Mad Honey by Picoult & Finney Boylan

A big thank you to Mrs. Suraci, retired WHHS art teacher, for donating this to our Library and putting it on my to-read list for New Title Tuesday!

I hate to say I did not like it.  

The story is told in alternating viewpoints.  First is Olivia.  She is a single mom who fled an abusive marriage with her young son who is now a senior.  She lives in her former childhood home and took over her father's bee/honey business. Her side of the story is in the present going forward.  Second is Lily.  Also a senior, and girlfriend of Olivia's son Ash, her story goes backwards from the day of her murder.  Ash is the primary suspect.  

As we go back and forth between past and present, we see Ash wants to reconcile with his own father and for Lily to reconcile with hers.  He seems to want a "big happy family", which is clearly impossible due to theirs and their mothers trauma.  The novel becomes a court room drama.  

I don't want to spoil too much, since this is a murder mystery, but I did not like how we are actually told the truth before the book is over.  There's too much potato and not enough meat.  And this was definitely written as a cross over appeal between Mom Murder Mystery and YA Romance.  I felt the story was confuzzled about which it really wanted to be.  Could be a L&O SVU episode for sure. I think though what bothered me most, as the Mom of a teenage boy, was that everyone in town assumed Ash's guilt automatically.

All opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of Mrs. W.