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The Honey Month
Amal El-Mohtar's The Honey Month, with an introduction by Danielle Sucher, ranks among the year’s most exquisite treasures. This beautiful volume of short fictions and poems takes as its inspiration the author's tasting of 28 different kinds of honey, one per day. Each tasting leads to a different literary creation, each entry beginning with a description of the honey in terms that will be familiar to wine "Day 3--Sag Harbor, NY, Early Spring Honey," which has a color "pale and clear as snowmelt" and the smell "cool sugar crystals," but also brings to mind "a stingless jellyfish I once held in my hand in Oman." The taste? "...like the end of winter...[when] you can still see clumps of snow on the ground and the air is heavy with damp..." The differences between the types of honey allow El-Mohtar to move back and forth between the poetic and the more casually contemporary, with the experiment of the tasting as the unifying structure. A perfect gift, a hidden treasure, a delight for the senses.
80 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 5, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 213 reviews
May 2, 2018
This is a delightful little book, quite remarkable. It is based on a very simple idea and on a simple gift. A friend of El-Mohtar’s gave her a gift of some samples of different types of honey. With this gift she wrote a set of tasting notes and reflections for each honey; 28 in all. El-Mohtar is a poet and writer of speculative fiction and she puts her talent to good use. This is an example of one of the tasting notes:
“Day 10 – French Rhododendron Honey
Colour: The colour of sugar dissolving in hot water; that white cloudiness, with a faint yellow tint I can only see when looking at it slantwise, to the left of me, not when I hold it up to the light.
Smell: Strange, it has almost no scent at all; it’s also crystallised, so it’s a bit difficult to scoop some out with the wand, but it smells cold with an elusive citrus squirt hovering about its edges.
Taste: There is a kind of sugar cube my grandfather used to give my sister and me every morning when we were small, not so much a cube as a cabochon, irregularly rounded, clear and cloudy by turns. It was called sikkar nabet, which is “plant sugar.” This tastes like it. The honey taste is so pale, so faint, it really is almost sugar water. I’m reminded of maple sap in buckets, right at the beginning of the boiling process that produces maple syrup, where it’s still water enough to be used for steeping tea.”
After each set of tasting notes is a piece of fiction or poetry. These are very varied: poems, gothic and unusual tales, some are very sensual and erotic, some are almost fairy tales and mythical.
She drinks the light like lemonade,
Sips it bit by liquid bit,
Until the day falls dark and soft
Licked slow as honey clean
Her throat is wide as an open door
Inviting. honest, full of song,
And the light, it wants it, tumbles in
Like a girl after a rabbit
She swallows every now and then
Licks her lips, parts them for more.
Every now and then she sleeps
While she does the Moonish man
Builds his nets, chases his dog.
She would take him by the hand,
Look into his eyes and say.
Love you should know better now
The world is not for catching, love
Not for having, not for keeping.
The world is all for sipping, love
So tilt back your head and drink.
But he will never hear her, so
preocuppied with precious plans.
He has no willing ear to lend,
While he mutters on and on.
She wakes to quiet loneliness,
Dresses, walks to her windowsill,
And sip by sip, lick by lick,
Draws night back home again.
There are nods to Goblin Market, Angela Carter and more, but this is really very original stuff. Temptation, awakening, attraction, seduction and interesting undercurrents abound. The art work and illustrations are excellent. It’s very short and best read in small chunks, but the whole is a delight.
“Day 10 – French Rhododendron Honey
Colour: The colour of sugar dissolving in hot water; that white cloudiness, with a faint yellow tint I can only see when looking at it slantwise, to the left of me, not when I hold it up to the light.
Smell: Strange, it has almost no scent at all; it’s also crystallised, so it’s a bit difficult to scoop some out with the wand, but it smells cold with an elusive citrus squirt hovering about its edges.
Taste: There is a kind of sugar cube my grandfather used to give my sister and me every morning when we were small, not so much a cube as a cabochon, irregularly rounded, clear and cloudy by turns. It was called sikkar nabet, which is “plant sugar.” This tastes like it. The honey taste is so pale, so faint, it really is almost sugar water. I’m reminded of maple sap in buckets, right at the beginning of the boiling process that produces maple syrup, where it’s still water enough to be used for steeping tea.”
After each set of tasting notes is a piece of fiction or poetry. These are very varied: poems, gothic and unusual tales, some are very sensual and erotic, some are almost fairy tales and mythical.
She drinks the light like lemonade,
Sips it bit by liquid bit,
Until the day falls dark and soft
Licked slow as honey clean
Her throat is wide as an open door
Inviting. honest, full of song,
And the light, it wants it, tumbles in
Like a girl after a rabbit
She swallows every now and then
Licks her lips, parts them for more.
Every now and then she sleeps
While she does the Moonish man
Builds his nets, chases his dog.
She would take him by the hand,
Look into his eyes and say.
Love you should know better now
The world is not for catching, love
Not for having, not for keeping.
The world is all for sipping, love
So tilt back your head and drink.
But he will never hear her, so
preocuppied with precious plans.
He has no willing ear to lend,
While he mutters on and on.
She wakes to quiet loneliness,
Dresses, walks to her windowsill,
And sip by sip, lick by lick,
Draws night back home again.
There are nods to Goblin Market, Angela Carter and more, but this is really very original stuff. Temptation, awakening, attraction, seduction and interesting undercurrents abound. The art work and illustrations are excellent. It’s very short and best read in small chunks, but the whole is a delight.
December 26, 2021
This year has been really hard on me. I know it has been hard on so many people and I feel weak for admitting it. I’ve known I’ve been struggling with depression for some time ( I know I’m depressed when inexplicably it becomes extremely difficult for me to read novels.). I feel as if the last two weeks have almost broken me. I’m a nurse and a career that I have loved for over thirty years is turning to dust and ashes. I feel as if I shouldn’t complain, when other caregivers have had it so much worse. But we feel what we feel. Mostly I feel rage at the ineptitude of our government, the management of my hospital, my own inept clinical manager. I’m socialized not to make a fuss, to put my head down and try harder. So I have chest pain, stomach upset, headaches, I don’t sleep well. All of that rage has to go somewhere right. Sorry for all of this. I’ve misplaced my journal and I need to write this down.
Anyhow this book. It’s wonderful. Little poems and stories all linked together by a gift of thirty different types of honey made to the author by a friend. This book felt like a gift to me. Like the sun warm on my skin. Like candy made to be gobbled. I had read “This is how you lose the time war” and I loved it some time ago. This book was a gift for my 58th birthday from my daughter and I hadn’t read it yet. So thank you Amal for writing this and thank you Elizabeth for giving it to me.
Anyhow this book. It’s wonderful. Little poems and stories all linked together by a gift of thirty different types of honey made to the author by a friend. This book felt like a gift to me. Like the sun warm on my skin. Like candy made to be gobbled. I had read “This is how you lose the time war” and I loved it some time ago. This book was a gift for my 58th birthday from my daughter and I hadn’t read it yet. So thank you Amal for writing this and thank you Elizabeth for giving it to me.
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December 29, 2022Tiny stories and poems inspired by different flavors of honey. Recommended for poets, foodies, and synesthetes.
May 4, 2012
A lovely collection of poetry, prose-poetry and microfiction, all inspired by different types of honey. I could practically taste each honey as it was described; experience it as the stories and poems and scraps of myth unfolded. It's a very sensuous and beautiful collection, and for all that it's so slight, it's very worth reading.
April 16, 2011
Such an unusual book. I know I've never read anything like it and maybe never will again. Very sensuous in the telling and describing of the honey, using poetry, stories, self-made myths. It makes this reader want to taste them all, all 28 days of honey, though some definitely entice more than others.
November 20, 2024
I found the next gift for my bee-keeper mother.
Author Lebanese-Canadian El-Mohtar has written of her experiences tasting different honeys, 28 in all, one per each day in a February, the jars being a gift from a friend. After tasting and describing each honey, she spins a honey enchantment for us, writing a poem, a story, or a fable--each as fantastical as any favorite fairy tale--about love, fear, disaster, ecstasy.
She is a sensuous Scheherazade.
She is an Isak Denison telling winter tales. And spring, summer, and fall tales.
We are willing, rapt listeners as she festoons us with flowers, fruits, spices, seaweed, wet tree branches, thorns, music, and bees. Lots of bees. Bees who love us, bees who trick us, bees who feed us, bees who kiss us.
I loved every page of this thin volume and my mother would have too. We would have read it together, also just one honey a day. Then we would share our thoughts long-distance by phone, reciting our favorite lines. She would tell me more stories of her bees and their honey. And then we would continue talking longer than we meant to about our remember-whens.
I found the perfect gift for my bee-keeper mother. I will bring these stories with me to heaven so I can tell them to her, to festoon her in flowers, spices, wet tree branches, too. She will love it.
Author Lebanese-Canadian El-Mohtar has written of her experiences tasting different honeys, 28 in all, one per each day in a February, the jars being a gift from a friend. After tasting and describing each honey, she spins a honey enchantment for us, writing a poem, a story, or a fable--each as fantastical as any favorite fairy tale--about love, fear, disaster, ecstasy.
She is a sensuous Scheherazade.
She is an Isak Denison telling winter tales. And spring, summer, and fall tales.
We are willing, rapt listeners as she festoons us with flowers, fruits, spices, seaweed, wet tree branches, thorns, music, and bees. Lots of bees. Bees who love us, bees who trick us, bees who feed us, bees who kiss us.
I loved every page of this thin volume and my mother would have too. We would have read it together, also just one honey a day. Then we would share our thoughts long-distance by phone, reciting our favorite lines. She would tell me more stories of her bees and their honey. And then we would continue talking longer than we meant to about our remember-whens.
I found the perfect gift for my bee-keeper mother. I will bring these stories with me to heaven so I can tell them to her, to festoon her in flowers, spices, wet tree branches, too. She will love it.
Read
June 25, 2024Sweet, touching, quirky. Brilliant descriptions of smell and taste. Felt like those dreams you have that are so vivid and so strange that it's hard to parse out the meaning underneath that you know is there. As with all poetry, some lines hit me and some flew straight over my head, but I'm glad I read this :')
Favourites: Day 7 (Thistle Honey), Day 15 (Hungarian Forest Honey), Day 23 (Tart Cherry Creamed Honey), Day 25 (Raw Manuka Honey), Day 28 (French Chestnut Honey)
"To give Manuka honey says I care for you more than I care for your caring of me. I care for you so much that I will hurt you to see you well, that I will put foulness into your mouth because I know it to be medicine, that I will take your scowls and hatreds and fold them against my heart like a locket full of hair because I will know you to be well."
Favourites: Day 7 (Thistle Honey), Day 15 (Hungarian Forest Honey), Day 23 (Tart Cherry Creamed Honey), Day 25 (Raw Manuka Honey), Day 28 (French Chestnut Honey)
"To give Manuka honey says I care for you more than I care for your caring of me. I care for you so much that I will hurt you to see you well, that I will put foulness into your mouth because I know it to be medicine, that I will take your scowls and hatreds and fold them against my heart like a locket full of hair because I will know you to be well."
December 23, 2017
3.5
This is one book where I think it helps to have read the blurb before reading. I didn’t, and found myself quite lost for some time. It turns out that the book was inspired by a gift of honey samples; each section is a riff on a different flavour, and I think it really does help to know that at the beginning, because the book consists of lyrical, sensuous writing with little or no narrative, more like a collection of poems with a related theme than anything else.
I love gorgeous writing - I often find evocative imagery more beguiling than a plot structured with a protagonist and antagonist and events leading from A to B. But even in poetry, where imagery is the language rather than narrative, I find I crave a thread of meaning, a layering of imagery that leads to some unifying feeling or understanding. What I experienced here was like an amazing meal with delicious tastes, but I had no idea what I was eating. It was like rich food that leaves you hungry. I was listening to gorgeous music where the sounds were everything and I was left longing for a thread of melody to layer and unify the whole. To use the book’s imagery, I could say that a whole meal of rich and subtle honeys left me unsatisfied and craving something substantial.
There certainly were repeating, layered images in this work, images relating not only to taste but to love and loss - threads of melody - but for me they ultimately didn’t yield enough depth. Where the imagery was emotional it felt somehow disconnected and unreal. If the book was designed to be a set of beguiling, sensuous variations on a theme, it hardly seems fair to expect something different. But for me the point of layered imagery is that the work ends up touching you. There were one or two sections towards the end in particular where I began to feel something, but on the whole, the book remained a collection of intriguing images that teased but barely moved me. This could have just been me, of course - perhaps I just didn’t get it, or I read it at the wrong time. Perhaps the book was designed to be more playful than anything else and I’m looking for depth that was never intended to be there. Perhaps it’s best read slowly and over time rather than in one go.
I sometimes get tired of the usual way genre fiction is written, and this work is refreshingly different. I enjoyed and appreciated it, but then it was gone and nothing was left. On the one hand, I appreciate its courage and originality; on the other, it left me unsatisfied. But I’ll certainly be watching out for more of this author’s work.
This is one book where I think it helps to have read the blurb before reading. I didn’t, and found myself quite lost for some time. It turns out that the book was inspired by a gift of honey samples; each section is a riff on a different flavour, and I think it really does help to know that at the beginning, because the book consists of lyrical, sensuous writing with little or no narrative, more like a collection of poems with a related theme than anything else.
I love gorgeous writing - I often find evocative imagery more beguiling than a plot structured with a protagonist and antagonist and events leading from A to B. But even in poetry, where imagery is the language rather than narrative, I find I crave a thread of meaning, a layering of imagery that leads to some unifying feeling or understanding. What I experienced here was like an amazing meal with delicious tastes, but I had no idea what I was eating. It was like rich food that leaves you hungry. I was listening to gorgeous music where the sounds were everything and I was left longing for a thread of melody to layer and unify the whole. To use the book’s imagery, I could say that a whole meal of rich and subtle honeys left me unsatisfied and craving something substantial.
There certainly were repeating, layered images in this work, images relating not only to taste but to love and loss - threads of melody - but for me they ultimately didn’t yield enough depth. Where the imagery was emotional it felt somehow disconnected and unreal. If the book was designed to be a set of beguiling, sensuous variations on a theme, it hardly seems fair to expect something different. But for me the point of layered imagery is that the work ends up touching you. There were one or two sections towards the end in particular where I began to feel something, but on the whole, the book remained a collection of intriguing images that teased but barely moved me. This could have just been me, of course - perhaps I just didn’t get it, or I read it at the wrong time. Perhaps the book was designed to be more playful than anything else and I’m looking for depth that was never intended to be there. Perhaps it’s best read slowly and over time rather than in one go.
I sometimes get tired of the usual way genre fiction is written, and this work is refreshingly different. I enjoyed and appreciated it, but then it was gone and nothing was left. On the one hand, I appreciate its courage and originality; on the other, it left me unsatisfied. But I’ll certainly be watching out for more of this author’s work.
April 24, 2021
Sweet, sweet, sweet.
Read
June 28, 2023Beautiful poems and short stories that are perfect for summer 🐝🍯
March 1, 2017
I first became aware of this collection when a version of "Cranberry Honey" appeared during the Podcastle Flash Fiction contest last year. The writing blew me away, so when I saw Amal at Wiscon35, I got it. story/poem is based on a jar of honey Amal received as a gift sampler. Such a beautiful collection. The poems and stories in this need to be read slowly, aloud--but just under your breath--and preferably barefoot.
April 14, 2017
I might be a part-time vegan, but I need some of this honey. Particularly the peach honey.
The stories and poems in this collection are short, creative, and lovely. I hope to read more by El-Mohtar.
The stories and poems in this collection are short, creative, and lovely. I hope to read more by El-Mohtar.
February 28, 2015
This is a book worthy of worship, and I encourage you to enjoy its succour in small doses of devotion, one honey at a time. My full review is over at: http://art-ungulate.livejournal.com/4...
February 3, 2013
This is the most beautiful work of fiction I have read since I had the privilege to read Lisa L Hannett this year and I think this tiny book will stay with me for a long time. The Honey Month is inspired and inspiring. The writing is ethereal and sweet like a flake of a sugar crystal. The book is what art would translate to words and the short stories and poems in here will reform your soul.
October 8, 2020
3.5 stars
September 15, 2019
I was so delighted by This is How You Lose the Time War I simply had to get my hands on more writing from Amal El-Mohtar, hence me snapping up this book and starting it straight away despite a looming TBR pile. This is an interesting little writing exercise, part poetry and part flash fiction. El-Mohtar samples a different honey every day and then writes an accompanying piece. Offerings range widely in form and style, but all are exceptionally well crafted. Many of the pieces flirt with magical realism, and most of them have sensuality at their core (not sexual per se, but absolutely rooted in the senses). It was a perfect palette cleanser between books, that rare volume that can cure a book hangover when nothing else will do. I appreciated it enormously and look forward to more of El-Mohtar's writing in the years to come.
September 3, 2024
This is a treasure of a book, a beautiful jewel box of lyrical poetry and magical stories written by a true wordsmith. Day by day for one month El-Mohtar examines the color, scent and taste of different honeys and writes a small poem or story inspired by it, and the result is a gift to the world. I loved every moment of it, every perfectly-chosen, perfectly-placed word. I can't wait to read more by this author!
December 6, 2021
A really wonderful book that deserves to be owned, read, and re-read during those depressing days when one needs some beautiful words and colorful imagery to wake up the senses. Each of these vignettes is uniquely yummy and sensual and amazing. I love El-Mohtar's writing style and hope she continues to publish, as there are few authors who can conjure up such deep emotional resonance in such short and concise snatches of prose.
August 14, 2017
So beautiful and flavorful and just deliciously synesthetic.
June 20, 2023
this was our first pick for the 🔥Get Lit🔥 Book Club and i was already excited for it given that honey is one of my favourite natural phenomena on earth. i am pleased to say that i thoroughly enjoyed this book!! while a couple of the poems and proses did (predictably) go right over my head, quite a few of them really resonated with me - whether that be on an emotional level or through pure whimsy. the descriptive imagery was absolutely awe-inspiring and you could tell how in-tune Amal was with her senses of sight, smell, and taste - felt meditative almost. if i'm being critical, the sensual imagery - especially as it concerned young women - felt like it came from the male gaze and was often too...objectifying? but perhaps that was the goal. besides that though, i quite liked this and am excited to delve into more poetry collections and consume more honey than ever!
my favourite pieces: DAY 5: Cranberry Creamed Honey, DAY 8: Raspberry Creamed Honey, DAY 9: Zambian Honey, DAY 11: Blackberry Honey, DAY 14: Raspberry Honey, DAY 16: Blueberry Honey
memorable quotes:
- "You came back, she said, and I melted to see her almost smile"
- "It’s a mischievous honey, sexy and wry."
- "Her eyes are the colour of dawn on the water"
- "tasting it is like walking a forest path"
- “You look like summer”
- "I am the earth, and you and I are kin."
- "My body is a knot of limbs | ... | The earth is knotted with screams."
- "Blueberries washed the ash from my tongue
after they came; after the metal and the phosphor
that washed us all so red, so white. Perhaps
if we powdered our cheeks so every day
they would come to think us beautiful?"
- "Yesterday I had daughters. Today
I have these berries on my tongue."
- "I am lucky, they say, to live; to have
blueberries and water, medicine for my wounds.
I am lucky, they say, to breathe
the air thick with stone
that was my house; safe in my lungs
who would think to take it? |
I am lucky, they say, to sleep. To dream.
To lay my head where the Son of Man once did
and close my eyes. To think,
tomorrow I may yet wake to better."
- "... as the dawn
that rose thrashing from its flush-stained sheets"
- "and all I want is a little bed
with a curved moon swinging
and another in the room, singing."
- "I knew the shadow at your breast on the paper of your skin,
and it drew me in like ink."
- "I knew you once. I thought I did,
and thought I knew myself as well.
My little body, tiny wings,
though small, still yet my very own.
But I cannot see, cannot be sure,
if in this fragile frame of mine,
if in this dust, I have the strength
to come to know you twice."
- "They swallowed each other like spoonfuls of salt
and they sang and sang, until, together,
they came to know the sea."
- "You go to your room, pick up your glasses. You figure she’s seen how hot you are without them, now she’ll find how clever you can look with them on." LMAOOOOO so real
- "She pressed kiss after kiss to bark and current, blew kiss after kiss to sunlight and shadows, and soon forgot the shape of lips against her own, the taste of honey and salt mixing."
my favourite pieces: DAY 5: Cranberry Creamed Honey, DAY 8: Raspberry Creamed Honey, DAY 9: Zambian Honey, DAY 11: Blackberry Honey, DAY 14: Raspberry Honey, DAY 16: Blueberry Honey
memorable quotes:
- "You came back, she said, and I melted to see her almost smile"
- "It’s a mischievous honey, sexy and wry."
- "Her eyes are the colour of dawn on the water"
- "tasting it is like walking a forest path"
- “You look like summer”
- "I am the earth, and you and I are kin."
- "My body is a knot of limbs | ... | The earth is knotted with screams."
- "Blueberries washed the ash from my tongue
after they came; after the metal and the phosphor
that washed us all so red, so white. Perhaps
if we powdered our cheeks so every day
they would come to think us beautiful?"
- "Yesterday I had daughters. Today
I have these berries on my tongue."
- "I am lucky, they say, to live; to have
blueberries and water, medicine for my wounds.
I am lucky, they say, to breathe
the air thick with stone
that was my house; safe in my lungs
who would think to take it? |
I am lucky, they say, to sleep. To dream.
To lay my head where the Son of Man once did
and close my eyes. To think,
tomorrow I may yet wake to better."
- "... as the dawn
that rose thrashing from its flush-stained sheets"
- "and all I want is a little bed
with a curved moon swinging
and another in the room, singing."
- "I knew the shadow at your breast on the paper of your skin,
and it drew me in like ink."
- "I knew you once. I thought I did,
and thought I knew myself as well.
My little body, tiny wings,
though small, still yet my very own.
But I cannot see, cannot be sure,
if in this fragile frame of mine,
if in this dust, I have the strength
to come to know you twice."
- "They swallowed each other like spoonfuls of salt
and they sang and sang, until, together,
they came to know the sea."
- "You go to your room, pick up your glasses. You figure she’s seen how hot you are without them, now she’ll find how clever you can look with them on." LMAOOOOO so real
- "She pressed kiss after kiss to bark and current, blew kiss after kiss to sunlight and shadows, and soon forgot the shape of lips against her own, the taste of honey and salt mixing."
Read
February 28, 2025An idiosyncratic little volume – tasting notes on 28 different honeys, each of which then expands into a poem, a prose poem, a fairytale... The book is dedicated to Danielle Sucher, not just for the apt name, but because she sent the vials of inspiration; she also supplies the introduction, which mentions that the pieces were written (on Livejournal, which takes me back) across the same February in which her co-dedicatee, Cat Valente, published the haunting Palimpsest. The connection makes sense; the two books share a fever-dream quality of sensuousness, intoxication. And as someone who fundamentally isn't that fussed about honey, I mean it as a significant compliment that these heady vignettes of sunlight, kisses and transformation have almost made me understand why people get so excited about it.
January 30, 2022
the speed at which i read this was the same consistency as honey, syrupy. i guess i wanted to savour each small description of the honeys and i was scared it would blend into one in my mind. now i want to try some of these :<
May 12, 2023
I usually don't "get" English poetry, but I want to eat every word she writes
March 4, 2025
Delightful premise and execution. But mostly just a wonderful experience because my wife read each tasting to me every night before bed during the month of February.
Read
May 18, 2024Nunca me gustó mucho la poesía, pero con este libro pude entenderla un poco más.
Lo leí por lo mucho que me gustó la prosa de this is how we lose the time war, adoré la manera en la que se puede sentir de todo, donde no importan tanto las cosas concretas, por lo que este libro parecía un buen lugar para recrear algo parecido.
Sigue sin gustarme la poesía, en este libro me disfruté mucho más los cuentos cortos, pero puedo entenderla un poco más.
Lo leí por lo mucho que me gustó la prosa de this is how we lose the time war, adoré la manera en la que se puede sentir de todo, donde no importan tanto las cosas concretas, por lo que este libro parecía un buen lugar para recrear algo parecido.
Sigue sin gustarme la poesía, en este libro me disfruté mucho más los cuentos cortos, pero puedo entenderla un poco más.
July 6, 2011
The Honey Month is a book to be savored, a book whose words, filled with longing and love, drip slowly from the page.
It's such a unique book that I've been having trouble writing a review. I loved it, devoured it on the beach one afternoon, but it's difficult to describe. Each honey serves as the inspiration for a bewitching poem or short story, a world full of magic, of young women just learning about life, of bees and flowers, stings and kisses. Sad, hopeful, gorgeous. Pieces unrelated to each other that still come together to form a whole.
It's such a unique book that I've been having trouble writing a review. I loved it, devoured it on the beach one afternoon, but it's difficult to describe. Each honey serves as the inspiration for a bewitching poem or short story, a world full of magic, of young women just learning about life, of bees and flowers, stings and kisses. Sad, hopeful, gorgeous. Pieces unrelated to each other that still come together to form a whole.
August 29, 2014
Shows how beautiful prose and poetry can be if you let yourself be inspired by the different senses, taste and smell specifically in this case.
Atmospheric, fantastic, whimsical, sensual, poetic.
My main gripe would be that at some points the stories and poems blend together a bit, but it's a short read, so it does not get boring.
I'll definitely keep an eye out for further work of Amal El-Mohtar. And I don't even particularly like honey.
Atmospheric, fantastic, whimsical, sensual, poetic.
My main gripe would be that at some points the stories and poems blend together a bit, but it's a short read, so it does not get boring.
I'll definitely keep an eye out for further work of Amal El-Mohtar. And I don't even particularly like honey.
July 20, 2021
is this a honey taste-test? or is this just an intensely spellbinding novella?
I’ve never liked honey, and I probably only tried it once in my life. well, this novel made me lick it off my lips with relish. this is such a sensuous and creative way of describing honey, engaging the five senses, forming a captivatingly sweet short story!
I’ve never liked honey, and I probably only tried it once in my life. well, this novel made me lick it off my lips with relish. this is such a sensuous and creative way of describing honey, engaging the five senses, forming a captivatingly sweet short story!
July 2, 2020
Stunning, erotic, inspiring. A honey month of my own is all I dream of now.
January 11, 2021
Sensual and evocative. Makes me want to draw with a force I rarely experience anymore.
Simply splendid.
Simply splendid.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 213 reviews