If Nayyirah Waheed and Rupi Kaur teamed up to write a lesbian contemporary romance, it'd be this. Honey Girl has the most jaw-droppingly beautiful prose I've ever read. Coupled with a realistic protagonist struggling with how to just be and a cast of amazing queer side characters I didn't want to leave, Honey Girl is a magnetic, powerful, and incredible book that will surely rock the entire contemporary romance genre

Dr. Grace Porter is lost since she finished her doctoral work. After a career setback, she finds herself waking up in a Las Vegas hotel room with a wedding ring on her finger and a note from the woman she drunkenly married the night before. Grace struggles with what she wants to do with her life while managing familial expectations. Morgan Rogers paints an intricate picture of queerness and what it is to be black in academia and female in STEM. Honey Girl is more bildungsroman than romance, but still guarantees a happy ending.

Wow I had no idea what I was in for when I picked up this book and I honestly mean that in the best way possible!

Now, I've seen few people say this but I think it needs repeating: this is not a romance. Not in the way you're probably expecting it. If you're like me, you heard this was a book where a woman gets drunk and wakes up married to a stranger and you just pictured all the rom-com gloriousness...but I'm here to tell you this story will not be giving you that. Not exactly. See, this book is more of a coming of age with a *side* of romance. It's definitely there and the romance we get is so beautiful, but it's not the focal point of this novel. This is a book about a woman named Grace who has tried her best in life to be perfect. She over works herself to the point of exhaustion and even then, she will try to keep going. This book is about Grace and what happens when her body and mind finally give in and give her no choice but to start taking a look at what her life is really like and what she needs if she wants to be happy.

There are so many things that I loved about this book: the diversity, the found family (aka the amazing secondary cast), the writing and the way that the author can make you feel so many things. I found all the intricate and multi-faceted characters and their relationships with each other so fascinating and fun to read. Ximena and Agnes, Meera and Raj...honestly I could read books on each of them because I found them so interesting. But the thing that I loved most about this book is probably Grace's journey and reading her story. I found her to be such a relatable character and even when she made mistakes, I loved her. I love that this book is a gentle reminder that there is no age limit to when we should have our crap together. You don't just wake up one day and become a fully efficient and responsible adult. We all grow and learn at different times and sometimes you can spend your whole life thinking you know who you want to be only to wake up one day and realize that who you wanted to be when you were 18 is not who you are now in this very moment. I needed that reminder and I bet many other readers will feel the same way too.

That being said, there were a few things that didn't quite work for me and what ultimately led to me not being able to give this 5 stars. While I found the writing to be very beautiful, there were quite a few times where I felt like I was being told things rather than shown, especially when it came to the relationship and time between Grace and Yuki. I also felt like we didn't get to really know Yuki and I felt like there was so much more there that should've been explored with her character. Honestly, the same could be said about all the secondary characters. The author builds these characters up and gives them such interesting backstories, but then they kind of just...disappear and for some of the side characters, we don't really get to find out what happens with them.

Overall, this was such a great read and I definitely recommend it to everyone! I cannot wait to see what this author writes next because I will definitely be picking it up!

I LOVE HONEY GIRL! I don’t always love romance, but I absolutely loved this. I don’t think folks going into this thinking it’s ROMANCE romance will satisfy everyone, because this is really a millennial story of growth and figuring your shit out.

Yuki was such a babe, and the late night radio show was probably my favorite element.

I can’t wait to see everyone lose their minds for this book!!

Grace Porter has spent her whole adult life sticking to the plan. Get her doctorate, get a perfect job, be the best. But one night in Las Vegas, where she drunkenly marries a mysterious woman, sets off a chain of events that causes her to question whether the plan is her plan, or someone else’s.

I am still thinking about this book and exactly what I think about it. I enjoyed the queering of a trope—drunk married in Vegas—deployed here. The theme of found family is strongly portrayed, and this book presents a diverse cast of queer characters of color. I think I thought this was going to be a bit more “fun” as it was described in some of the blurbs, but there’s really nothing lighthearted about this book. It was deadly serious.

Grace’s mental health journey and her realization that she has been working to avoid facing the more complex issues she needed to tackle will resonate with anyone who has ever been driving toward a goal and not taken the time to examine their own needs and wants. How much harder Grace has to work as a Black woman to be seen as talented and legitimate in her field is at the center of how challenging her life post-grad has been for her.

Something about the way this book was written just didn’t quite connect for me. The style was a little too ‘in the clouds” for my own personal test as I prefer a more direct writing style. It could also be that I’m quite a bit older than the characters and couldn’t quite relate to the existential issues that the book raises. I also didn’t really buy the central romance in the book as it wasn’t particularly well-developed, but could see how they connected given Grace’s journey. The cast of characters was overwhelming at times in scope and I agree with some other reviewers that it felt like they were all a little underdone. Overall I would recommend this book as an exploration of queer family, love, race, mental health, and healing, but this is NOT a rom com for sure.

I feel a bit bad rating this so low, because I think my lack of enjoyment has to do with assumptions I made based on the synopsis. But on the other hand, if I had been able to glean the actual story from the summary, I’m not sure I would have picked it to read, so maybe my rating is fair. The plot involves a woman drunkenly marrying a complete stranger in Vegas and then getting to know her new wife after the fact, so I was expecting a fun lesbian rom-com. It was not particularly fun or comedic, and technically there is a love story but it actually didn’t feel very heavily romantic to me, either. The wife isn’t even present for the first third of the book or so, and then when we do finally meet her, the relationship feels a tad insta-lovey and underdeveloped. It’s very serious and earnest, and mostly evoked a sad feeling in me. There’s a lot about mental health, race, and other serious issues, and those definitely outweigh any rom or com aspects. The writing style also was not to my taste, as it felt too heavy for a rom-com but a bit too superficial for not a rom-com. I think if readers come for the mental health focus and not the romance, and aren’t expecting a humorous read, it’s probably going to be resonate well with a lot of people, but in my case I was expecting something really different and couldn’t get into what it actually was.

Honey Girl is the story of Grace, a 29-year-old astronomer who is burned out from a lifetime of working for her career, only to find a world unforgiving to Black women.

After a drunken night in Vegas, she wakes up married to a woman named Yuki, who runs a radio show dedicated to the supernatural and “lonely creatures.”

What follows is a beautifully written story about finding your path in life. Grace has already graduated college and feels like her life should be on track, but she’s still without direction. Her father loves her but pressures her for success. She burns herself out and can’t find the time to be there for her friends.

This is a relatable situation for people of all ages. It was nice to see a story showing how even in adulthood people flounder and struggle to be fulfilled. I loved the message that creating a life that makes you happy is more important than having a prestigious career.

Grace’s friendships and romance were highly developed, even though this isn’t a very long book. By my standards she has quite a large friend group, but each one was distinct and memorable.

Her relationship with Yuki felt real. On the night in Vegas she thought of Yuki as a mysterious dream girl, but once they start an actual relationship she realizes she is a flawed human like all of us. They have to put effort into making their relationship work, and you can see how much they care about each other.

The story is important for featuring a Black sapphic main character, a sad rarity. It even has a interracial, all-female polyamorous relationship. It is at once a universal story and a story which shows the unique experiences or underrepresented groups.

It made me feel so many emotions, both joy and sadness. Be sure to buy this book when it comes out.

This book is a work of art. The depiction of mental health really resonated to me and was really relatable to my own experience. The complexities of each of the characters was so refreshing. Each character had flaws, which really relates to the motif of perfectionism in the book. I also loved that while the main character struggled due to their queer identity, the whole “coming-out” thing wasn’t the main conflict. I will recommend Honey Girl with my last dying breath. I’m completely, and utterly enamored with this book. I look forward to seeing what Morgan Rogers does next!

I haven't read anything quite like Honey Girl before. It definitely has a much more cerebral and ethereal quality to it than a lot of commercial fiction/romance crossovers, which was sometimes really exquisite when reading and sometimes a tad confusing. At this book's core is Grace's Millennial angst as she realizes that the professional path she thought she'd be on isn't working out the way she was told it would. In turn, she's neglected many other parts of her life—including her friends and mental health—in the process.

Honey Girl is a debut novel, so there are a few common execution issues (like too many side characters to keep up with and some transitions and pacing that needed to be smoothed out more), but I'm incredibly intrigued by Rogers' writing and can't wait to pick up whatever she publishes next. She's doing something different, and it's incredibly refreshing.

Also, while we're here, can we talk about how stunningly GORGEOUS this cover is????

Content warning: Mental illness, racism, homophobia, self-harm

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read this book in exchange for my honest review. I follow the author on Twitter and have been seeing her talk about this book for months; I was very excited to be able to read it.

I love the Black LGBT+ representation in this book so much. Ah, the romance! The author’s writing style also allows you to forget that this is her debut book. I loved how the story went (no spoilers) and would like to see more from this author in the future.

It has to mean something that I started off the year with what is bound to become a new favourite.

A few days ago, I was preordering some books and I was thinking about how badly I wanted to read Honey Girl and how much I wished I had it already. Shortly after that, I got approved for it on Netgalley, so naturally, I dove in right away.

This is exactly my kind of book. It's going to be your kind of book too if you crave new adult about millennials. The thing is, our reality is so different from previous generations, and it's strange that there's so little books reflecting that. But this one absolutely does.

I was pulled in because of the romance plotline: Grace gets married in Vegas to someone she doesn't know, and after that, they start talking on the phone, getting to know each other and actually falling in love. But the romance isn't the main plotline and I stayed for Grace trying to figure out her life. Because it was so fucking relatable, and I felt her struggle so deeply. Grace and I are the same age, and we're both in a similar phase in life: you're done with uni, or you're almost done, and suddenly The Rest Of Your Life is looming over you, and you have Big Decisions to make, and you feel like you have to have everything figured out. But you don't, and you feel like you're failing somehow, and it's the most stressful thing you've ever felt. Full disclosure: this put me into such a spiral that I had to drop out of my master's because of depression. It felt therapeutic to be able to read about this struggle after I've had some time to heal. In Grace's case, she's also Black and that adds extra difficulties for her, because academia is very white and she needs to work twice as hard as everyone else and even then her merit keeps being questioned.

To be clear, though, this was not a depressing book to me. I actually found it very uplifting and hopeful overall. The writing was both profound and romantic and really pulled me into the book from the start, and I loved the relationships in the book: the romance, the friends, the found families.

A beautiful and deeply moving debut novel. I found this highly relatable and I'm sure a lot of readers will, even if you didn't marry a stranger in Vegas. Grace Porter is a wonderfully complex and resonant protagonist. The romance, while not exactly the point of the story, is so sweet. Morgan Rogers is definitely one to watch.

I picked up this book mainly because it was described as a more diverse and lesbian version of Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. Truthfully, I'm not sure what I was expecting, since this book has a different author and a separate premise from RW&RB. But overall, I disagree with the comparison. This book is very different from RW&RB, in tone and concept.

Honey Girl was a thoughtfully written, emotionally raw novel following a beautifully flawed and dynamic protagonist who is doing her best to keep herself together after years of pushing herself to the limit and facing debilitating racism when trying to pursue (what she thought was) her passion. Because I expected it to be a lighter read due to the implicarion that it is similar to RW&RB, this book took me off guard and took me longer to finish that I had initially thought (I wasn't in the right head space when I had started). The first half of the book was harder than the second part, as you watch the protagonist really struggle with her mental health, and a lot of it can be really relatable if you yourself have had these struggles. But watching the protagonist do right by herself, by seeking help, forgiving herself, and taking time to heal was really cathartic.

The romance wasn't light and sweet, which probably isn't surprising considering the tone of the book that I'm describing. But it felt honest and real, and makes your heart ache a little as it develops and our leading ladies stumble. Overall, a good read. I think I need to give it another go when I'm in a better head space to really process and feel through this one.

I was hooked on Honey Girl from the first chapter. If I'm being honest, probably before I even started. The premise spoke to something in my heart and I've been searching for more sapphic romances to read! Honey Girl surpassed all my expectations. I expected a swoony romance about falling in love with your wife. But what I got was an introspective journey of dealing with the pressures of being a woman of color, needing to rely on our friends, and self-discovery. What I expected was all the sighs at falling in love. But what I got was a flood of tears at how emotional the parental relationships were and how lyrical the whole book was.

Grace felt relatable to me from the first moment I met her. From the way she's super organized, but how she also just deeply wants to have a break. A break from the hustle, the ways she is undermined by her colleagues, the systematic racism. She is overwhelmed with what and who we should be. The fight for women of color is challenging and demanding perfection. It's for all the opportunities that are never handed to you. That demand your perfection otherwise they discount not only you, but everyone after you. How after hustling for years to make her dad proud, she just needs a moment. But, at the same time, how terrifying it is to break orbit.

The feels good novel of 2020. It puts a mirror up to your heart, soul and mind. What do you do when a curveball is thrown into your perfect plan? This book, Porter's story takes you through what that looks like. I would love to see this become a film. An amazing read. Push though anything that is uncomfortable, the sun shines on the other side.

This book confronts perfectionism, micro aggressions and putting self last.

It's strange how books find you at the most opportune moments. We pick up these little packets of paper without knowing that the words within them will shape us and change us and turn us into something new. That is what this book did for me.

I've been excited about this book ever since it was compared to Queenie and Red White and Royal Blue - because those are two of my favorite books, books that touched my soul and made me feel seen. So I naively thought this book would be a cute little romance that made me smile, and that would be it.

It wasn't.

Honey Girl is an exceptional debut that reads like it was written by a very experienced author. Not only was the prose immaculate and breath-taking, but the characters were rich and the jokes made me laugh out loud. (And scream at my cat. It's fine. He's fine.) I haven't felt this way about a book...probably since Red White and Royal Blue. And I know it's dangerous (and also a disservice) to compare books, but that's the only way to explain this feeling. It's like...champagne-bubbles.

But it's also salt water.

Since I'm not a lesbian and I'm a white girl, I didn't realize how much I would relate to this story. But I cried. Few books make me cry, but this one made me feel seen down to my core. Porter is so relatable on so many levels, and she is the spitting image of being in your late twenties. Even though this book doesn't solve anything or give you the answers you've been searching for, it does make you feel less alone. It makes you laugh and smile and swoon and sometimes that's what you've been looking for the whole time.

I loved getting to see into Honey Girl's world because not only did her story resonate with me personally, but it also showed me all the ways our stories are different. I'm always trying to learn more, and I think it's important to recognize that even though I'm 25 and I feel lost about where to go with my own future, I do not have half the struggles of a Black girl (or an Indian girl, or a Dominican girl, or an Asian girl). I can only imagine, based on Honey Girl's story, how tiring that can be. It gives me a new perspective and a renewed sense that I have the power to watch out for girls like this. For people in general. That we (white people) need to open up spaces and stand up for Black women especially because they give up so much of themselves to try and fit into our boxes. And I know I'm complicit in that.

This is a book of questions and ponderings and reflections. It is undiluted joy intermingled with bone-crushing heart-break. It is all about facing the darkest parts of yourself and taking the time to find your way back to the light. And that is my favorite kind of book.

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers was a whirlwind of bubbling champagne, late neon nights, and rose-tinted glasses. This book was mesmerizing from start to finish, and I would recommend it to anyone that can get their hands on it. The romance between Grace and Yuki was tragically beautiful and made me yearn for a love of my own. Their relationship was unlike any I had ever read before, and I was fascinated by the complexity of it. Honey Girl was completely original in every aspect, and I applaud the creativity of Morgan Rogers to write such a brilliant story. The book includes so much representation: the main character and her best friend are black women, her love interest, Yuki, is Japanese, Yuki's roommate is a transgender man, and there is also a plentiful amount of mental illness representation (bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety). And, of course, everyone is gay. Honey Girl is one of my new favorite sapphic books, and I can't wait to hype it up on its release day.

HONEY GIRL was sweet, swoony, and a balm for the soul. The first chapter grabs you immediately, as we learn that our main character Grace Porter, a recent PhD grad who by all accounts has followed the rules for most of her life, has gotten married to a one-night-stand in Vegas (and now, has no idea who her wife is). It's a perfect way to introduce the character of Grace, a Black 29 year old lesbian who is adrift in her career after she is unable to find a job. The book is a bit unclassifiable. It has a lot of elements of romance, a little bit of YA (though all of the characters are older), and a pinch of coming of age. It was hard to put down, and I felt like the characters jumped right off the page. I knew them, and I wanted to hang out with them.

I wished a lot for Grace -- I wanted her to find peace and to know that she was not alone (it is always hard to see main characters say they are lonely when they seemingly have an incredible group of friends, both parents alive, and a fantastically promising love life). But I understand feeling adrift in one's professional life, and how anxiety and depression can lead to feeling completely lost at times. #ownvoices author, Morgan Rogers, deftly gives language to what it is like being a Black lesbian who strives for perfection from her overbearing father and the pressure she puts on herself, and therefore feeling like there is no place for her after a decade of academia. I was proud of Grace's by the end of the book, and her happy for her love story, and I can see this being a blockbuster of a book when it comes out early next year.

cw: depression, anxiety, mentions of a character's previous self-harm

This a gorgeous book. The prose made me want to lick something. I usual don't pay much attention to prose but the prose stole my breath. The characters all felt very organic with their own troubles and desire to find their own place in the world. The book gets five stars alone for having positive mental health conversations. The main character goes to a therapist to work out her issues for perfection. That unattainable thing that she has been told by her father is attainable. The book goes into how this lie hurts the way she sees her future so beautifully that you should just read the book because I won't be able to accurately explain how honest this book is.

This review is based on an advanced reader copy provided through Netgalley for an honest review.

This novel is a groundbreaking debut for Morgan Rogers. Not exactly the book I expected, HONEY GIRL is a fantastic coming of age story that follows a queer Black woman who just finished her PhD. I love that our main character, Grace, is in her late twenties. Honey Girl explores great themes like loneliness, belonging, identity, queer found family, and finding a home - all things that are more commonly explored through younger characters.

Rogers tackles sexism and racism in academia, which I think makes this book a must-read. I have never read a book that more accurately depicts the feeling of burnout.

In addition to a tale of self-discovery, readers get a side of romance! In the first chapter, Grace marries the monster-loving, fable spinning, radio host, Yuki, during a drunken night in Vegas. Sapphic and hopelessly romantic, this love story is incredibly sweet. However, the true love story in Honey Girl is Grace finding herself.

Though Grace’s character arc is executed poignantly, I selfishly wanted more from our rag-tag group of queer side characters. I loved the found family aspect of this book AND the romance, and of course never wanted them to take away from Grace’s emotional journey. I think this book could have been a bit stronger if it were 50-100 pages longer. Again, it’s also very likely that I’m selfish and wanted more because i loved Grace, Yuki, and these misfits so much.

Rogers’s debut tackles an important topics with grace (pun intended), and highlights their talent for stunning prose and storytelling. I loved Honey Girl dearly, and I cannot wait to read more from her!