love and bees

Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan

Rating: 4.5 stars (out of 5)

Genre: fiction

Review: On the surface, this is a tried-and-true trope: girl is murdered, boy is accused, mother stands by her son.  But, as one might suspect with a book by Picoult and Boylan, there is a whole lot more going on here.  There are several unexpected twists, not to mention more than a few turns.  Told in alternating chapters, Olivia, Asher's mother, tells the story going forward from Lily's death and Lily herself tells her story going backward from the same time.  Together, the two stories form a brilliant picture of Lily and Asher, together and separately, and of the difference between things that are private and things that are secret.

Are there a few hanging threads here?  Yes.  After making dramatic (re)entrances, both Lily and Asher's fathers sort of disappear.  And there's a lot in here that would, in the hands of lesser writers, be deemed pedantic, as we learn the ins and outs of beekeeping, among other topics.  Instead of feeling like information that isn't really relevant to the plot is being forced on me, as I have in other books, I just found it interesting, like I was just having a nice conversation with an acquaintance.  And I really wish I could have a nice conversation with these characters.  Or their authors.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.