Our Book Club is Better Than Your Book Club

Just Kidding! But we sure do have a lot of fun, laughs and sometimes we read the book. Lindsey was the host this month and she made an amazing seafood tower filled with shrimp, scallops, and mussels. Served with rice, salad and of course a beautiful charcuterie board for appetizing. I brought Monkey Bread with vanilla ice cream for dessert, it was a big hit! 

As I have said before I have a decent size group of girlfriends that all bring something to the table personality-wise. We will get into that as time goes by. Our book club rotates from house to house, and we are spoiled rotten by one another with an amazing meal, drinks, desert, and conversation; serious, supporting, loud, funny, and even downright hysterical at times. All bringing us closer together with each gathering. Sometimes just a good excuse to get out of the house. Do you ever really need a reason to get together with your tribe? We sure don’t! And EVERYONE is welcome!! That is the best part. Oh, yeah, the books are good too. 

 

This month was Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney-Boylan. 

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.
 
Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.

 

I thought it was an easy read and the story was well written, and I feel like I learned a little something new. Without spoiling anything I can say that I consider myself open minded knowing that there are many things in life I don’t understand because it has not yet directly affected my life. With that said, it made me realize that there are probably a lot more people suffering in silence than I can even imagine, and that I can be more conscientious of this. 

 

When thinking about the story as a whole and the main characters, I have too, suffered in silence with a façade that everything was “peachy keen” at times in my own life. It got me thinking how I relate. I related to Olivia more than Lily but on the other hand my heart was with Lily as if she was a child in my life and Asher as if he was my child. I understand completely where the mothers, Ava and Olivia, were coming from, and I can’t say that I would do a thing different. 

 

SPOILER ALERT...if you continue, I hope that you have already read the book. Please remember that this is my opinion on the book. While I welcome your opinions and thoughts on it and would LOVE to hear them, I don’t play the “I’m right, you’re wrong’ when it comes to opinions. So here it goes.

 

Book Club Questions for Mad Honey

Let’s first discuss the book’s title, Mad Honey. Why do you think this was chosen? What does it represent to the story as a whole? 

There was only one reference that I remember to what Mad Honey was. Lord knows there were a lot of references to honey, the wonders of honey, what it can cure and how it is made not to mention what it can make but there is only one mention of Mad Honey, and it is to cause death, after all it is essentially poison. I think that is represents the poison and ultimately death. “Death” of Liam, being reborn Lily followed by the social poison she had to endure leading to the suicide attempt. Then the mental poison in Maya that ultimately killed Lily. The poison was society, jealousy, perceived protection. It was all of that “poison” that caused “death” in some way both literally and figuratively. 

 

We read the story from the perspectives of Olivia and Lily. Why was it important to feature their viewpoints? In what ways are they similar? 

I think the main point is to show how two girls from very different background, lives, history, and decades can have so much in common. The common thread of shame, embarrassment, hiding the truth and living a complete lie, constantly running. In that, they are alike. Age, stage of life and background they are very different. However, I do not feel it makes them that different from each other at all when it comes down to understanding each other as another human being that is hurting from something in their past or that they have had to endure.  

 

Olivia left behind an abusive marriage to raise her son, Asher, in her hometown in New Hampshire. She decided to keep Asher in the dark about his father’s true nature. Why did Olivia want to keep that a secret? 

She was ashamed. She didn’t want Asher to know the truth because I feel that in some ways Braden still had some control over her after all those years. Like an addict, she knows what she must do to stay away but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t think about him. By reminding herself of what a manipulative man he was she can keep him tucked away, and the secret to herself and maybe even the good parts she would remember. Sharing with Asher would mean that her “dirty secret” was out, and she may have to answer Asher’s questions and live “out loud” in the mental anguish that was left behind by what Braden did to her.  

 

How did this reveal change everything for not just the trial but all the characters? 

For me, it showed the true love that Asher had for Lily, that he wanted in known, publicly, that he was in love with her. I love how the author had him announce that he in fact knew well before the death that she was trans, accepted it and expected to live his life happily with her regardless of her truth. It showed a tremendous of respect for Lily and maturity on his end for handling it with dignity and protection for someone at such a young age. I think we could all learn something from the way a young man handled a difficult situation with so much love and compassion. As for Olivia, I think that it opened her eyes to a lot more that was going on around her than she could have imagined and while going to Edgar’s was a difficult move on her part it was also difficult for????

 

What was your overall impression of Lily and Asher’s relationship? 

New love. Unconditional new high-school-sweetheart love. 

 

There’s a focus on the cycle of abuse. Asher is quite complicated but does show anger issues like his father. Did you believe that Asher murdered Lily, or did you think it was someone else?  

I always thought it was one of the dads. I never thought that Asher did it. Especially after he insisted on admitting he knew Lily before her death and continued to love her. Notably planning the unwanted “surprise” for her with her father. 

 

Is Asher more like his mother or father? 

He is very much like his mother. A protector through and through. 

 

Were you surprised when Asher was acquitted? 

I was on the edge of my seat, but I knew that is the verdict that I wanted and felt to be the only fair ruling.

 

What happens next for Olivia, Asher, and Ava (Lily’s mom)? T

hey move on with their lives. Changed by this but I feel that the story speaks for itself in that there are a lot more Lily’s out there and by the characters remembering her there can be more acceptance. 

 

There’s one more reveal at the end: Maya is the one who killed Lily. What were your thoughts as you read that? 

So, this is the only part of the writing that I was really bummed about. I realized that they had to wrap it up, couldn’t get into a new trial but for it to be barely a sentence explaining “Well, we aren’t going to press charges. Period. The end.” I felt that it waws rushed and that they just blew up the balloon, popped it and left it there on the floor to back on to the tree house. It was very abrupt and didn’t feel like it fit in well, just shoved in there to get it on the pages. But I did love the twist, just felt it could have been written a little better.

 

There are so many themes to pick up on: identity, acceptance, the cost of lies. Which themes stuck out to you the most? 

The cost of lies. Lying gets you nowhere but when you have nowhere to turn but your lies or face living torture, what do you do then? It’s a horrible spot that these characters were in with no real good option out but to hide behind their lies. 

 

The authors said that Jodi wrote most of Olivia’s perceptive while Jennifer, who is transgender, wrote Lily’s. Let’s talk about the importance of representation in this story. What are your thoughts overall on the writing? 

I thought it was very well written, except the only point noted in number 10. I loved the fact that 2 authors wrote for each character, it really gave them their own personalities. Not one perspective. Jennifer was able to perfectly bring Lily to life in a way that I feel only she could. She incorporated the highs of adolescence and how she had to grow up too fast, the lows of not understanding what and who she was at a young age and abuse that no child should have to endure. She was mature for age but still a teenager going off to college and I think she waws perfectly represented. Olivia, I relate to, being a mother myself with a 17-year-old son. I would like to say that I felt her character was written exactly how most mothers would sound or be, given these circumstances, but sadly I don’t know that this is true in our society. I feel she is just a mom from a small town just trying to be that, just a mom and get by in life, nothing extravagant. She would do anything for her son and strives for understanding and compassion but struggles to understand something that she has never experienced before. I very much relate to Olivia.  

 

Would I recommend to a friend? Yes, I would.

XOXO April