A review by ravensandlace
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan

4.0

Title: Mad Honey
Author: Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
Genre: Adult Fiction
Format: ebook
Series: NA
Star Rating: 4 stars

tw: drowning, parental death, assault, blood, gaslighting, death, domestic violence, attempted suicide, abortion, transphobic comments, bullying, use of the word faggot

I’ve noticed a trend in Jodi Picoult’s books. Lately, she’s been giving lessons about very niche topics. The last book I read, the Book of Two Ways, was about death and how the Egyptians viewed death since the main character was a death doula. This one was about beekeeping. I enjoyed that part but after a while, I was just wanting to get to the point. The lessons about beekeeping didn’t even pertain to what the chapter of the book was about.

There were two POVs: Lily, the girl who died, and Olivia, Asher’s mom. Asher was Lily’s boyfriend and accused murderer. I liked the fact that Lily’s POV was in the past, leading up to her death. Olivia was in the present and everything that happened after. I found that I didn’t have a true favorite when it came to the POVs. I wish there was a POV from Asher. I feel like the story would have benefitted from his point of view quite a bit. 

I think this book tried to do too much. There was the information about the bees, the murder and trial, domestic violence and the effect it has on families, and a twist with the info about that as well. It was a lot and I think it could have been better with fewer subject matters. I do understand why all those things were in there, minus the beekeeping. Olivia was a beekeeper and that’s the only reason that part of the book was in there. 

I’m not going to spoil the ending but I felt pretty dissatisfied with it. It wasn’t the ending that should have happened and I was left upset by the events. I know that sometimes it happens in real life but honestly, it just sucked. I feel like justice was not served. There was also another event that happened that just felt like it came out of nowhere and truly didn’t need to be added. 

Overall, this was a good book but I wasn’t totally in love with it like I expected it to be. It had some negative but overall I truly enjoyed this book. I learned a lot about bees and beekeeping. Overall, this was a pretty good book but I wish Jodi Picoult would get back to the way she used to write books. I miss those days.