Review: Honey by Isabel Banta

Honey by Isabel Banta
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was provided both an ebook and audio ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.  The audio narration was really well done and I enjoyed the song lyrics and interviews that were interspersed throughout giving it a multimedia feel.  I would have liked if the lyrics were sung instead of spoken since this is a book about her singing, but I also understand that may not have been possible.

This is not normally the type of book I go for, but it was very well written and too me back to my youth when boy bands and pop princesses were all the rage.   I was high school and college aged in the late 90's and early 2000s when Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, and Britney Spears were the up and coming single female acts and NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys were the all the rage.  The ladies were also pitted against the media all the time for different reasons.  I'm sure there were others but those are the ones the immediately spring to mind when I think back to that time and how they were portrayed in the media and as I was reading Amber's story.

Amber is our main character and this is told from her perspective as she seeks a solo career as a female pop star.  She was discovered at an early age by a talent agent and struggled to break onto the scene among the other stars at the time.  She has the talent, but she struggles to find her voice in other ways to find real success.  She also struggles to find support, friendship, and love as she tours and tries to build a fan base.  

This very much an adult book as it deals with some very adult topics like drugs, alcohol, and sex throughout the book as Amber faces all of those as she tours.  While she is comfortable in her own skin, she is over sexualized by her label at a young age, while the other girls her age are able to hold onto their innocence a bit longer.  She is called nasty names by the media and doesn't have much support to deal with the negativity of the media and the loneliness that develops when she's on tour for months at a time.  She also has issues with her self-worth and connecting with people and building real relationships.  

This was very well written and if you are a fan of pop music this reads almost like a memoir despite it being fiction.  I really appreciated Amber's character development as the story progressed.  This deals with alot of heavy topics, so I'd look up some trigger warnings ahead of time.

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