Synopsis:
Once upon a time, on the edge of a forest, there was a lonely child with only his older sister for company. So his sister made him a playmate — Daye, a girl woven from carefully selected flowers and words. And finally, this boy, Rory, had a friend.
Rory is gloriously happy, until he learns that Daye is a seasonal creature. At the end of each season, she must be woven back together or fall gruesomely apart. And when, one autumn, his sister fails to return home from university in time, Rory has no choice but to watch his best friend slowly crumble, not knowing until the last second if she can be pieced together again.
Realizing he can no longer rely on his sister to keep Daye alive, Rory determines he must leave home to learn how to do it himself. And the more he learns, the more he starts to Why can’t Daye survive more than one season? Can he do anything to break this cycle of bloom and decay? But as Rory grows older, his thoughts turn darker too . . .
While Rory sinks deeper into research and experiments, ensconced in libraries and hunched in university labs, Daye is left to wait for his return. Alone. Sometimes, the silence seems to seep all the way to her branch-bones. Sometimes, the company of birds is the only thing to remind her that she is still alive. And as Rory keeps pushing his experiments further and further, Daye starts to wonder – how far is too far?
An entrancing, inventive and unsettling reimagining of the story of Blodeuwedd from Welsh mythology, Honeysuckle is a feminist Frankenstein with flowers; a deliciously dark, twisted, horror-tinged fairytale with rot at its heart . . .
Review:
I was sent a copy of Honeysuckle in exchange for an honest review.
Going into Honeysuckle I had no idea how much I would love it. The synopsis sounded like something I would be into, but the publishers description of ‘feminist Frankenstein’ had me nervous. However, I’m very very happy to report that this might be one of my favourite books of the year so far. It’s dark, haunting and was filled with a slow-burn dread that had me racing through the pages hoping the characters would realise what I had.
The plot is, in essence, simple. Rory’s older sister creates him a playmate that must be re-woven each season and he sets out to discover how to keep the playmate permanently ‘alive’. What Friedman-Tell does is imbue the story with light touches of ‘that seems wrong’ and small moments that build up to a sense of dread and horror, without any jump scares or explicitly scary moments. It’s horrifying and I spent at least half of Honeysuckle desperately hoping that Rory or Daye would realise what was actually going on.
This is a hard one to talk about without spoilers, because a lot of the important plot comes after a few important events. No-one in this book is knowingly wrong, or bad, but somehow you’ll find yourself on a certain side and you’ll be proven right in the end.
I can’t believe Honeysuckle is Bar Fridman-Tell’s debut. It is beautifully written with such a haunting story that flows a the perfect pace. Both the countryside and the city are extremely well-written, with the countryside around the cottage being an especially grounded and real space that the majority of the story spends it’s time in.
I could not put this down. I told friends about it while I was reading. I found myself thinking about it when I didn’t have time to read.
This is a masterpiece of a debut. The story will haunt me for some time.
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