Caution! The book that I’m talking about contains explicit sexual content. I do not recommend this book if you are someone who struggles with lust. I do, however, recommend this book if you are a woman who’s sick of feeling trapped by the male gaze/ weary of the stupid instinctual desire to be desired by men.

Normally, I do not read books with graphic content, as a rule. Why did I make an exception for Honeysuckle? Well, because the story is otherwise exactly the kind of story that I love: a weird, dark love story with lots of psychological suspense, ruminating, and, brooding; masterfully written, each sentence a delicious and intentional work of art. And bonus fairytale vibes. So, unfortunately, by the time the story got graphic, I was already committed. Well done, Bar Fridman-Tell.

This is a brand new novel from a new novelist btw. I won’t spoil it for you, but a quick description: it’s inspired by Welsh mythology, specifically the blodeuwedd, a figure from the Mabinogion. A magical-realistic fairytale, Honeysuckle takes place in an alternate-universe Wales, where magic is taught at universities and exists alongside relatively modern technology such as trains and telephones (it’s never explicitly revealed what year it is, but the internet does not exist in this story, which is cool).

The main character is a boy named Rory, whose older sister, a university student, on a whim one day builds for him a blodeuwedd (a living doll built of flora and animated by magic) as a playmate. The story tells of Rory’s relationship with this flower-construct, Daye (who btw looks just like a stunningly beautiful but somehow-otherwordly human girl), as he grows up; he’s eight when the book begins, and nineteen when it ends. As you can imagine, their relationship goes through some intense changes, which are further complicated by the fact that Daye needs to be surgically/magically re-fashioned out of fresh flora every time the season changes, making her dependent upon Rory for her very life — and by the fact that she is bound, by her nature, to obey him. (The honeysuckle woven into her is what binds her to him, hence the title.) The perspective switches back and forth between his POV and hers.

The philosophical questions that it raises are highly relevant to today, imo, in this age of AI girlfriends and robot companions. But even more interesting, for me, than its questions about agency and intelligence and free will, was its study of romantic relationships in general.

I think any girl who’s ever felt stuck in a relationship with a controlling, manipulative, immature guy will really empathize with Daye. Or if you’ve ever been in a relationship with someone who clearly didn’t really see you for who you were, and didn’t care to — someone who was just in love with one facet of you, or some imagined version of you, and only wanted you to play the role of that character for them.

Yeah, you can tell that I didn’t like Rory, lol. In the beginning you sympathize with him. He’s just a lonely boy. Really, the elephant in the room this whole book is his parents’ absence, and his sister seems more rightfully upset at them, whereas Rory just accepts it — interesting; typical older/younger sibling stuff, I guess — but anyway, by the time he’s a teenager, you find it harder to sympathize. The author, an adult woman, has managed to write a very realistic teenage boy POV (as far as I can tell, anyway, never having been a teenage boy myself) and it’s frankly revolting: the tunnel-vision, the sex obsession, the “but I want it!” mentality, the sniveling self-pity. The way they equate lust with love and treat a girl as their “muse” and call it devotion. Ugh. Gross.

Which is why I made the above recommendation of this book to women who are sick of feeling trapped by the male gaze, who are sick of the pressure to look sexy. This book really reminded me exactly what it is that we women are enslaved to — what it is that we’re programmed to be so desperate to appeal to. Just this gross, selfish, vile, slavering appetite of males to penetrate. To put their weenies in things. That’s all. That’s what drives everything. Ugh, reading this book made me want to buzz my hair off, get fat, and quit shaving. (I’m not actually going to do those things, I’m a married woman.) But it’s certainly liberating, to see it for what it is. It makes you want to build some wings and fly away from it all. And I don’t even identify as a “feminist.”

My favorite moment in the book is when Hanna (the girl who briefly crushes on Rory before she knows him too well, but then starts to resent him after he ghosts her because she’s not Daye) calls Rory out for the sleazeball that he is in front of all their friends. Building his own girlfriend who’s unable to say no — ” a pet that he can fuck,” she says, basically, which is accurate. Even if Hanna’s jabs are fueled by booze and jealousy, she’s completely right.

And the gross thing is when Rory’s guy friend (can’t remember his name) steps in to console him like “it’s ok bro! you’re good! You’re not doing anything wrong! You know best, after all!” — EWW. My goal in life (one of them) is to raise my sons into the kind of men who will take Hanna’s side in a conversation like this, rather than enabling creeps.

I mean I guess to be fair, the way Rory sees it, he does have good intentions. He wants to make Daye independent so that they can have a real relationship. He knows it’s wrong to have a romantic relationship with someone who is unable to deny him — but, still, he’s not honest with himself, is he, and he realizes this towards the end. And he’s apparently not that put off by the notion of her inability to say no. We see him take advantage of it several times. (The licking of the lips thing — gag me.) But I mean, boys will be boys, I guess, won’t they. And he clearly never had any male role models or guidance of any kind. It’s pretty sad.

What a great ending though. I think all the women in the audience were cheering at that part: a metaphor made so beautifully literal, a perfect modern fairytale conclusion. Everything came together exactly as it needed to. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but let me know, if you read it, what you thought.