-created sexpot image and start writing her own music. Although the behind-the-scenes friendship between Amber and Gwen has moments of resonance, their conflicts lack believable drama, and the romantic relationships are missing emotional credibility and genuine heat. Like much of the pop music at its center, Banta's novel is long on style but short on depth.
Customer Reviews
Interesting to reflect on the early 2000s
I grew up in the early 2000s listening to the Britneys, Christinas and Jessicas that dominated female pop culture of the time so I was anticipating some fun nostalgia with reading this book. While it definitely provided that (remember shopping the Delias catalog?!) it also exposed and delved into the gross fascination everyone had with the sexuality and virginity of these young women and how the world felt it was ok to dissect their clothing and dating choices under a high powered microscope as if they were specimen to be studied and not human beings. This fictional narrative really expanded on the memoirs we've gotten from the likes of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears lately. The criticism I have of this book is that sometimes, emotionally it did feel flat. I didn't really care about the characters very much. I think the power in this story is how it made me reflect on a past era.