Honey, Imani Thompson

The blurb for HONEY starts out with a no punches pulled approach.

The first time, Yrsa doesn't intend to kill.

Which is going to mean that the style of this novel might come as a bit of a surprise to some readers. If you're one of those, like me, that was more than mildly put off by the chick lit styled tone of the opening sections, and felt just a little bit like something needs to happen soon... then hang in there. This goes from feeling all a bit silly to deadly (and I mean deadly) serious in the blink of an eye. A blink that might make you think you've missed something. 

Having said that, the tone never does vary which makes for an astounding combination of disconnect and deep involvement in every single word, thought and action of the central character Yrsa.

A young university student and lecturer, Yrsa is bored with life, bored with her friends, bored with her active, and mostly self-initiated sex life, basically she's majoring in bored. Which you'd think would make her, as the narrator of her own story, also a bit boring, bordering on whingy. But she's engaging, probably because she's also profoundly confusing. A young woman who seems to have it all, a loving family, although she thinks her mother is overly pushy and her father too passive. She's also very good at poor decisions, impulsive actions, and what an outsider would be excused for assuming is complete and absolute self-involvement. With fleeting moments of compassion and concern for others, when she's not allowing her worst instincts to take over, and well, there's no other way to say this, and indulging in a bit of vigilante behaviour.

All of which sounds confusing I know and in this particular instance it's hard to write a review of this book without slipping into some major spoilers. Instead let's cut to the chase. The blurb also says:

Comic, sexy, addictive, unpredictable, Honey is about the not-always-righteous path of taking justice into your own hands.

Yes to all of that, and as to the question of whether or not I'd wholeheartedly recommend this - it's complicated. If you'd asked me that at the outset I'd have told you there's probably nothing to see here, quarter of the way in I'd still have been suggesting that moving along might be the best choice, halfway through I'd have asked you to go away because I was reading, and by the time the unresolved / will she / won't she / did she / what the hell just happened ending came around, I'd have said most definitely yes.