I've been a fan of Jodi Picky it's books for a long time. This did not disappoint. She has such a way of developing beautiful characters. The concept was interesting, and I admit being totally shocked with the big reveal halfway through the book. A few of the plot lines felt forced though. I think if the focus had stayed on the domestic abuse and transgender issues, it would have been better. But throwing in the hint of a budding romance with Olivia and Mike, the relationship between Jordan and Selena, and some of the other minor plots just wound up taking away from the story more than adding to it.

I was eagerly anticipating reading this book. I enjoy Jodi Picoult's novels and I am now a huge fan of Jennifer Finney Boylan. The premise of the book is fairly simple - 2 teens being raised by single mothers each with their own backstory - fall in love. Both kids are smart, motivated students with promising futures ahead of them. They are passionate and talented each with their own talents- Asher with ice hockey and Lily with her Cello. . Like many teenage romances Asher and Lily, at times have tumultuous moments. After a bitter argument, Lily is found dead, Asher, who finds her body, is the main suspect. The plot seems pretty cliche and the courtroom drama, which Picoult is known for, could also seem formulaic. However, this book is different from past ones that i have read. For one, I loved the perspectives in the alternating chapters of Olivia, Asher's mom and from Lily in the weeks and months prior to her death. The chapters from Lily's point of view were incredibly poignant. I really enjoyed the book and the big twist literally took my breath away. However, there are several items which I did not love. I felt that there were too many issues being dealt with - violence against women, abortion, LGBTQ themes, single motherhood, interracial relationships. It got to be a bit preachy and over the top in my mind. I really enjoyed learning about bees and honey and the recipes in the book look delicious and inviting. The biggest problem I had with the book was the ending. It really irritated me. Unfortunately, I have found this to be the case with several of Picoult's book. They are interesting and riveting and then the ending annoys me. This one seemed like a real cop out.

Overall this was an enjoyable and very fast read. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book. As someone who grew up in a smaller town & somewhat sheltered it was eye opening to get to see inside the mind of someone who has transitioned. It gave me a new perspective that I so appreciate. What a heart wrenching story. I felt for all the characters.

Loved this book! I’m typical Picoult fashion, I couldn’t put it down. It was thought provoking and emotionally charged.

Mad Honey is a book about starting over, abuse, finding your true self, family, love, hate, ignorance, and a mystery all wrapped into one fantastic book. Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Boylan do a wonderful job of allowing the reader to feel what's in each characters heart and mind. Olivia is trying to start over with her son, Asher, after leaving her abusive surgeon husband. They move to New Hampshire and move into Olivia's parents house and take over the beekeeping business as Olivia's parents have passed. Lily is a teenager who has been abused by her father and by her school mates. so her mom, Ava, decides to leave and ends up in the same small New Hampshire town. Ava is a forest ranger and got a job at a park in New Hampshire.

Lily and Asher meet in high school through Asher's best friend, Maya. Maya and Lily are both in the orchestra and Asher comes to Lily's rescue as one of the hockey jocks is trying to flirt with her. Lily is immediately impressed by Asher and the feeling is reciprocated. Maya, Asher, and Lily go out to get milkshakes and a friendship is born. Asher asks Lily out that evening and she says yes. Things between Asher and Lily heat up quickly and they are falling in love with each other. Lily is hiding something big from Asher, but she doesn't know whether to tell him. She trusts him, but she's afraid if she tells him her secret that he will leave her and expose her secret to others. Asher is dealing with issues and secrets of his own relating to his Dad and the abusive relationship he had with his Mom. Will Lily be honest with Asher? Will Asher share his fears with Lily?

Things take a turn when Lily gets a phone call from Asher. He's at the police station and Lily is dead. From here the book is told in two timelines, the current one and before Lily died. How did Lily die? Was it a hate crime? Was it an accident? Did someone kill her on purpose? Was Asher involved? Lily calls her brother, Jordan, who is a lawyer. Jordan comes to New Hampshire to help along with his wife Selena who is his investigator. I had my theory, but was not correct in the end. I adored all of the characters in Mad Honey and am going to miss each one of them. This book is beautifully written and I highly recommend that you read it! I rate the book 5 starts.

I'd like to thanks NetGalley and Random House Publishing House-Ballantine for an advanced copy in exchange for a fair review. #MadHoney #NetGalley

Characters that are just plain human, complete with emotions and frailties, are such a joy to find in a novel. The main characters in this story are totally believable and bring the action to life. As usual, any book with Jodi Picoult’s name on it will feature current societal issues and this is no exception. The dual authors wrote a novel that reads so smoothly that the reader never feels a jolt moving from one to the other. My only observation is that the epilogue seemed to rather abruptly tie up loose ends.

Thanks to NetGalley and Ballantine Books/Random House for the ARC to read and review.

I went in blind.

I will admit, at first I was bored. Lily and Olivia? Who cares? Don’t get me started on Asher.

The Lily reveal blew me away. I’m glad they did it this way, and if you read the authors’ notes at the end, it all begins to make sense. There is a certain subset, possibly the majority, that will not feel for Lily had the authors not written her this way.

I won’t get into the murder or the trial. Those aren’t the heart of the story. The people are. Their backstories are.

There’s abuse. Physical abuse. Emotional abuse. Abuse of rights. Jodi is known for this. If you don’t like it, why’d you read it?

Trans rights are human rights 🏳️‍⚧️

The first half of this book really just grabbed me and I couldn't put it down. The second half of this book still held my attention, but I felt at times, there was too much emphasis on issues that are happening today. I get that we want to talk about them and make them relevant, but I felt it was a tiny bit of overkill. I still enjoyed this story, but felt that the twist in the end was just sort of ehh. Overall, I did enjoy the book and I enjoyed the storyline.

Thanks to Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review. I’ve read numerous books by Jodi Picoult and this was another strong book by the author. She writes strong characters with timely plots. I’ll continue to read more of her books in the future!

I loved Mad Honey. I'm sure there are more flowery, eloquent ways to say it, but that's the simple truth. I just loved it. I learned so much about transgender, cisgender, love, and hate. I also learned a fair amount about bees and beekeeping, but that was just a bonus.

Full confession, I've never read a book by Jennifer Finney Boylan before, but you can bet that I'm now going to be a fan. I have, however, been a long-time Jodi Picoult fan, and I know going in that it's going to be emotional, that I'm going to get all the feels, but this one caught me by surprise. It blew me away by the depth of the characters and the attachment that I developed for them. I wish I could give it more than five stars. It's that good.

Thank you, NetGalley, for an e-ARC of Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult.
Mad Honey is a story based around an abusive husband, a new start, and a son on trial for murder. This book has a solid plot and the typical Picoult twist. Although I felt the LGBT information in the book was important and necessary, at times it felt preachy and took away from the story. Jodi Picoult tackles tough topics, but in this book the information distracted from a great storyline.

I love Jodi Picoult but I am not sure how to feel about this book. I was super excited to see this on Netgalley for me to read and review but about halfway through I lost interest. At the start of the book, it was interesting and I was completely involved in her writing style. About halfway through some topics seem to come from nowhere and almost seem to just be placed in. I am not sure if it's just because the topics they added were recently in the news or hot topics but I didn't think they fit well with how the book began. I don't like to give a negative review because I do try to remain positive throughout the book but I was not able to complete this with a positive attitude. This is one of the few books I did not finish and probably will never finish. I will not be recommending this to my followers either. I do have to say to my followers that if they want to read this book but are easily triggered by topics do not read this because you will not be able to finish this without being upset or triggered.

I forgot half way through this novel that the story was being written by two different people. It felt seem less in that sense. But the story itself left a little to be desired for me. It seemed unrealistic that so many people held such ongoing secrets from each other. I will recommend it to customers who enjoy mysteries, sudden revelations, and trans depictions.

This book was something special. Picoult always knows how to create a story that resonates wit readers. She knows how to develop characters, flesh out a story and pace it in way that make the book hard to out down. Mad Honey was all those things and so much more. You cannot help but be drawn into the story and care deeply about what is happening. It was such a delight and a book I recommend!

A riveting read. The character development of the main characters, Olivia, Asher, Liliy and Ava make a powerful story line. It's hard enough being single mothers and teenagers but throw in first love, abuse, transgender and murder, you can't stop reading! There is a fair amount of discussion on transgender which I learned much amount but also skipped over. I found the side story on Olivia's beekeeping fascinating and the parallels of bees to family important to the story. The writing style was easy to follow and I couldn't put it down. I recommend this book.

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult AND Jennifer Finney Boylan is one of the few co-written fictional novels I have ever read. Typically, I steer away from them because they often seem disjointed, like a puzzle put together poorly. That is definitely not the case here. Though I have never read anything by Jennifer Finney Boylan before, I have read a few Jodi Picoult books and this one flowed just as well as the others have read.

The things I loved about this book are numerous. Each significant character in the book is given the space and time to get to know and empathize with. Granted, that made for a longer book than it could have been, but I appreciated how developed the characters were. The mystery aspect of the story was also well done. I loved that the outcome of that mystery played so well that the accused's mother even questioned her child's innocence at times...and the child's response to that was also very well written and believable. The love of the mothers for their children was beautifully portrayed. Even people who are not parents will be able to "get it" when reading this story.

I hate that I can't say everything I want to say about this book because it would give away what is being called its "big twist". I will say that knowing nothing about Jennifer Finney Boylin, the twist was more surprising to me than it might have been to others who have read her previous works.

Kudos to both authors for writing a compelling story that no one with a heart will be able to read without sympathizing with the main characters and thinking about his/her own thoughts and actions around some of the subject matter.

The only reason I can't go 5 stars in on this one is strictly because, as I always feel when I read a topical subject in a Jodi Picoult novel, it is laid on pretty heavy handedly, sometimes feeling lectured to via metaphors. Also, there was a LOT to digest in this novel. It will go down in people's minds as being about one significant cultural subject matter, but it brought up so many that deserve their space and discussion, too. Bringing those up but not doing justice to their importance felt jarring. I think Mad Honey might have been slightly better had the characters involved not had so much going on in their past so that the one issue could be the focus, then nothing would have felt unfinished or diminished.

**** BOOK REVIEW ****

A big Thank You to @netgalley and @ballantinebooks for the free e-copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

As I've mentioned in the past, Jodi Picoult has become of my favorite go-to authors writing about provocative, hot-button issues. This one is no exception!!

This time, though, she paired her writing with that of Jennifer Finney Boylan (who I'd never heard of), and created a book that is timely, yet timeless at the same time.

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising their beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business.

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.

And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can trust him completely....

Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in Ash, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.

The characters were very well developed and likeable. The storyline is split into two different POVs: Olivia, telling the story after the incident and moving forward. Lily, on the other hand, tells her story from the time of the incident and then moving backward.

Suffice it to say, definitely worth the read!! Highly recommended!!

Wow! Jodi Picoult loves adding controversial topics to her novels and this was no different. I don’t love court dramas but there was enough of other story lines it worked well. The bee keeping was not necessary to the plot but helped give character depth. This is a book that makes you think and is hard to forget!

Another amazing story from Ms Picoult! I love learning about things I would never care about, such as elephants, wolves, and in this book bees, and the stories and people that intertwine.. Fabulous!

Honestly, when I thought of reading this book, the only thing that stood out to me was that it was written by Jodi Picoult. It wasn't really until the afterward that it really set in that this book was co-authored. Honestly, by reading the book, you would NEVER know that it written by two different people. Their writing seemed to jive/mesh so well together! I am a super-fan of Jodi Picoult, however, I've never read anything by Jennifer Finney Boylan, so I will definitely be looking into her books after Mad Honey.

Honestly, I don't think there is one single thing not to love about this book but I really appreciate the detail the author's go into in describing working with bees and honey! That information was fascinating to me and fit in with the story so well! You can tell these ladies did their due diligence when it came down to researching the subject matter of everything involved with this book!

One thing that I love about Jodi Picoult books is her subject matter! You better believe she is going to write about the taboo topics that no one else wants to touch, and she does so masterfully! Mad Honey is no different. I really don't want to get into why because I don't want to give any spoilers, but just know that she lives up to her reputation and delivers on it beautifully, once again!

This is one of those books that was so easy to devour because you feel a connection to the story (whether you have anything to do with the topic or not), as well as the characters and you just have to continue reading to find out what is going to happen. I also appreciate the bit of mystery that was in this book!

Overall, this was a magnificent performance by this duo of writers that won't leave you disappointed. It's only going to leave you anxiously anticipating their next work (which I hope is another collaboration together). From the subject, to the characters, to the absolute perfection of writing, you cannot go wrong with this book! This is easily going to be one of my favorite books of 2022!!

**I would like to offer a HUGE THANK YOU to Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan, Random Publishing House Group/Ballantine and Netgalley for providing me with a copy of Mad Honey which has allowed me to provide this honest and unbiased review.**