Ink Honey Blossom by Liza Losada

Ursula Pflug reviews Ink Honey Blossom by Liza Losada, a feminist dystopia set centuries after a plague killed the male population. Girls in treatment houses administer an entheogen from the Sonaguchi tree to male clients called Blights, sharing hallucinogenic journeys that shorten the girls’ lives while extending the clients’. Protagonist Ink navigates the hierarchical house structure while concerned about her friend Bird’s disappearance. Pflug praises Losada’s thematic bridges between psychiatric entheogenic treatment and human trafficking, and her portrayal of solidarity among girls as resistance to oppression. However, she critiques the novel’s draggy middle sections and insufficient worldbuilding, attributing these issues partly to inadequate editorial oversight. Pflug notes parallels to her own 1996 story about drug-catalyzed therapy and compares the work to feminist dystopias by Starhawk, Monique Wittig, and Carol Emshwiller.

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