🔪🩸Think you know serial killers? Think again 🩸🔪

Meet Yrsa, a sociology PhD student at Cambridge and very fed up with your shit. She's also bored. Which is never a good combination. Plus she has mommy issues.

With vibes of Boy Parts and also, for me, The Other Black Girl, Honey by @_imani_thompson_ covers female desire for violence and power, in the ultimate British ivory tower town.

I absolutely devoured this in the last 24 hrs and can't wait to see it soar in 2026! 5⭐

I really enjoyed this fun, sassy slice of academia. It has an impressively confident voice and style. Expect it to be a summer hit

Honey is a dark, provocative book that follows Yrsa, a graduate student and university lecturer whose simmering boredom, rage, and disillusionment with men spirals into something far more dangerous. Disengaged from her PhD research and increasingly detached from the people around her, Yrsa feels trapped in both her academic life and her emotional numbness.

When her best friend reveals that a professor has stolen her research, a chance encounter on campus sparks something unexpected in Yrsa. What begins as shock quickly turns into exhilaration, awakening a hunger for violence that she frames as justice. From there, Yrsa embarks on a calculated killing spree, targeting men she deems sexist, exploitative, or morally corrupt, justifying each act through the lens of feminism and racial solidarity.

Yrsa is an unsettling protagonist. From early on, it is clear that she is emotionally detached, deeply unstable, and disturbingly self assured. Her relationships are transactional, whether with lovers, friends, or family, and she views intimacy as a means of control rather than connection. As the story progresses, her internal logic becomes increasingly warped, and her certainty in her own righteousness grows more chilling with every act of violence.

What makes this book so compelling is its refusal to offer comfort or moral clarity. The narrative places the reader inside Yrsa’s head, forcing engagement with her justifications without endorsing them. The writing is sharp and confrontational, blending satire, social critique, and psychological horror in a way that feels intentionally uncomfortable.

The book raises difficult questions about rage, power, feminism, and where accountability ends and self delusion begins. Yrsa’s descent is both fascinating and horrifying, and the tension lies not in whether she will be caught, but in how far she is willing to go without remorse.

A bold, disturbing, and adrenaline fuelled book that challenges the reader at every turn. This is not an easy read, but it is a memorable one that lingers long after the final page.

Read more at The Secret Book Review.

Honey follows Yrsa who starts killing men after she accidentally kills a professor. She flicks a bee into his drink in the hopes he will get stung but it turns out he has allergies and ends up dead. The professor stole her friend’s research so Yrsa doesn’t care about his death and it actually wakes her up. Killing gives Yrsa a sense of control and makes her feel alive.

I had a really good time reading this and I found this book to be very enjoyable. I liked the academic setting this book had and whilst I don’t have a PhD, I recently finished my MA so I could relate to quite a bit of the university setting. Yrsa wasn’t a very likeable character but I found it interesting to follow her. There is a twist in this book that I really enjoyed and I liked how this book wasn’t just about killing. There was a lot of depth to it that I appreciate. I will be recommending this book and I enjoyed my time reading this.