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Summary: What? Bees?
Review: We hate bees they like to sting us and take away our flowers. There is too many bees in the world big or small. They still hurt. I was stung by a bee yesterday because of your book. If I wasn't reading that book outside I wouldn't have gotten stung. Its all your fault!!
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Summary: The Secret LIfe of Bees
Review: "The queen, for her part, is the unifying force of the community; if she is removed from the hive, the workers very quickly sense her absence. After a few hours, or even less, they show unmistakable signs of queenlessness."The Secret Life of Bees is a wonderful story that brings hope and strength to those that are in the midst of a journey through life. The author, Sue Monk Kidd, does an excellent job of drawing the reader into the story. By the end of the novel, the reader has developed a relationship with the main character, Lily Owens, and leaves you wondering what else lies ahead in Lily's life. The story begins during the summer of 1964 in South Carolina. We are immediately drawn into Lily's struggle with a vague memory of the death of her mother. Her mother was shot and killed in a freak accident when she was only four years old. Throughout Lily's journey we discover more and more about her mother and her death.
Lily's journey begins when she goes into town with her African American housekeeper, Rosaleen. The Civil Rights Act has just been passed and Rosaleen is going into town to register to vote. On their way into town Rosaleen gets into a fight with three of the most racist men in town and ends up getting both Lily and herself thrown in jail. Lily's abusive father, T. Ray, bails her out but on their way back they get into an argument about Lily's mother. ''Not funny?' he yelled. 'Not funny? Why, it's the funniest goddamn thing I ever heard: you think your mother is your guardian angel.' He laughed again. 'The woman could have cared less about you.'' This was absolutely devastating for Lily to hear. She knew she could not stay with T. Ray and live with his physical and emotional abuse. She also knew she needed to find the truth about what happened to her mother.
She decides to break Rosaleen out of jail and travel to Tiburon, South Carolina. It is here where she meets the calendar sisters, May, June and August. While living with them Lily becomes engulfed in a completely different lifestyle from which she came from. She becomes an incredible beekeeper and develops strong relationships with the sisters. Throughout her stay with the sisters she begins to learn more about the truth of her mother's life and the mystery of her death.
Kidd does a remarkable job of drawing parallels between the life of bees and the life that Lily is leading. Each chapter begins with a quote about bees that directly relates to what happens to Lily in that chapter. The struggle that Lily went through when her mother was killed is like the struggle a hive goes through when they lose their queen. 'A queenless colony is a pitiful and melancholy community; there may be a mournful wail or lament from within'.Without intervention, the colony will die. But introduce a new queen and the most extravagant change takes place.'
While there is no real replacement for a lost love one, Lily finds an almost motherly comfort within the calendar sisters. Their relationships grow stronger until Lily begins to feel as if she is a member of the family. 'It was how Sugar-Girl said what she did, like I was truly one of them. ['] They didn't even think of me being different.' As Lily begins to gain the trust of the sisters she tells them the entire story about her mother, and her leaving T. Ray, and discovers more about her mother than she could have ever imagined.
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Summary: A book I will give to my women friends...
Review: This is a lovely book. I don't give that praise easily...and by giving it, I mean that the novel is well crafted with expressive prose and finely drawn characters. It has a depth of meaning not only in its action, but in the allegorical depth suggested through the imagery which forms an intricate substructure. "The secret life" speaks of motherhood, womanhood, love, discovery, and personal strength. It provides wisdom to women, and pride, and beauty. And, it's a compelling story. I will give it as a gift to the people I care about.
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Summary: Great Book Club selection
Review: This was just a beautifully written novel with all sorts of wisdom about family and relationships. It has good topics to discuss in a book club as well. I highly recommend it!
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Summary: Excellent book
Review: This is a book filled with beautiful prose and powerful images and icons, as the narrator comes of age in a confusing world -- where her true friends are those she's been taught to despise, and her supposed role models are the source of menace and hate. Much of the book revolves around race -- the pervasive discrimination in the South in the 1960's, and how a good person should react to it. At one point, the narrator says, "Up until then I'd thought that white people and colored people getting along was the big aim, but after that I decided everybody being colorless together was a better plan."
As powerful as this book is, it's a fairly quick read. The ending is a bit too neat, and as others have noted, some of the plot is improbable. This would be a good book to pick up at the library if you can find it -- at my local library, there are fifty-five people on the waiting list for this book!
The fact that the author has an extensive web page, complete with book discussion, is a nice plus (the author's name . com).
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Summary: loved it
Review: Lovely coming-of-age story. Couldn't put it down. If you like, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' or 'A Tree Grows In Brooklyn', I think you'll like this one too. Wonderful imagery throughout the book.
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Summary: THE best book i have ever read
Review: I loved the secret life of bees, i couldn't put it down. I think this book changed my life and the way i look at things. It was so awesome, i felt like by the end of the book i was a part of their lives and i could relate to them very well. I would suggest this book to everyone. I can't wait to read sue monk kidd's other novels.
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Summary: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Review: Truely a masterpiece! This book not only kept me wondering, but it also touched a place in my heart that I didn't know was able to be reached by literature. Sue Monk Kidd did a wonderful job writing this story as though she was the little girl doing everything possible just to find out what her mother was really like. Throughout the book the girl had to deal with an abusive father,the blurred death of her mother,running away from home, fighting racism, and growing up all at the same time. Along with is understandable storyline and amazing plot, the story was incredibly interesting. The book was extremely hard to put down. I would recommend this book to anything who has a sense of adventure or just simply has children. (perferably women.)
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Summary: A pocketful of wisdom.
Review: For a first novel, Sue Monk Kidd has quite outdone herself. A daughter, desperate to find the truth behind her late mother's shadowed past, ends up discovering so much more. The main character Lily struggles to uncover a mystery that is wholly linked to her childhood. With the gentle guidance of a wonderfully unusual family of women (and a showering of divine intervention), she becomes the woman her mother would have always wanted her to be. It is a tale about devotion, struggle, racism, the conditions of love, the wisdom of life, and most of all the unbreakable courage of sisterhood.
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Summary: a virtual treasure
Review: I picked this book up at an airport store and then got so absorbed that the plane could have gone down and I'd still be reading to find out what became of Lily and the incredible surrogate family she finds in the bee keepers house. I was worried that the bee keeping theme would become too cliched, but the author manages the metaphor perfectly without overdoing it at all. The portraits of the south are so vivid that the book does evoke such classics at To Kill a Mockingbird -- in fact, Lily is just as scrappy and recourcefull as Scout. Unlike TKAM, there are few male heroes -- this is a book about women and their mothering capability. The writing is lyric throughout and the portrayal of the south spot on. It's hard to believe this is Kidd's first novel as she writes with an aura of experience that is hard to fabricate. An excellent read.
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