Look, I'll admit it - I started this one during a particularly brutal faculty meeting about standardized testing benchmarks. Principal Martinez was droning on about "measurable outcomes" and I was fifteen hours deep into a novel about domestic violence, murder, and identity. The contrast was... something.
But here's the thing about Mad Honey - it earned every minute of those fifteen hours. Even the ones where I was supposed to be paying attention to curriculum alignment discussions.
What Picoult and Boylan Built Here
This is two authors writing alternating chapters, which sounds like a recipe for tonal whiplash. It's not. Jodi Picoult handles Olivia's perspective - the mother whose son is accused of killing his girlfriend - while Jennifer Finney Boylan writes Lily, the girl who ends up dead. And yes, you know from page one that Lily dies. That's not the mystery.
The mystery is everything else.
What I kept thinking about while walking the lakefront with Denise last weekend was how these two writers understand something fundamental about storytelling: the prose deserves to be savored. Picoult's chapters move forward chronologically. Boylan's move backward. It's disorienting at first - I won't lie - but once you catch the rhythm, it's devastating. You're watching Lily's life unspool in reverse while watching the aftermath march forward. Every chapter you learn something that recontextualizes what came before.
This reminds me of what Faulkner did with time in The Sound and the Fury, though Picoult and Boylan are far more accessible. I had a similar thought about accessibility when I read Selected Short Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald - same era as Faulkner, but way easier to assign without the groaning. (My students would hate Faulkner. They might actually read this one.)
The Voices - Literally
Four narrators. Four. That's ambitious even for a multi-POV novel, and honestly, I was skeptical. But Carrie Coon reading Olivia? She understands that pause is punctuation. There's a scene in the courtroom - I won't spoil it - where Coon lets a silence stretch for just a beat longer than comfortable, and I actually stopped walking. Just stood there on the path like an idiot while joggers went around me.
Key Taw handles Lily's chapters, and this is where some listeners apparently checked out. I've seen reviews calling the performance "whiny" and "exasperated." I... don't entirely disagree? But I also think that's partly the point. Lily is seventeen. She's navigating something enormous. Seventeen-year-olds ARE exasperated. I teach them. I know.
What worked for me was how Taw captures Lily's guardedness. There's always something held back, something she's not saying. When you finally understand why, the performance clicks into place retroactively.
Picoult and Boylan also narrate brief sections themselves - author-narrated bits that feel like a direct line to their intentions. It's a nice touch. Not essential, but nice.
Fair Warning
I need to be honest about something. This book deals with domestic violence. Transphobia. Murder. It's not subtle about any of it, and it shouldn't be. But if you're looking for light listening while doing dishes, this isn't it.
Also - and this is a minor complaint - the mother's narration pacing gets inconsistent in spots. Too fast, then too slow, like the audiobook equivalent of someone who can't find the right speed on the highway. It pulled me out a few times during the middle section.
And look, at fifteen hours, there are moments where the beekeeping metaphors get a little... much. Yes, I understand the symbolism. Yes, mad honey is a real thing and it's thematically relevant. But by hour twelve, I was ready to move past the apiary.
Who Should Listen (And Who Should Skip)
If you loved Picoult's earlier work - My Sister's Keeper, Small Great Things - this is its spiritual successor. Same DNA, evolved. Commonwealth has that same messy family dynamic energy, though without the courtroom stuff. The courtroom procedural elements are tight, the family dynamics are messy in the right ways, and the central mystery kept me guessing longer than I'd like to admit.
If you're a fan of character-driven domestic thrillers where the "thriller" part is less about plot twists and more about watching people make impossible choices? This is your book. Skip it if you need linear storytelling and find reverse chronology gimmicky - the structure works beautifully in audio, but I can see it being frustrating if you're not bought in.
Final Grade
I finished this at 11:47 PM on a Tuesday, allegedly grading sophomore essays on The Great Gatsby. The essays did not get graded that night.
Carrie Coon's performance alone is worth the listen - she finds depths in Olivia that I'm not sure would come through on the page the same way. The dual-author structure works. The mystery lands. And by the end, you understand why the book is called Mad Honey in ways that go far beyond beekeeping.
Worth pausing the faculty meeting for. Worth staying up too late for. Worth listening at 1.0x because - and I cannot stress this enough - the pacing is the point.
(Principal Martinez, if you're reading this, I have since reviewed the budget presentation slides. Very informative. Great use of pie charts.)
