Book Review — SONGS BY HONEYBIRD by Peter McDade
Atlanta couple Ben and Nina plan to move in together, but their relationship unravels when Ben dismisses Nina’s surprising claim that her dog can talk. Songs By Honeybird follows the pair as they move on without each other. Doctoral candidate Ben dives into research on the tragic story of Honeybird, the South’s first integrated rock band, while spiritual savant Nina searches for the elusive truth about her father’s death.
Will the buried secrets of the past bring Ben and Nina back together—or send them down entirely new paths?
Release Date: March 29, 2022
My ThoughtsSongs by Honeybird is a unique book that’s difficult to review as a whole.
We follow Ben and Nina, a young couple in love, or so they thought. They break up early on, adapting to life without one another. Almost from the beginning, it feels like two completely different stories.
Ben is working on his dissertation for his Ph.D., which focuses on a sixties rock band called Honeybird that had brief success before a tragic ending. We learn about this band through Ben’s research and interviews with survivors. This is a love story and an exploration of racism, seen through Ben’s assumptions and changing viewpoint.
Nina is a young woman adrift, whose personal growth is in large part due to her talking dog. This is a story of finding yourself within all the noise, of not allowing the world to define you, of finding freedom and acceptance.
While the author does attempt to maintain a connection between Ben and Nina, the thread is tenuous, and I think each of their stories suffered somewhat from too wide a reach in a short span of time. My ARC is only 244 pages. I would’ve preferred a more expansive story, or one that focused solely on either Ben or Nina.
Still, the writing is beautiful and insightful, and I enjoyed the journey.
*I received an ARC from Mindbuck Media.*
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