I didn’t like to perform. I liked to be loved. It is 1999 and Amber Young is about to transform from nice New Jersey girl to one of the most infamous pop stars of her era. Enter Gwen Morris and Wes Kingston. Gwen has the top music video on MTV’s Total Request Live. Wes is a member of the most popular boy band in the world, ETA. They’re the American teenage dream, two perfect pop stars in love. In Gwen, Amber finds the first friend who can truly understand her, maybe the only person who ever will. But when Amber goes on tour with ETA as one of their opening acts, she develops an infatuation with Wes that threatens both her friendship with Gwen & the career she is so desperately trying to build. Under the spotlight, Amber must reckon with her own desires, agency, and sense of self-and how the kaleidoscope of public opinion can distort everything. Isabel Banta’s debut novel, Honey, re-imagines the pop stars of the late 90s and early 2000s, who we idolized and hated, oversexualized and underestimated, giving them the fresh, multifaceted story they deserve.
