Rating: 
Summary: Excellent story!
Review: I just could not put this book down! This is one of those stories that bring out several different emotions in you while you read it. Excellent book, highly recommend!!!
Rating:
Summary: A NOVEL AS SWEET AS HONEY
Review: This book was so intriguing, from start to finish. I came to know the characters so well, that I felt I grew up with them. I got to know Lily and Rosaleen as well as the Sisters Boatwright. This is a story about people helping each other and the love that has no boundaries or color. The setting in Sylvan, S.C. made me think this was another civil rights novel, but it truly was not and I learned so much about bees, honey and relationships. It was a carefully crafted novel and one, I feel, that will appeal to readers of every age
Rating:
Summary: a classic, heartfelt, Southern girl coming-of-age story
Review: For the first 50 pages of this book, I kept thinking to myself that this was the typical Southern novel (which, having been raised in the South, I don't like) - abusive relationships, racism, backwoods, etc., etc. However, as I got further into the book, the true essence of the book - life, love, death, family, friends, acceptance, perseverance, spirituality - began to emerge, and the story became truly captivating. This story is set in South Carolina in 1964 and is told by a mature-beyond-her-years 13- and 14-year-old Lily Owens. Throughout the book, Sue Monk Kidd paints a vivid, realistic picture of the small town South and its people during that era, as well as of the struggles and triumps of an intelligent, vivacious 14-year-old girl. Sue Monk Kidd has given her readers an ageless, timeless, uplifting, heart-expanding coming-of-age story.
Rating:
Summary: Great Story
Review: This is an easy book to read. However, I found the story very interesting.
A white girl runs away from home (from her contolling father) with a black helper in the 1960s. She is looking for someone who might know something about her dead mother. She stays with 3 black sisters who make honey for a living. Lily learns a lot about herself, the world around her (pertaining to relations between whites and blacks) and secrets about her mother.
The books is well written and deals with interesting issues. It has adventure, forbidden love, race relations, and deep secrets.
Rating:
Summary: Two Thumbs Up, Universally Great
Review: My wife and I read books together and compare our opinions. As the unofficial secretary in our democratic household, I then try to encapsulate our combined opinions into one review. Like most couples, there are many things we don't agree on. When this occurs my wife attributes it to her being right and me being stupid. This is often the case with books - there will be a book I can't wait to discuss because I love it, only to discover my wife hates it. This is not always the case. There are many books that we agree upon as being good or enjoyable. However, there are very few that we agree upon as being universally great. In fact, our "great" list is limited to three in the past year (obviously not three in all time, that would be an indication of a marriage that is heavily on the rocks). SECRET LIFE OF BEES by SUE MONK KIDD (along with THE DA VINCI CODE and MY FRACTURED LIFE) is one of our three books we recommend as being universally great. If my wife and I can agree on it, then rest assured men and women of all ages and backgrounds will be able to relate and enjoy.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed.
Review: Chosen as one of my book group reads, this is a quick and light read. I was surprised to find the novel so lacking in depth and full of cliches after having read so many good reviews of it. If a Southern novel is what you're looking for there are many much more worthy of your time: Anything by Eudora Welty and Carson McCullers and of course To Kill A Mockingbird. This book is a total lightweight compared to any of those and just not as interesting.
Rating:
Summary: A Honey of a Book!!
Review: I put this on my Christmas list after reading Amazon's readers reviews. I'm so glad I did! Even though I had no idea what it was about, I was able to relate to this book on a personal level ie: (Mother died young,no father,raised by Grandmother figure, was in school during racial tension years.) But aside all of that, this is a story told in a most touching way. The author could write a sequel and have a following of readers, although I don't think it is in her plans to do so. So easy to feel the characters, it was hard to put down, and I was sad to reach the last page.
Rating:
Summary: This is more than just about bees
Review: Did you know that bees create their own bee air conditioning? Thousands of bees use their wings to fan the air to cool down a hot hive and when they do it gives the sound of an orchestra. Each bee plays an important roll in the colony such as the Mortician bees whose job it is to rake the dead bees out of the hive and keep things clean. The Nurse bees feed the baby bees. Field bees gather nectar and pollen and the male drones sit around waiting to mate with the queen. The queen is the mother of all and lays eggs all day long, week in and week out. The attendants feed her, bathe her, and keep her warm or cool.I love books that teach me something and still have a lively and entertaining story. The Secret Life of Bees did just that. Lily is a fourteen year old living with an abusive father in the south during the 1960s. Her tragedy is having shot her mother during a confrontation with the father. She was only four years old at the time and then lived in a fantasy world believing she had a wonderful mother and has a driving need to learn more about her. I loved her can do spirit as she helped her black nanny, Rosaleen, escape from jail for having spit on a white man's shoes. Her father, T. Ray, told her that the man would probably kill Rosaleen and she just could not let that happen. They travel to a city to find out more information about her mother and end living up with three black sisters, May, June and August. Don't you just love those names? I did. August has a beekeeping business and this is where we learn all about bees. The story centers on the sisters, bees and a Black Madonna. Lily and Rosaleen gain the love and comradeship of the sisters and their friends. Lily ends up with eight mothers who all care for her and love her. This is a good story that covers social, religious and family issues.
Rating: 
Summary: Much buzz that didn't deliver
Review: I had bought this book because it was recommended for people who liked The Life of Pi. I am probably doing this book a big disservice because I read it right after Pi, a tough act for any book to follow, but I had such high hopes after reading the rave reviews about it. It was a lot of buzz about a book that was good rather than great. Three weeks after reading both books, Pi has stayed with me; Lily hasn't. I didn't find it fresh and new - it was more like a rehash of other authors' works, as many of the reviewers have noted with better comparisons that I have. Although it started out okay, the rest of the book didn't match the beginning of the novel. I didn't find any of the characters particularly compelling. For one thing, Rosaleen seemed like a cardboard cutout of Mammy or other similar characters - the woman who nurtures instead of, and better than, the parents. Was Rosaleen brave or just ill-informed in her actions? We are never given enough information to figure that out. The three calendar ladies raised some interesting questions, like what happened to July in the order, but were pretty interchangeable. As for her father, he is never given enough depth of character to understand why he seems to be more than one person rolled up into one. He is more of a plot device than a well-rounded, even though despicable, character. Change his name to Bubba or Jim Bob, also stereotypes, and it won't change a thing. I kept looking for more depth in the people. As for our main character, I found her very inconsistent. When I first started reading, I thought she was about 10 or 11 years old. After I found out she was 14, I was surprised. Then later in the novel, she comes out with insights that makes her seem much older. However, her temper tantrum and confusion made her seem like the age that she was. I never got a clear picture in my head about what any of these characters looked like, something that helps fiction cross that leap-of-faith boundary. By comparison, I knew what Scarlett O'Hara, Anne of Green Gables and Huckleberry Finn looked like before seeing any movies about them. There were good things in this novel - the honey label was described so well that I could see it in my mind, the pink house, the Black Madonna, tha hats, the wall. These were infused with genius. The underlying theme of the bees was quite well done, too. I am glad that I read it because it was worthy; however, it is like the rocks that Lily sucks, meagre sustenance that I won't read again.
Rating:
Summary: ENLIGHTENING, ENGROSSING
Review: Simply put, TSLOB is a great book. I highly recommend that it goes on the "must read" list
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