AUTHORS: Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan 

RATING: ★★★

REVIEW: I had such high hopes for Mad Honey, but it was a huge disappointment. (Giving it three stars was pushing it). I’ve always loved and enjoyed the escapism that comes with reading and being able to tune out the world for a little while. Well, that didn’t happen with this book. I could’ve turned on the nightly news and gotten the same results because this story is riddled with political hot topics, such as domestic abuse, abortion, discrimination, gender identity, sexual identity - just to name a few. It started off great, and I was fully invested in the first half of the book. There were a couple of short hot topic passages that made me roll my eyes and groan. Still, I pushed through because I was genuinely intrigued and wanted to find out who Lily’s killer was. But then…THEN…that ridiculous plot twist happened. (I’m not giving away any spoilers, but if you’ve read it then you already know). That was it for me. I was officially DONE. I skimmed the remainder of the book to find out what actually happened to Lily and the final verdict in Asher’s trial, and then I put it down for good. Now, just so you know, it takes A LOT for me to not finish a book. I’m the type of reader who will power through anything for the simple fact that I hate giving up. But this book was just too much - too much information about beekeeping and random facts that read more like filler than actual storyline and entirely too much political correctness. This is the first book I’ve read by Jodi Picoult, and perhaps I should’ve started with a different one because now I’m leery of reading anything else with her name on it. I wish I’d read through the reviews first. Oh well…lesson learned.