Well, I would classify this as women’s lit fic or literary suspense more than I would classify it as a mystery or suspense book. It’s not a bad book, it just wasn’t what I was expecting. I do have conflicting feelings about this book. It was much more character driven than I expected. I don’t do very well with character driven books. 

What I enjoyed: 

🐝 The bees! I love bees so much. Almost too much about bees, but I didn’t know a lot of the information on bees so it was cool to learn.
🎉 Great representation.
💐 Two female main characters & you get a POV from them both.
💪 Strong and likable female main characters 

What I didn’t enjoy:

👩🏻‍⚖️ There were some legal issues with this book that could have easily been fact checked and corrected. 
⚖️ The defense attorney made me a bit upset as with a proper review of evidence, one of the big “twists” should have been known to defense.
🥲 I guessed who did it & how pretty early on, so the payoff felt pretty limited. 
👩🏻‍🏫 The book started to feel almost too preachy with the extent of how far it delved into social topics. In the courtroom it was great. In a main character’s POV it was spectacular. I agree with the great messaging of the authors, but I knew most of what the authors were saying already. I think someone like my mom who I had to teach what cis means would find this book to be enlightening. But for me, I felt this book was too long. Additional conversations with a random character to send a message to the reader were not needed. The problem with trying to educate your reader with the finesse of hitting them over the head with a brick repeatedly is that those who disagree with your message are unlikely to stay tuned until the end and those who do agree, are unlikely to appreciate being preached at.
🎶 Same note as above, but with music. I don’t need or want to care about music to the extent a main character does. It was boring for me and made the story drag rather than keep me engaged. 


Check trigger warnings please. There are multiple graphic events in this book that can be triggering to some.