trapped in amber
Amber Young was a young teenager when she was scouted by an agent. She was just performing at a school talent show when another parent heard her sing and thought she had talent. She spent the next several years going into New York City for audition after audition. She even made it onto Star Search. But Amber lost to a young singer named Wes Kingston. She even gave up for a while, letting go of the auditions and just spending time being a high schooler.
But she wasn’t happy and decided to give fame another try. But no more auditioning for commercials or for musicals. She wants to be a singer. And she gets an audition for a producer who was putting together a girl group. Amber made it into the group and quickly made friends with another girl there, Gwen Morris. Gwen helps Amber with the choreography, and after a couple of months of long days working with the group, Gwen tearfully admits the truth to Amber. She’s leaving the group. Gwen’s mother thinks that she’ll do better as a solo artist. And she thinks Amber should do the same.
It’s the 1990s, and one of the hottest new acts is a boy band named ETA. They’re a bunch of clean-cut guys who are finally getting some attention with their album Lightning in a Bottle. Gwen and Amber get a chance to meet the ETA, and Amber is happy to recognize one of them, Wes, who beat her on Star Search. As Gwen and Amber start on their solo careers, their lives intertwine with the ETA guys through their tours, recording, TRL on MTV, and awards shows. Publicly, Gwen and Wes are together. But Gwen isn’t interested in him that way, and Amber is, making it look in the media like Amber is the bad girl, trying to come between America’s Sweethearts.
As the years go by, Amber has to fight to find her voice, to tell her story. The media sexualize her, her fans worship her, record labels want to market her package her to sell, and producers tell her what to perform. But she is a smart woman, despite not finishing high school. She has her own opinions about her music, about her sexuality, about her future. Amber knows what she wants, and she is willing to sacrifice to get it. But is she willing to sacrifice her friends? Her family? The man she loves?
Teenagers and then 20somethings, growing up in the spotlight, working almost constantly, the life of a pop star is insane and complicated. And the 1990s exploded with young pop stars all over. Honey offers up a behind-the-scenes view of all those young pop stars who took over the music industry for a while, the boy bands and the teen magazines with their posters and the girls screaming and the mall tours. All of it comes to life in author Isabel Banta’s coming of age novel that brings to mind all those kids who grew up in the spotlight, singing and dating and dancing right in front of our eyes. And seeing it from their eyes is quite a ride.
I listened to the audio book of Honey, with narration by Brittany Pressley. I thought the reading of this book was just marvelous. Pressley brought the voice of Amber to life, and I could feel her passion through each chapter. I really liked Honey. It’s an enjoyable read with a lot of interesting characters. I will admit that I expected more drama, more scandal, but then this is the week that a very famous former boy band singer got pulled over for a DUI, so maybe it’s good that fiction is less like real life in this instance. I admired Amber for her personal convictions, for how hard she worked to find her own voice, and for her dedication to her friends. This is a lovely story of a young woman finding her voice in a male dominated profession, but I did think it lacked a little of the public drama of the actual era of the young pop stars.
An early copy of the audio book for Honey was provided by Macmillan Audio, and egalleys were provided by Celadon Books, both through NetGalley, with many thanks.
