@netgalley came through for me on this gem. Again I went in blind but I LOVE that cover so much!!!! For me this book was just ok...I really wanted to love it but I felt like I was ease dropping on my daughter conversation the entire time and found myself being annoyed. It was well written though!

2.5 Rounded up. I read this book back in August when I finished I was stumped on how to review this book. I wanted to love this book. The concept and description were interesting but honestly, it felt underdeveloped with this young girl just making mistake after mistake. I felt like there was no real storyline and felt like a dead end. I especially struggled with Amber and Gwen's relationship, then Amber and Wes, and the whole time I was wanting some more umph in the book. There felt to be a whole lot of unfinished circumstances that should have been flushed out a little more. The narrating was well done but I just felt the story dragged.

Engaging read with likable protagonist. I appreciated the homage the author paid to the past. A great read to get lost for a weekend if you’re looking for a fun journey that takes you back.

The story of Amber and her journey to be a pop star in the 90’s. This book had lots of references from those years like TRL, Rosie ODonnel show, Clinton/Lewinsky and 9/11 to name a few. This book focuses on Amber and a few others on the pop scene. I had high hopes but overall it wasn’t it for me. I almost stopped reading about 50% in because I was bored. Shallow characters and the plot was lacking for me

If you are a fan of 2000s pop princesses a la Britney Spears you need to check this one out. I thought the story was sad and yet hopeful at the same time. I kept rooting for Amber the entire time and I wanted things to work out for her so much. There are times when I was getting so angry and wanted to throw the book across the room, but I like how it all wrapped up in the end.

Honey by Isabel Banta fell flat for me - while I love the premise it felt too juvenile and I had trouble sinking my teeth into the characters or their worlds! Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC!

3.5 stars. Honey is about a fictitious young up and coming pop singer in the late 90s/early 00s. Amber is 16 and coming into her own and trying to make it in the music industry. She is scouted at a school talent show and pursues a music career. Being slightly younger than Amber, who was born in 1980, I enjoyed the cultural touchstones in the book, like being on Star Search as a teenager! The story is super easy to get into and moves fairly quickly. It got a little tedious in the middle portion because I was frustrated by Amber and her lack of agency. I understand this is how many people are as teenagers and adults, but I just don't enjoy reading about that perspective. She was a bit bland and let life happen to her so often. I think I would have enjoyed this more if it had been about her friend and fellow pop singer, Gwen. I was never into the pop scene of the late 90s/early 00s, but it was fun to have a backstage pass. The story is a bit salacious at times and it was an easy read. I listened to the audiobook, which is masterfully narrated by Brittany Pressley. She's truly one of my favorite narrators!

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for providing this ebook and audiobook ARC. All thoughts are my own.

I knew when I read the synopsis of this novel that I wanted to listen to the audiobook rather than read it in print. I'm so grateful to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to do that because the audio was phenomenal.

Honey is a coming-of-age story that focuses on Amber Young, a teenage pop sensation, as she navigates the chaos of her rise to fame while still dealing with typical teenage drama.

Amber is the kind of character you can’t help but root for. Banta does such a great job of showing the pressure she’s under—how the fame, the expectations, and the persona she’s created can sometimes feel like a prison. Honey really digs into that tension between Amber’s public image as a perfect, polished pop star and her private self, a vulnerable girl just trying to find her way in a world that constantly wants to control her narrative.

If you grew up in the pop princess era of Britney, Christina, Jessica, etc. like I did, you'll love Honey!

I didn’t not get a chance to finish this audio and it was DNF for me. I hope that others enjoyed this audio.

Honey was a great read. I loved the character development and the writing was propulsive. I loved the 2000s setting!

I grew up in the 90’s and my teen years were peak Britney Spears/Christina/NSYNC era, so Honey sounded like something I would really enjoy even just for the nostalgia factor.

And for the most part I did enjoy it. I felt it lacked a bit of character emotion and development. It could have gone a little deeper into the psyche of these singers, but it was still entertaining.

Now being an adult and knowing how everything turned out for those real life stars of my youth, I can totally see some of the things in this book coming from a realm of truth from that time.

I will say, listening to the audio for the lyric parts of the book was a tad weird. The narrator has always been solid in my book, but it was just…. Weird.

"Honey" by Isabel Banta will make any 90's kid reminisce and bask in the nostalgia of a bygone era.

If you loved reading Britney's memoir or are nostalgic for boy bands and pop princesses of the 2000s, you've got to read Honey by Isabel Banta!

Unfortunately, HONEY was a book that I found bothersome to read. The characters were insufferable, but not in the good "they're written to be insufferable" way ... in the way that I felt like I was supposed to either like them or find them intentionally unlikeable. I could barely make it through.

A coming of age story, set in the 1990s, that was heartwarming and tender.

For me, I did enjoy the nostalgia from the 90’s timeline, but never fully connected to the characters or storyline.

*many thanks to librofm, Macmillan audio/netgalley and Celadon for the gifted copy for review

This book was okay. 3.5 stars in my opinion. The narrator but I just wasn’t crazy about the characters. It just felt like something was missing from them.

The audio narration of this book really helped me to connect with the characters. I enjoyed the different vocal tonalities that were used for each of the characters.

Honey by Isabel Banta 📚

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did 😬

I typically enjoy books with a storyline like this one (Daisy Jones & The Six, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, etc) — but this was just missing something? It felt lacking in some of the details and storyline.

I listened to this as an audiobook, and did really enjoy the narrator — so that was a plus. There is nothing worse than starting an audiobook and quickly realizing the narrator just isn’t it 😂

Overall it seems that I’m not alone with thinking this way and the book has quite mixed reviews.

Would I read this again? No. Would I recommend it to others? Maybe.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC! 🫶🏻

“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.”

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Oooo 90s nostalgia in its finest! I blew through this one which normally isn’t something I do with a character study type novel such as this. The magazine clips throughout took me back - I LOVED reading Teen Bop and Tiger Beat and putting the posters on my walls. Amber was highly relatable and I thought the side characters were all fully formed. Banta does such a good job looking at the oversexualization of talent and how different we treat female celebries. I can’t wait to see what Banta writes next!

Told mainly from Amber’s first-person perspective, Honey chronicles her rise to fame, fortune, and glamour, while also revealing the darker side of the industry—exploitation, slut-shaming, and the rivalry among women behind the scenes. Released a year after Spears’s memoir, The Woman in Me, Banta’s debut is timely, delving into the hypersexualization of young women in entertainment, double standards, and power dynamics, while also celebrating the strength of female friendships and resilience. Banta’s writing shines as she captures how exposure and talent can profoundly impact an impressionable young person. Years before her career takes off, Amber, singing Taylor Dane’s “Tell It to My Heart” into a hairbrush, reflects, “when I let myself sing, I understand the purpose of gods…Something I can’t name moves inside me; something finally magnetizes.”

For fans of Daisy Jones & the Six and A Visit from the Goon Squad, Honey offers an engaging exploration of the dark side of fame, early aughts pop culture, and the transition from girlhood to womanhood.

I loved this book! 4.5 stars! Very Brittany, very nostalgic, I think I am absolutely the target audience for this one! My only complaint, and the only reason for not giving it five stars is I felt the end was too abrupt. I wanted more of a build up to that finale.