Honey Rider by Benjamin North Spencer is titled with the name of the main character, the female lead in the story. She is a free spirited beauty that Henry, the male lead, encounters at school. Their carefree friendship develops, but is just a friendship. Teenage angst develops and Henry realizes he has feelings for her, which are complicated by the relationship between Honey and Henry's best friend, James.

All three hold secrets over the others. One of the secrets is suddenly revealed, causing chaos to ensue. The reader will wonder which boy will win Honey, or whether neither of them will. James is holding something over Henry, which Honey does not know, and the complications of the love triangle become too much when the situation comes to a head. Henry’s seizure disorder makes him especially fragile.

There are several parallel story lines in this novel. I especially enjoyed the depiction of teenage life and the way it caused me a bit of "former teenager" angst as well, as I remembered similarly troubling scenes of my own adolescence. I ached for those who suffered losses. But these are the learning experiences of youth, and Benjamin North Spencer has written a fine novel in Honey Rider.

Honey Rider: A Novel by Benjamin North Spencer is a fascinating story about drug addiction, love, and life from the perspective of a first person narrator who is somewhat removed from the story. We are being brought along for a journey into remembrance by a narrator who is struggling to put pieces of his shattered memory back together. Everything is written as if the narrator were telling us the story directly, face-to-face, and we see continual little snippets of what is happening. Each little passage is numbered with an ellipsis that brings the reader into the middle of a new clue or idea, and some of them are bits of a conversation, or the musings of the narrator, or sometimes little fragmented ideas that make the entire work feel more like journal entries than necessarily a novel at all. This is no doubt due to it being a compilation of Tumblr posts transformed into a story, which leaves a legacy upon the style.

In one passage, the narrator says: "This typewriter makes me feel clumsy." This is both the blessing and the curse of the novel, because it does feel clumsy, in a sort of haphazard way where the narrator is trying to figure something out after waking up from a coma and he's taking us along for the ride. He's jotting down ideas and memories to try to make sense of something; we are privy to this internal monologue, and he continuously breaks down the fourth wall to talk directly to us. This brings the reader into the mind of the narrator as we try to figure out what happened to Honey and put our narrator into a coma. All in all, the story is an excellent read and makes us wonder about just what went wrong, as well as root for our narrator to figure everything out. Honey Rider: A Novel by Benjamin North Spencer is an excellent work and well worth the read.

On the cover of Honey Rider: A Novel by Benjamin North Spencer, an emblem states this is a book by a Debut Author and an Original Tumblr Mystery. Don’t be fooled – this author is a very accomplished writer, as he tells the story by utilizing 275 Tumbler messages. The story itself is very intriguing, as the main character, Henry, works his way through amnesia by writing about what happened to cause it. The novel alternates between the present time, and past events. It revolves around Henry’s friendships with James and Honey, as well as his relationship with his supportive father. The novel begins in Rochester, NY, and follows Henry when he ventures off to college in Iowa, to pursue his love of writing poetry. While Henry is a sensitive soul and cares deeply about his friends, the continual use of drugs and alcohol provides too many adversities in his life.

One might think that a novel broken up into 275 small sections would be tedious, or challenging to grasp. However, this is not the case. Honey Rider: A Novel by Benjamin North Spencer is a very enjoyable and fascinating read. Joining Henry on his journey of trying to recall why he cannot remember past events is certainly an adventure full of puzzling mysteries. As each piece of the puzzle falls into place, the reader urges Henry to continue moving forward. It would be impossible not to become emotionally involved in the outcome. Mr. Spencer is an excellent debut author, and it will be exciting to see what he does next.