SuitabookThe Honeys
Ryan La Sala
- Reading
- Consider reading alongside the young person, checking in after the sister’s death and intense horror passages. Leave space afterwards to discuss the ending, since its ambiguity may invite different responses rather than a single explanation.
- Themes
- Grief and reinvention: Mars attends the academy after Caroline’s death and seeks to understand his increasingly distant twin while coping with grief and longing for acceptance. Grief is presented as a central emotional context for investigation and possible reinvention, without enough detail to establish a single therapeutic or moral conclusion.
- Gender expectations and exclusion: Mars is genderfluid and excluded from family traditions; the academy is described as enforcing old-fashioned gender roles and the novel as exploring gender binaries. The framing positions restrictive expectations and binary thinking as forces Mars must confront, while the precise outcomes of that challenge remain unclear.
- Beauty, belonging and danger: The Honeys are presented as beautiful and terrifying, while the academy’s idyllic festivities conceal decay, pressure and possible danger. The novel appears to question whether attractive settings and social belonging can conceal harm, but the available details do not establish the group’s full motives.
- Worth knowing
- The book includes a sibling’s death under horrific circumstances, fresh grief, frightening pursuit, faltering memories, creepy horror scenes, body-related horror and references to being eaten alive. The ending may remain unsettling rather than neatly resolved.