Grace Porter is celebrating completing her PhD in astronomy with her best friends in Las Vegas. Grace has been a non-stop, hardworking, overachiever for over 11 years now, never one to deviate from her military father’s plan for her, especially not to drunkenly marry a strange girl whose name she can’t remember on the final night of her trip. Oh wait… that wasn’t all a dream? Now her plan is falling apart, with the weight of her fathers expectations on her shoulders and the barriers for a queer Black woman in her field, everything becomes too much. Grace flees to New York to stay with the wife she hardly even knows and begins to question what it really means to be the Best Grace Porter.
This novel deserves all the love. All of it! We follow Grace who drunkenly marries a beautiful girl she just met in Las Vegas, and the aftermath is definitely complicated. This story holds the most gorgeous diverse cast of characters with so much representation from race, gender identity, sexuality, and mental health struggles. It is not your basic love story in any way, targeting the hard hitting subjects that come with self discovery and finding your place in the world among all the barriers it holds, especially for Grace, a Black woman in STEM. This story holds such a presence in the world of post education anxieties and trying to learn how to successfully be a “real adult” in the “real world”. We are all lonely creatures secretly hoping that even just one person is out there listening to us, really seeing us. This story encourages surrounding yourself with found families, packed full of such love and unconditional support that the reader can feel it leaking off of the page and onto them too. I was literally crying so much over the raw emotional experiences Grace went through. Every single character was lovable and authentic. The themes of Grace coming to terms with her mental health and healing herself before she could give love fully to others was flawless and heartfelt. The development of every relationship, romantic, platonic, and familial was relatable. Everyone! should! read! Honey Girl! immediately! It will definitely be in my top books of 2021!
Rating: ★★★★★
**CW/TWs via the authors site: “discussion and depictions of mental illness, self-harm (scratching skin, nails digging into skin as anxiety coping mechanism), past suicide attempt by side character, depictions of anti-Blackness and homophobia in the academic and corporate settings, casual alcohol consumption, minor drug use (marijuana), discussions of racism experienced by all characters of color, past limb amputation due to war injury (side character), past parent death (side character)”
***Thank you to Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own!
I want to read this one for sure. Because of how different it is! A drunken marriage in Vegas is definitely not a new trope but with two women? Yes, please!
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