Honey & Spice

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-10

Chapters 11-17

Chapters 18-22

Chapter 23-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Butterflies

Bolu Babalola takes the metaphor of butterflies in the stomach as a standard cliché of romantic attraction and elaborates this to create a humorous motif. The butterflies represent Kiki’s vulnerability; she is trying hard to remain tough and impenetrable to Wastemen—men who manipulate or use women, waste their time, aren’t sincere about or reciprocating emotion—but the butterflies indicate that she isn’t impervious to Malakai’s attractiveness. When he picks her up to take her to The Sweetest Ting for the first time, she worries that she wore a cropped top: “What if the butterflies flew too close to the edge of my stomach, so he could see the imprints of their wings pressed up against my skin?” (128). When Malakai looks at her lips over dinner, “a butterfly flipped inside” (150). When she feels the butterflies after Malakai stops a girl flirting with him at the RomCon by saying he’s attached, Kiki tells herself, “It’s probably a gastronomical issue” (240), showing that she isn’t yet ready to admit the attraction, much less follow through on what it means. In this way the butterflies come to represent her not-yet-evolved attitude about relationships and love. At the end of the novel, at the AfroWinter Ball, when they have made their declarations of love, Kiki feels that Malakai’s touch is “agitating the butterflies into chaos” (348). This confirms that the attraction is still strong, and she might still be unsettled by the intensity of her feelings, but she is approaching the attraction with a new level of self-knowledge and understanding of her own emotional attachment to him.

Brown Sugar

Mentions of Black American music and musicians are a key motif of the novel, encapsulated in the name of Kiki’s radio show, Brown Sugar. The show’s title alludes to a 1995 musical album by D’Angelo, and the artists Beyoncé, Jay-Z, D’Angelo, and Sisqó receive frequent mentions. The show represents her voice and her wish to have influence and admiration of her own, as well as help and protect others by leveraging her own experience. The programming is “R&B and soul punctuated with advice that tied into themes of songs” (15), mostly relationship advice, and Kiki proudly believes that “Brown Sugar was the glue that gelled the female factions of Blackwell together” (16). The playlists she makes allow Kiki to express an intuitive and creative side of herself that she generally keeps under wraps around other people; only Aminah is allowed to be part of the show, as Aminah is initially the only person on campus Kiki truly trusts. She tells Malakai the reason she started Brown Sugar was to share the music that had helped her both get lost and find herself (157). She wanted to use her voice to keep other girls from experiencing what she had with Nile: “I wanted Brown Sugar to be a place where girls could feel powerful” (230). She says, “I wanted to connect. Make people feel less alone” (230). Ironically, while Kiki learns to use her show to more fully express herself, first allowing Malakai to be part of it, then using her show to expose Zack, it is developing relationships in the real world that makes her feel less alone. Brown Sugar becomes a platform to amplify her voice and a means to encourage community, but Kiki also realizes it can no longer serve as a hiding place; she needs to come out from behind the mic and be among her listeners to really connect and be less alone.

Blackwell

Blackwell is both a community and setting within the novel and a symbol for Black identity and unity, and especially a way to nurture Black pride, which in the book exists in opposition to and in spite of the predominantly white culture of Whitewell. Just as Eastside is reflected as a rich, vibrant community that exists counter to the regulated and well-groomed, gentrified Westside, Blackwell is a vivid hub inside of Whitewell that allows the Black students, who are otherwise separated by disciplines or programs, to build a sense of community and find refuge and emotional support. Whitewell is depicted in the novel as a place full of ignorance, microaggressions, and benevolent racism when not serving up overtly hostile racism, and as a reprieve from this institutional and cultural environment, the African-Caribbean Society provides a safe place that protects student interests and nourishes their spirits.

At FreakyFridayz and the AfroWinter Ball, events that are exclusively attended by Black students, there is an overt celebration of an African ancestry held in common, as well as many cultural expressions they also share, including fashions, language, music, foods, and favorite entertainment or entertainers. Blackwell is a diverse community with many cliques and sub-groups, but when they come together, the mood is celebratory and lively. The examples of Zack and the unnamed Black professor illustrate that identifying as Black does not always equate to being anti-racist, and both Nile and Zack depict the problems of colorism that can exist within such communities. Blackwell is particularly accommodating of women’s independence and self-expression, however, as reflected in the all-female cabinet running for office, calling themselves the Dahomey Amazons—reference to a celebrated group of proud, strong, elite, and highly trained Black women. In all, Blackwell symbolizes the diversity, vibrancy, and richness of varied Black cultures, joined together in an optimistic vision of overall unity, liberation, and joy.