Have you read Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan and want to discuss the case and the ending? You have come to the right place: my Spoiler Discussion for Mad Honey.
Spoiler Discussion for Mad Honey
Here’s the table of contents for this post.
Plot Summary for Mad Honey
What Was the Ending of Mad Honey?
Who Killed Lily in Mad Honey?
Spoiler Discussion for Mad Honey
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 meeting with her estranged father. She is angry and they argue.
Lily stays home sick for three days and Asher decides to come visit her. He finds her front door open and Lily lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs.
Lily’s mom arrives home and finds Asher crading her injured daughter. She calls 911. Lily is taken to the hospital and Asher is taken to the police station. The police call Olivia and she comes to listen to him tell his story. They learn that Lily could not be saved.
At Lily’s memorial, Olivia expresses her condolences to Lily’s mom, who clearly blames Asher for her daughter’s death.
In a flashback, Asher suggests that he and Lily visit his father Braden and his new family. Lily’s friend Maya warns her against it. After they arrive, Asher immediately wants to leave.
Afterwards, Lily admits that her own father abused her.
In the present, the police come to arrest Asher for Lily’s murder.
Olivia has called her brother Jordan, who happens to be a prominent defense attorney. Fortunately, he’s one of the most famous defense attorneys New Hampshire has ever had.
Asher is arraigned. Olivia does not want to tell her ex-husband Braden that Asher is in jail, so she plans to the house up as collateral for Asher’s bail.
Olivia and Jordan go to speak with Asher in jail.
Flashback to Lily’s POV. Lily’s found her love of music while recovering from a suicide attempt.
Jordan questions Asher about his relationship with Lily. Though Asher told the police he wasn’t in Lily’s room, his hair and fingerprints were there. Asher admits to sneaking in the window multiple times and spending the night with her.
Olivia is clearly worried that Asher might have violent tendencies like his father. She remembers a time recently when Asher punched a wall. Olivia also recalls that her ex-husband Braden also pushed her down the stairs.
After Asher attempts suicide in jail, Olivia reluctantly goes to her ex and asks for money. Asher is released on bail.
The trial begins. After a question about why Lily’s autopsy didn’t mention her female reproductive organs, the coroner drops a bombshell: Lily was a trans woman.
Flashback to Lily finally gathering the courage to tell Asher why she pulled away after they had sex for the first time: she’s trans. After she tells Asher, he is shocked and leaves. Lily feels rejected and deeply upset.
Back in the courtroom, after the revelation about Lily, something neither the prosecution nor the defense knew, the judge dismisses court for the day.
Jordan is worried that the revelation offers even more motive for Asher to have killed Lily.
Asher starts to tell Jordan that he did know Lily was trans before her murder. Jordan stops him. He tells Asher that it’s better if they pretend he didn’t know.
Olivia runs into Lily‘s mother Ava in the bathroom. Ava is still very cool to her.
Flashback to Lily going with Asher to meet his dad, which he’s secretly been doing.
Afterwards Asher asked Lily what she thinks of his dad and she says she didn’t like him. She points out that he’s never met his half-siblings Asher gets angry and starts driving really fast.
Lily recalls what preceded her suicide attempt: at her old school, she confided in one friend that she was trans and was badly bullied. Jonah, her ex, didn’t defend her.
Asher tells her he’s afraid of being like his father.
Lily recalls the fencing match where Asher grabbed her arm. She had just run into her ex, Jonah and was upset. Asher saw Lily and Jonah was jealous of the two of them. Asher grabbed Lily’s arm, leaving bruises.
Olivia testifies and drops a bombshell of her own: she was married to an abuser and she’d know if Asher were one.
Then Asher insists on testifying and tells the court that he knew Lily was trans and didn’t care.
What Was the Ending of Mad Honey?
After court is dismissed Olivia notices bruises on Jordan’s wife Selena.
Selena explains the bruising is because because she’s been taking estrogen after her hysterectomy for endometriosis. The estrogen makes her bruise easily.
Selena wonders if maybe that’s why Lily was bruised: because she was taking estrogen as part of her hormone therapy.
Jordan finds a forensic pathologist to examine Lily’s file and testify.
The forensic pathologist believes that Lily was suffering from a blood disorder called TTP (thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura). TPP is a rare disorder which can be either genetic or aquired. In the latter, it can be caused by pregnancy or hormone therapy. The disorder can cause bruising, fever, dizziness, and seizures, offering an alternate explanation not only for Lily’s symptoms, but for the injuries that caused her death.
Who Killed Lily in Mad Honey?
After the trial, Asher’s friend Maya shows up at Asher and Olivia’s house. She admits being with Lily the day she died. Maya was in love with Asher. She had accepted the fact that Asher didn’t love her back, but she didn’t think Lily was right for him.
She argued with Lily that day, begging Lily to let Asher go for his own good. There was a scuffle over Lily’s phone and Lily fell down the stairs.
Spoiler Discussion for Mad Honey
There’s so much to discuss in this one!
I am cisgender and while I support the right of every person to live as their most authentic self, I have no personal experience with gender transition, so I will not weigh in on that aspect of the book, but if anyone else wants to do that in comments, I welcome it.
Here are some of my thoughts and questions about some other issues of the book:
What was your favorite part of the book?
For me, it was Lily’s narration. I loved her as a character and got very invested in her story in the past. For me, just reading about her struggles and hopes and dreams was much more moving than the sometimes info-dumpy explanations of gender identity, like when the surgeon testified.
What is Mad Honey?
As the book explains it, mad honey comes from bees that forage from rhododendron and mountain laurel. Eating is results in dizziness, nausea, and vomiting, and convulsions. Symptoms last for twenty-four hours and can (rarely) be fatal. Who knew?
What role did the bees play in Mad Honey?
The bees were a passion that Olivia threw herself into upon leaving her husband. She was incredibly obsessed with the bees.
I love a thematic book. While I really did like all the bee information, there was definitely a point when I got bee overload and felt it was taking over the book. I didn’t feel like this was supposed to be Olivia’s story, but she kept bossily trying to take it over. By the end, she came off to me like a boring person at a cocktail party who just wants to talk about one thing (bees, bees, and more bees.)
What do you think Mad Honey as a mystery?
To me, this didn’t read like a mystery. Yes, there was suspense as I waited for the trial’s outcome, but there was no real investigation into Lily’s death, not much evidence discussed, and no real suspects besides Asher.
In her acknowledgments, Picoult says, “I chose to have Olivia be an abused wife because I wanted to underscore that violence agains women is real and horrific, but it is not a reason to dismiss trans rights.”
It seemed to me that the point of having Asher’s father be an abuser was suggest that violent tendencies are biological and inborn, and to make us think that Asher had these tendencies too.
At the end of the book, Olivia decide that no, Asher is like her. Because he believes in love.
But is he like Olivia? He grabbed Lily’s arm so that it hurt and punched a wall in anger. He gets angry when Lily tells him she doesn’t like his father.
And does Olivia really believe in love? To me, she only believes in bees. (I was not the biggest fan of Olivia if that wasn’t obvious.)
What did you think of the ending of the book?
First, we are led to believe that Lily’s death was just a tragic accident.
Then, in the last few pages, Maya confesses that she did it. Why didn’t she either say something sooner, or say nothing at all? Confessing after the trial was over was the most bizarre possible choice.
Was the TTP all a ruse on Jordan’s part to create reasonable doubt, something he says over and over through the book?
Is this justice for Lily? I wanted more for poor Lily. Everyone just moves on, except her mom Ava, and my heart really broke for her.
What point was Mad Honey trying to make at the end?
Lily wasn’t killed for being trans, or even by a rare side-effect of her medication. She was killed by a jealous girl.
I believe that Asher thought he loved Lily, but did he really? To me, he seemed to have a lot of his father’s tendencies of being charming and then angry.
Then Olivia, who really only cares about bees, suddenly has a boyfriend who’s secretly been in love with her forever. What? I agree with what Jennifer Finney Boylan said (in the acknowledgments): if anyone needed a boyfriend it was Ava. Olivia had her bees.
Thanks for reading my Spoiler Discussion for Mad Honey!
That is my take: more Lily, less Olivia. Some bee talk, but not so much. I wish there had been more of Ava. And I’m not sure about this ending. But what did YOU think? I hope you’ll tell me in the comments!
NOTE: due to the subject matter, I have had to edit some sexually explicit language out of a few comments. I’m sorry about this, but my hard work is funded by advertising. Advertisers do NOT like words like murder (I’m doomed lol) or explicit language. I am not trying to censor anyone, just to keep comments PG-rated. If you prefer I delete your comment rather than edit it, please re-comment and let me know. I have tried hard to keep the spirit of the original comment while still keeping it ad-friendly.
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I was firmly convinced that Lily’s dad was the one who pushed her down the stairs, because he was angry and unaccepting of Lily’s trans situation. When she was young, he tried to force her into wearing boys clothes, but she fought against it.
So when the book revealed that it was a jealous Maya who killed her, I was shocked.
I also felt that I was being preached at regarding the bee story. I could have done with less bees, bees, bees.
Overall, I loved the book, and I learned a ton about trans, the surgery, etc.
I agree with you – I was convinced that Lily’s dad had something to do with it. He had a history of being violent and abusive and was not supportive of her transition.
I liked the bees a lot but then it got to be too much.
And I agree – overall I enjoyed this. As a mystery it was a bit disappointing but it is a worthwhile read!
Usually I love Picoult books but yikes. I thought the ending was too rushed and did not bear the consequences that Maya should’ve had.
Let’s think this through. If she and Lily got into a tussle, and Lily lost balance, and fell down the stairs then what did Maya do next? Crawl over her dying friend and run out the door, hop into a car and drive off like a bat out of hell? And in this teeny tiny little community, she didn’t cross paths the other way with anybody? And she held that secret for a year and tried to get her best friend from childhood to take the fall? Talk about a monster!
I can see, now that it was a red herring, but I kept expecting it to be Dirk, who did not like to take no for an answer, and only seem to have 4 brain cells rubbing together on a good day. Or either of the fathers… Both of them were pretty terrible. I understand the complications of sharing authorship of a book and writing it during a pandemic, but this was not cohesive. It did make me want to go explore more of Jennifer Finney Boylan’s books. OK, that’s all I got.
I think many of us in the comments agree with the rushed and somewhat implausible ending, plus the botched investigation and strange trial.
I did find the writing itself cohesive, but there were a lot of elements. I haven’t done research to see if the authors divided up the writing, but I assume Finney Boylan wrote Lily’s chapters, which I really loved. Agree that I would love to check out more of her work.
I’m the parent of a trans young adult, and people kept recommending this book to me. I didn’t finish it. I didn’t even get to Asher being in jail. (I got as far as the Oberlin audition.) It was too dark for me. I don’t want to read about domestic abuse and fear when chillaxing. So I found your post just to learn what happened. I knew someone had to be trans, through the people who recommended it to me. I thought maybe the jerky guy from school came back (Dirk?) and tried to assault her, realized she was trans, he got belligerent, and in a scuffle she fell down the stairs. I’m so glad it was not that! I thought maybe she pulled a Juliet, ate mad honey and was hospitalized and faked death to shake off her dad. I’m glad it wasn’t that because it would have been unfair to Asher. Thanks for posting. I’ll continue trying to find books about Trans JOY.
Thanks for coming by with your thoughts.
I was so sad that the plot centered around Lily’s death and that after all she went through she died in a petty squabble over a boy! Your Juliet plot is very creative – if Asher had been in on it, maybe…
I hope you find some great books with trans joy and hope you will come back and share them.
Just finished listening to the audiobook. I agree with everyone that Maya as the twist was unbelievable. Oh wait, “it’s an accident”. Nothing to see here. I didn’t buy for a second that she was in love with Asher. It felt like the writers had a deadline and spun a wheel of characters and Maya lost.
I may be the only one, but I gave some thought to it being Asher’s Dad. Lily did see him flirt with the waitress and if he thought Lily would turn Asher against him, could he have killed Lily. With the story jumping around, I kept expecting another encounter with Asher’s Dad that went badly. Also, him being the killer would have tied the two stories together a bit better.
Although my heart broke for Ava, I was annoyed at how fast she turned against Asher. Afterall, she saw them together, she saw how much Lily cared for Asher, and she clearly saw the pain he was in when she arrived home from her ridiculously long trip to get Advil. Oh! and I thought her being gone for an hour was too specific to not be important.
I found myself captivated by Lily’s story as she told it. Having never heard the inner thoughts of someone who is transgender, it felt for the first time that I could see the side of the discussion that recommends starting while they are very young. I wish that the journey for transitioning could be as smooth as Lily made it sound. I think it was a very romanticized version of this very difficult path.
I love that Lily’s point of view had a voice, but there are too many things that just didn’t work.
I am so sorry LoneStar Jessie – your excellent comment ended up in spam and I just found it. Thanks so much for such a thoughtful and insightful comment. I love a good discussion but always am happy to find someone who sees things the same way.
I absolutely loved Lily’s story so I am very glad I read the book. But I felt that between the shoddy investigation, the bees, all Olivia’s drama, and the out-of-nowhere ending, Lily’s story got a bit lost.
I suspected Lily’s dad but not Asher’s. Either of them would have made more sense than Maya.
Hi! I absolutely agree with all the comments about the unlikely ending and the excessive bee talk but what I was looking for was a comment discussing the TTP diagnosis which still would have explained why there was excessive bleeding whoever pushed her down and may be another reason Maya wasn’t trailed. BUT it seemed weird that the whole book was advocating for trans rights and then this disorder which she (possibly) had because she was trans would cause her death. Seemed to undermine the whole book. Talks about the murder and suicide rates and then kinds of says oh but even just a small bruise can kill you. Perhaps I misunderstood it just seem to suddenly advocate against surgeries and medications after a whole book advocating for trans rights. Overall I did enjoy it but that my two questions were this and about Maya.
Thanks for your comment! I noticed that as well. I had never heard of TTP before reading the book, and also wasn’t sure if I understood it correctly. Maybe including the diagnosis was meant as a red herring but that did seem to go against the overall message of the book.
Asher is arraigned. Lily does not want to tell her ex-husband Braden that Asher is in jail, so she plans to the house up as collateral for Asher’s bail.
^^^ I think it’s supposed to be Olivia at the beginning of the second sentence, not lily.
Thank you so much – I can’t believe you’re the first person to notice that. I fixed it!
So fun to find a book lover! I know it has been a few years on this book. I had it in my audio library forever and finally got a chance to listen. I finished and then had to find someone to explain the points to me – and I found your site. Your explanation was great. I wasn’t confused, I was hoping I misunderstood the book. It turned out what bothered me also bothered other readers. I learned a lot about bees, gender, and relationships, which I love in a book, but maybe it just wasn’t for me. It was good, not great, but I found your site as a result. (Carrie Coon as a book narrator was really great).
Wow I didn’t know she narrated books, and didn’t know she narrated this one. I will add that to the post, and that you recommend the audiobook. Thanks so much!