-
Your next favorite book
is waiting.
A Novel
by Ashley Whitaker
The Royal Tenenbaums meets Fleabag in this hilarious and dizzyingly smart debut about an over-the-top evangelical Texan family—and the daughter at its center racing to finish her very important novel before her ex-boyfriend finishes his.
It's 2011, and twenty-three-year-old Joan West is not like the rest of her liberal peers in Austin, nor is she quite like her Tea Party Republican, God-loving family. Sure, she listens to conservative talk radio on her way to and from her internship at the Capitol. But she was once an America-hating leftist who kissed girls at parties, refused to shave, and had plenty of emotionless sex with jazz school friends—that is until a drug-induced mania forced her to return to her senses.
But above all Joan is a writer, an artist, or at least she desperately wants to be. Always in search of inspiration for her novel, she catalogs every detail of her relationships with men—including with her former muse slash current arch nemesis Roberto—and mines her very dysfunctional family for material. But when her beloved, credit card debt–racked cousin Wyatt finds himself in crisis, Joan's worldview is cracked open and everything comes crashing down.
Funny, whip-smart, and often tender, Bitter Texas Honey introduces us to the unforgettable and indefatigable Joan West: ambitious, full of contradictions, utterly herself. As she wades through it all—addiction, politics, loss, and, notably, her father's string of increasingly bizarre girlfriends—we witness her confront what it means to be a person, and an artist, in the world.
"[A] witty debut...Though Joan often comes across as superficial, Whitaker adds depth to the characterization as she unpacks Joan's family history. This portrait of a wannabe artist as a confused young woman is compulsively readable." —Publishers Weekly
"Whitaker's debut novel is a painful, hilarious, and mind-bending look into what drives personal and societal beliefs, the frailty and strength of family bonds, and the individual decisions that ultimately lead to something bigger than us." —Booklist
Bitter Texas Honey presents itself modestly: this is a funny, extremely charming novel about an aspiring writer. But beneath this relatively breezy exterior is an absolutely merciless, clear-eyed, and passionate assessment of the political, moral, and cultural roots of our country's current divide. Bitter Texas Honey is not just wildly entertaining—it is a bullet aimed at the dead center of American hypocrisy, cruelty, and heartbreak; as brilliant, uncompromising, and timely a book as you will read this year." —Kristen Roupenian, author of Cat Person and Other Stories
"Bitter Texas Honey is wildly offbeat and endlessly entertaining—a novel that manages to be incisive, heartrending, and hilarious all at once. With nimble prose and a deadpan delivery, Whitaker brings each of these deeply relatable, deeply endearing characters to vibrant life. This is a dazzling debut from an outrageously gifted writer." —Kimberly King Parsons, National Book Award-nominated author of We Were the Universe
This information about Bitter Texas Honey was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ashley Whitaker is a writer from Texas. She received an MFA from the Helen Zell Writers' Program at the University of Michigan. Her work has appeared in Tin House and StoryQuarterly, and has received support from the Ragdale Foundation. She lives in Austin with her husband and children.
If you liked Bitter Texas Honey, try these:
by Courtney Summers
Published 2024
The next searing and groundbreaking queer young adult novel from New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author Courtney Summers.
by Caroline Leavitt
Published 2017
Set in the early 1970s against the specter of the Manson girls, when the peace and love movement begins to turn ugly, this is the story of a runaway teenager's disappearance and her sister's quest to discover the truth.
by Julia Claiborne Johnson
Published 2016
A sparkling talent makes her fiction debut with this infectious novel that combines the charming pluck of Eloise, the poignant psychological quirks of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and the page-turning spirit of Where'd You Go, Bernadette.
If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Can you name the title?
Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
