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Jessica Turner's Favorite Things
Japhia Bowman
Kelli Smith
Jodi picoult.
Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-eight novels, including Wish You Were Here, The Book of Two Ways, A Spark of Light, Small Great Things, Leaving Time, and My Sister's Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page. Picoult lives in New Hampshire.
Her next novel, Mad Honey, co-written with Jennifer Finney Boylan, is available on October 11th.
Follow Jodi Picoult on Intagram, Twitter, and Facebook: @jodipicoult
Jennifer Finney Boylan is the author of sixteen books, including GOOD BOY: My Life in Seven Dogs. Since 2008 she has been a contributing opinion writer for op/ed page of the New York Times; her column appears on alternate Wednesdays. A member of the board of trustees of PEN America, Jenny was also the chair of the board of GLAAD for many years. She is currently the Anna Quindlen Writer in Residence and Professor of English at Barnard College of Columbia University.
Jenny is a well known advocate for human rights. She has appeared five times on the Oprah Winfrey Show and has also been a guest or a commentator on Larry King Live, Good Morning America, and The Today Show. She is also a member of the faculty of the Breadloaf Writers' Conference of Middlebury College as well as Sirenland, in Positano, Italy.
She lives in Maine with her wife Deirdre. They have two children.
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
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Customers find the book emotionally riveting and well-written. They also say the characters are well-developed and the storyline compelling and excellent. Readers also find the content enlightening and fabulous. Opinions are mixed on the pacing and plot, with some finding it fast and others slow.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the storyline compelling, wonderful, and heavy. They also say it's an excellent and educational story.
"...It is an amazing book . The absolute best thing I can say about Picoult is that she doesn't write the same book over and over...." Read more
"...Mad Honey is compelling from the start with hero characters including Olivia, a single mom/power beekeeper/abuse survivor, Lily, a teen savant/..." Read more
" Loved the book . Very well written. It provided insight into human diversity...." Read more
"...There's a couple nice plot twists , I was shocked at the first one, the second I felt was coming, but couldn't be 100% positive!..." Read more
Customers find the book very enlightening, well-written, and enjoyable. They also appreciate the authors' not afraid to tackle important issues and the underlying social situation is timely and poignant. Readers find the story gripping and full of insight into the transgender experience. They appreciate the wonderful explanation of sex problems and the tie in with bees.
"...It provided insight into human diversity. Helped me understand trans gender and other LGBTQ terminology and what a child goes thru in understanding..." Read more
"...mix of wonderful storytelling, engaging characters, and thoughtfully presented information . It is smart and still a page turner." Read more
"...But *just as a novel* it's a super-flawed book: there's all this endless explication , the ending is unsatisfying, *and* you can see the real..." Read more
"The book contained moments of laughter, sadness, realization , and self-reflection of one’s own beliefs...." Read more
Customers find the book very well written, thoughtful, and easy to fall in love with. They also say the chronology is smartly and smoothly implemented.
"...I think even the writing style is unique to each story .But enough about Jodi, Jennifer, I'm sorry...." Read more
"...a well-written, powerful, human narrative that's still a relatively easy read . Looking for a "beach read" that's great instead of trashy?..." Read more
"Loved the book. Very well written . It provided insight into human diversity...." Read more
"...Yes, it was difficult to read ...." Read more
Customers find the characters well developed and real. They also say the book is a beautiful love story and a courtroom drama.
"...every book has to have an antagonist or two, so the characters were perfect . I also should relate to it in some way no matter how small...." Read more
"...I really loved the writing here; the character development ; and the power and empathy with which the writers communicated painful and joyful things...." Read more
"This book is a wonderful mix of wonderful storytelling, engaging characters , and thoughtfully presented information...." Read more
"Interesting read, couldn't put the second half down. Characters you care about . Besides enjoying it, I learned a lot." Read more
Customers find the emotional content of the book riveting, sad, and thought-provoking. They also appreciate the power and empathy with which the writers communicate. Readers also mention that the book is a tragic love story with immeasurable pain and loss.
"...loved the writing here; the character development; and the power and empathy with which the writers communicated painful and joyful things...." Read more
"The book contained moments of laughter, sadness , realization, and self-reflection of one’s own beliefs...." Read more
"...I thought that all of these issues were dealt with in a realistic, emotional , and real way...." Read more
"A very touching , and at times disturbing, story. It's one of those books that will stay with me forever. Flawless, in my humble opinion." Read more
Customers find the plot captivating, twisty, and expertly crafted. They also say the story is moving, full of pithy family vignettes, and beautiful. However, some readers feel the story was told in a confusing way, switching back and forth in time and POV, and that the ending was unsatisfying.
"...The authors explain and present everything in a great way . Just a little long for my liking...." Read more
"...a super-flawed book: there's all this endless explication, the ending is unsatisfying , *and* you can see the real whodunit coming from miles..." Read more
"...Mystery, love , empowerment and bee facts, a reader can’t ask for more in a novel." Read more
"I loved the twists and turns as well as the bits of information about bees through out the book...." Read more
Customers are mixed about the pacing of the book. Some find it fast with lots of surprises, twists, and turns, while others say it's slow at first and drags after a while.
"...I didn't see the twist coming either. It was a little slow starting but it picked up quick." Read more
"great story! quick shipping ! Thank you!" Read more
"...What doesn’t work: at 464 pages, the pace is too slow for a thriller ...." Read more
"This is a timely book ! Well written and keeps your interest! Good read!!" Read more
Customers find the book too long and drawn out. They also say there are too many filler paragraphs and the book jumps around too much.
"...Just a little long for my liking . I also could tell “who done it” from the start, but the book threw a few curveballs." Read more
"...The subject matter was not the issue. There was way to many filler paragraphs . It jumped around way to much...." Read more
"...not my favorite from Jodi Picoult, but only because I think it was a bit too long ...." Read more
"...so many different trigger subjects that the novel became unwieldy and too long ...." Read more
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Book Review
The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982
By Chris Nashawaty Flatiron Books: 304 pages, $29.99 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org , whose fees support independent bookstores.
There was a time, not a long time ago or in a galaxy far, far away, when the summer movie landscape wasn’t overcrowded with disposable fantasy and sci-fi tentpoles. When studios and distributors hadn’t yet been trained to put all of their eggs in a shrinking collection of threadbare baskets. “Four-plus decades ago,” as Chris Nashawaty writes in his new book “The Future Was Now,” “we were entertained, enthralled, and delighted. Today, we’re merely cudgeled into numb submission over and over again and treated like children being spoon-fed the same sound-and-fury pap.”
Nashawaty’s book zooms in on a specific period — the summer of 1982 — that he posits as both a peak flowering and a last hurrah of the sci-fi genre as serious, ambitious and original popular art. Taking an envious look at the unexpected, unparalleled and lucrative frenzy over “Star Wars” (1977), movie executives asked themselves the question that movie executives are so good at asking, if not necessarily answering: How can we make something just like that (or, at least, something that rakes in similarly obscene gobs of cash)?
Much as the previous decade’s execs drooled over the returns on “Easy Rider,” “Bonnie and Clyde” and “The Graduate,” this bunch sought to put their energies and resources into movies the kids would like, even if this generation was more enthralled with escape than revolution.
As Nashawaty writes, “The only problem was that all the studios seemed to learn the exact same lesson at the exact same time.” “The Future Was Now” sprints through the making and reception of eight movies that Nashawaty files under the sci-fi rubric, all of which somehow invaded theaters within the same two-month span. “Blade Runner,” “Conan the Barbarian,” “E.T. the Extraterrestrial,” “Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior,” “Poltergeist,” “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” “The Thing” and “Tron”: They vied for moviegoers’ attention and disposable income. This was a glut that couldn’t be sustained. What would studios learn from this?
It’s a promising premise, and “The Future Was Now” has no shortage of juicy storylines. There’s the case of Steven Spielberg, who had already made a classic sci-fi film, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and who had two projects ready to start filming at the same time: the optimistic “E.T.” and the terrifying “Poltergeist.”
Because the Directors Guild of America had explicit rules against directing two movies at once, Spielberg had to find someone else to helm “Poltergeist.” He chose Tobe Hooper, who had made his scary bones with “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” Then, by many accounts, Spielberg ended up all but directing “Poltergeist” over Hooper’s shoulder.
Like the rest of the book, this episode is thoroughly reported; Nashawaty was able to speak with many of the people he writes about here, including Spielberg.
Not all of these 1982 summer movies were hits, and some of their directors paid a steep price for their part in the eight-movie pileup.
Ridley Scott, coming off the success of his outer space horror movie “Alien” (the making of which is lovingly detailed here), clashed with his “Blade Runner” star, Harrison Ford; his crew, much of which deemed him a dictator; and executive producers who took over the movie in postproduction. Chastened, Scott beat a temporary retreat back to his advertising career.
Meanwhile, John Carpenter fared even worse when “The Thing” was met with indifference by audiences and outright hostility by critics. His multi-picture deal with Universal was torn up, and his career never fully recovered. “I was treated like slime,” he tells Nashawaty.
There’s a whole lot going on in “The Future Was Now” — at times, too much. A study of eight movies will almost by definition be diffuse, and it sometimes feels like Nashawaty is just starting to get to the heart of one subject when he feels compelled to move on to the next. Nashawaty’s passion for this story is clear, but it also gets diluted by the necessity to serve so many masters.
The author is not just a good reporter, but also an excellent and thoughtful critic, and the book’s breakneck pace underserves this skill set. I wanted more on what this fine cinematic thinker feels when he watches these movies; though this isn’t intended to be the book’s focus, a little more of Nashawaty’s voice would have gone a long way.
That said, major books that deal with movies thematically are now few and far between, and “The Future Was Now” is a welcome addition to the catalog. Beneath the blow-by-blow is a story about the turbocharging and selling of fan culture, both its charms and its discontents (which, come to think of it, could make a great book in itself).
For Nashawaty, the summer of ’82 was a hinge moment, after the “Star Wars” big bang and before the studios turned blockbusters into widgets. He writes: “By the dawn of the ’90s … what should have been a new golden age of sci-fi and fantasy cinema became a pop-culture beast that would devour itself to death and infantilize its audience in the process.” And the results are still coming to a theater near you.
Chris Vognar is a freelance culture writer.
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MAD HONEY. by Jodi Picoult & Jennifer Finney Boylan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 4, 2022. A well-paced story that highlights several timely issues, with a stimulating courtroom trial that makes it worth reading. The shocking murder of a teenager thrusts a small town into the headlines and destabilizes the lives of everyone who knew her.
464. Buy on Amazon. Reviewed by: Nancy Carty Lepri. Starting over is difficult, but sometimes it is necessary. Olivia McFee learns this the hard way. She is thrilled when she meets Braden Fields, a resident in cardiac surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She works at the National Zoo trying to earn enough to attain her graduate degree in zoology.
She has this masterful way of presenting a story that seems pretty clear cut on paper and then about midway, there is a twist that changes everything. Mad Honey is the latest example of this. The novel, co-written with Jennifer Finney Boylan, covers so much: identity, gender, abuse, love, toxic relationships and much more.
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan Publication Date October 4, 2022 Published by Random House LCC US Purchase Here Buy on Amazon US - Buy on Apple - Buy on Kobo - Buy on Google - Buy at Barnes and Noble - Buy on Waterstones - Buy on Audible - Buy on Amazon UK Goodreads Genres: Fiction / Women Pages: 464 Format: ARC ***I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
Mad Honey is a bit of a challenge to write about, mostly because I don't want to ruin any of this excellent read for others out there. At its foundation, it's the love story of two high school seniors: Asher -- captain of the hockey team, the popular kid in school -- and Lily -- newly transferred in to their high school in New Hampshire from California.
Mad Honey. by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan. Publication Date: September 5, 2023. Genres: Fiction, Women's Fiction. Paperback: 480 pages. Publisher: Ballantine Books. ISBN-10: 1984818406. ISBN-13: 9781984818409. Olivia McAfee's picture-perfect life was upended when her husband revealed a darker side.
Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves. Review. Mad Honey is a collaboration between Jodi Picoult, an author whose books I've read and loved, and Jennifer Finney Boylan, a new author for me. They ...
An Amazon Best Book of October 2022: If you are looking for a book that will give you all the feels, look no further, Mad Honey is an emotional, empathy-filled novel that will also provide more knowledge of bees than you ever thought you needed. The novel isn't just about bees, this story has teen love at its core, but also contains a heavy dose of parental love, sacrifice, and the sanctity ...
Summary. At the heart of "Mad Honey" is the mysterious death of Lily Campanello, an 18-year-old girl whose life comes to a sudden, tragic end. Born Liam O'Meara, Lily is a trans girl who has bravely navigated her journey of self-discovery and acceptance. After a harrowing experience with her abusive father and a devastating public ...
More successful is the atmospheric texture provided with depictions of Olivia harvesting honey and the art of beekeeping, and the riveting trial drama. Overall, it's a fruitful collaboration. ... the novel is well plotted but sometimes feels long-winded, including characters who don't have much significance and details that don't seem relevant.
AU - NZ jacket. Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 28 novels, including Mad Honey, Wish You Were Here, The Book of Two Ways, A Spark of Light, Small Great Things, Leaving Time , The Storyteller, Lone Wolf, Sing You Home, House Rules, Handle with Care, Change of Heart, and My Sister's Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha ...
The tale of Mad Honey is what happens when Asher is accused of killing her. Picoult and Finney Boylan spin a compelling yarn with well-formed characters and topics tied to real-life issues. Finney Boylan and Picoult use two voices to tell the story, Olivia's and Lily's. Everything we learn about Asher and Ava is through their eyes.
Reviews. By Lauren Bell. I'm a habitual reader of Jodi Picoult, so it was only natural that her newest book landed in my "to be read" pile. As for Jennifer Finlay Boylan, this is my first time reading her work, but in Mad Honey both authors' perspectives balanced each other out and presented one cohesive voice.
Plot Summary for Mad Honey. Olivia is a divorced mom who left her husband and moved with her son to New Hampshire to live in her childhood home. She also inherited her father's bee colony. Olivia's son Asher is a high school student who has been dating his girlfriend Lily for three months. Asher decides to surprise Lily by arranging a ...
At its core, "Mad Honey" is a mystery, but it's so much more than that. The story dives into the heart-wrenching topics of transgender identity and the search for belonging. It's rare to find a twisty, turntable mystery that also educates and enlightens, but this one does just that. I found myself learning and questioning things I hadn ...
Fan favourite Jordan McAfee, previously in The Pact , Nineteen Minutes and Salem Falls, returns as Ash's lawyer and Olivia's brother. Mad Honey is a gripping novel of suspense, a poignant love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take. Published by Allen and Unwin. Released October 2022.
Book Review "Mad Honey" tells a gripping story via the voices of prominent authors Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finlay Boylan. As a committed Picoult reader, I was pulled to this work by its familiar storytelling style, but I also discovered Boylan's distinct take on the subject. Olivia McAfee and Lily Campanello's alternating voices tell ...
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan Published by Ballantine Publication date: October 4, 2022 Genres: Book Clubs, Fiction, Contemporary, Mystery Amazon. I'd left off reading Jodi Picoult after disliking her last two books and so didn't read Mad Honey until two readers I trust said I would enjoy it. I listened to them, but this may be the briefest review of a 4 star novel I ...
In true Picoult fashion, Mad Honey is a clever and absorbing murder mystery featuring riveting courtroom scenes that is marred only by its predictable and, frankly, overused resolution. The story is punctuated with details about bees and beekeeping that parallel the action in the characters' lives, as well as a deeply touching and thought ...
Mad Honey Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan. Ballantine, $29.99 (464p) ISBN 978-1-9848-1838-6
Mad Honey is a bit of a challenge to write about, mostly because I don't want to ruin any of this excellent read for others out there. At its foundation, it's the love story of two high school seniors: Asher -- captain of the hockey team, the popular kid in school -- and Lily -- newly transferred in to their high school in New Hampshire from ...
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Mad Magazine #38 (2024) : Tired of your regular humorous hangs? Hook up to some classic hilarity with MAD issue 38! We've raided the archive closets and folded together another fresh collection of classic movie and TV parodies, favorites like "Spy Vs. Spy," "MAD Look at…" by Sergio Aragonés, plus much more from the Usual Gang of ...
An Amazon Best Book of October 2022: If you are looking for a book that will give you all the feels, look no further, Mad Honey is an emotional, empathy-filled novel that will also provide more knowledge of bees than you ever thought you needed. The novel isn't just about bees, this story has teen love at its core, but also contains a heavy dose of parental love, sacrifice, and the sanctity ...
Book Review. The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982. By Chris Nashawaty Flatiron Books: 304 pages, $29.99 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn ...
Babygirl: Directed by Halina Reijn. With Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson, Antonio Banderas, Jean Reno. A high-powered CEO puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much younger intern.