In-Store: Isabel Banta: Honey w/ Ella Dawson

Event guidelines:

• Each ticket will include either a copy of the featured book or a $10 Books Are Magic gift card.
• Additional copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event.
• A signing will follow the talk.
• Home address is collected for contact tracing purposes; it will not be used otherwise.
• As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event, even if you have a ticket; email us and we'll work it out.

If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request accessibility accommodations, please contact ZXZlbnRoZWxwIHwgYm9va3NhcmVtYWdpYyAhIG5ldA==.

For fans of Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Emma Cline's The Girls, and Stephanie Danler's Sweetbitter, a coming-of-age story that follows the stunningly talented popstar Amber Young as she skyrockets to fame in the late 90s.

It is 1997 and Amber Young is about to become one of the most infamous pop stars of her era. Plucked from a small town in New Jersey to join the newly formed girl group Cloud9 in Los Angeles, Amber is given the opportunity of a lifetime.

Enter Gwen Morris and Wes Kingston, two of Amber’s musical contemporaries who are in a highly publicized relationship. Gwen has the top music video on MTV's Total Request Live and Wes is a member of the most popular boy band in the world, ETA. In Gwen, Amber finds the first friend who can truly understand her – maybe the only person who ever will. But when Amber goes on tour with ETA as one of their opening acts, she develops an infatuation with Wes that threatens both her friendship with Gwen and the career she is so desperately trying to build. Under the spotlight, Amber is forced to reckon with her own desires, agency, and sense of self—and how the kaleidoscope of public opinion can distort everything.

Through meticulous research about this era of pop music, and featuring iconic moments from early 2000s pop culture, Isabel Banta’s debut novel, Honey, reimagines the pop stars of the late 90s and early 2000s, who we idolized and hated, oversexualized and underestimated, giving them the fresh, multifaceted story they deserve.

Isabel Banta is a writer, book publicist, and indie bookseller based in Brooklyn. She graduated from the University of Virginia. Honey is her debut novel.

Ella Dawson is an NYC-based sex and culture critic and the author of But How Are You, Really, a novel about college reunions and millennial angst. She is also the host of the Rebel Ever After podcast about progressive romance novels. Ella is proudly bisexual, anxious, and aspires to adopt a kitten. Follow her on social media as @brosandprose.

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