Rating: 
Summary: Great Read
Review: Wow. I just finished this book last night. This is a great story about love, racism, family, growing up, feminism, and faith. Basically everything that could be stuffed in. I think that the author really explores all of these issues in her diverse characters. Lily's journey to finding her niche really is touching and the almost-too-perfect way that things come together at the end nevertheless makes you feel really good inside. The simple storytelling style, detailed description of beekeeping, and the archetypal emotions and experiences however, make it seem very real and close to home.
Rating: 
Summary: It Will Keep You Interested
Review: "The Secret Life of Bees" doesn't blow you away with symbolism like "The Da Vinci Code" and it doesn't make you squirm in your seat with addiction like "My Fractured Life." "The Secret Life of Bees" is an old fashioned story. Think along the lines of "To Kill A Mocking Bird." Just because it doesn't capture you with graphic images or fast lane twists doesn't make it any less vital than WOW books like Da Vinci and Fracture Life. Bees will keep you interested, if not addicted, and fulfill you when you are done.
Rating: 
Summary: What a disappointment
Review: After having this book recommended to me so many times, I finally got it. What a disappointment! This coming of age novel doesn't even come close to the quality of the books it has been compared to -- say, Elizabeth Berg's Katy Nash series, Kay Gibbon's Ellen Foster, or Connie Mae Foweler's "Before Women Had Wings." It seems to me like maybe Kidd is trying too hard be that kind of writer. If so, she's widely missing the mark.
Rating:
Summary: Strong Women, Weak Plot
Review: What holds this novel up is the Southern Black women that the narrator, Lily, encounters during her travels to find the truth about her dead mother. Because of "Tiburon" scribbled on the back of a black Madonna picture, Lily and her black housekeeper set off for this unknown town after some trouble with the law. They finally encounter the "summer sisters", and eventually Lily learns about her mother and past. If it weren't for these strong older women that Lily mets, everything would crumble: Lily, her plans, and the novel itself. I would have been more intrigued and given this a five star rating if we learned more about August, May, and June.The setting and time make this novel workable: 1964 in the Atlantic south in the midst of the Civil Rights Era.
Rating:
Summary: Sappy and Full of Cliche's
Review: I simply cannot understand what anyone likes about this book. It reads like an after-school special and is so loaded with cliches that you'd think the author invented the "write by numbers" method. African Americans should be particularly nauseated by the stereotypes resurrected here. All the black women are named something goofy like Queenie or Sugar Mama. They all wear outrageously colorful clothes and big hats with feathers and fruit on them. Big surprise here...the white girl falls for the black boy.. which, gasp!, causes racial tension on the town. LIke all good southern dramas, someone is a little mentally off, but never violent or annoying to rest of the family. Of course, she comes to a tragic end. Who would have guessed??? In the end, everything tidies up neatly with marriages, father-daughter reconcilation and love, love, love all around. There wasn't an orignial though in the book. Very disappointing. I was going to give it one star, but I did learn a bit about bees which was interesting, so I threw in the extra star for educational value.
Rating:
Summary: Book for the Whole Family
Review: Perhaps not as much of a page-turner as "The Da Vinci Code" and not as flowery as "Middlesex," but a finely written book that the whole family can feel comfortable reading. Like "My Fractured Life," Sue Monk Kidd shows off a journalist's attention to detail with her descriptions and a soft touch for the pains of adolescents like in "Life of Pi." Not the fiery race on the edge of "My Fractured Life" or "Vernon God Little," but a lovely walk in the park or canoe down the river that left me totally at ease and at peace.
Rating:
Summary: You Can Judge This Book by Its Cover
Review: As an African American woman who grew up in a segregated, rural community I had my doubts about "The Secret Life of Bees" thus I just read it, though it was released several years ago. I was pleasantly surprised by the way Sue Monk Kidd handled both the characters and the topic. There is no predictability in "The Secret Life of Bees." This is a unique picture of an eclectic group of people living in an unusual time of flux and change in America. Just as there is a beautifully realized, sumptuous painting on the cover of the book, there is a simularly lush story contained within the covers. Americans, Black, White, Red, Yellow or Tan are individuals first and we don't require cookie-cutter treatment in works of fiction. I was drawn into the curious world of the Boatwright sisters and like the main character Lily, I didn't want to leave. I am a specialist in alternative beliefs, woman's spirituality, African traditional beliefs and African diasporic folklore. While for the most part I was completely unfamiliar with the rites, rituals, ceremonies and observances portrayed in "The Secret Life of Bees," I applaud Sue Monk Kidd for using her creative gift to make it all plausible. Africans all across the diaspora have creatively blended beliefs from organized religion, be it Islamic, Catholic, Protestant or even Jewish faith into what was retained from their villages in Africa. I found the curious blend of Gnostic Catholicism and Gullah traditions to be as creative and innovative as I know my people have been, all across the globe, throughout history. Another enjoyable feature of "The Secret Life of Bees" is that it is a book that works well as family reading. I have heartily recommended "The Secret Life of Bees" to my children, their friends and my husband--there aren't many books that I would feel comfortable recommending in this way. Sue Monk Kidd is a surprising, creative, gifted writer who brings life in the South, during the 60s into our collective consciousness, regardless of where we currently reside. I look forward to the film version of the book--it is so richly textured and sensual that it screams--film!
Rating:
Summary: The Secret Life of Bees
Review: This was a very good book. I read it a month or 2 ago and I already want to read it again!
Well, the story is about Lily Owens. She's a 14-year-old white girl living in South Carolina in 1964 with her abusive father, T-Ray. Her mother died when she was four and since Rosaleen, a black woman who's worked on Lily's father's peach farm for years, has been like a mother to her. One day Lily and Rosaleen walk to town so Rosaleen can register to vote. After three of the town's biggest racists insult Rosaleen, she spits on their shoes and ends up in jail, beaten and bruised. Lily decides to rescue her and they run away to Tiburon, SC. "Why Tiburon?" you ask. She found the name of the town on the back of a picture of the Virgin Mary her mother left her. Lily see's the same picture on a jar of honey in a store in Tiburon and goes to the place the honey comes from. It turns out to be the home of August, May and June Boatwright, three middle-aged black sisters who think honey can cure anything. The "Calendar sisters" put Lily and Rosaleen to work in their honey house where she meets Zach, a young, handsome black boy also working for the sisters.
Will Lily's father find them? Or will she stay with the sisters? Will she fall madly in love with Zach? You'll have to read the book to find out!
Rating: 
Summary: Well written but odd plot points distracted from main story
Review: I picked this book up on my wife's recommendation and I was able to see from the beginning what she liked about the book. Ms. Kidd's writing style draws you into the story immediately. Her strong and authentic voice for a young white girl in the south strikes a true chord and allows the reader to truly project themselves into the story. This despite the fact that I found the story to be lacking in suspense or drama. The portions of the story that did have dramatic elements were strong enough but very brief and not terribly essential to the story other than to make the main character take up an otherwise unlikely journey. I also felt that the symbolism of the bees was overplayed a bit. So while I was able to enjoy the book and greatly enjoyed the writing style, I believe the story should have been stronger. Some of the ritualistic aspects of the Black Madonna sisters seemed unlikely and frankly jarring to my suspension of disbelief. My recommendation is this book is a pleasant read but not a must read. If you go into the story with that understanding you will not be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: YA reading disguised as an adult book
Review: This book is really a young adult novel which is being peddled as adult fare. And it follows the same tired formula that we've all read a thousand times. The main character is an outsider, unpopular, shunned by the popular crowd. She is very smart, in fact, smarter than most adults. She observes everyone around her with a sense of dry humor. And she wants to be a writer. Now, how many stories have followed this plotline? And Kidd doesn't seem to know where to take it. Her rendition of race relations in 1964 South Carolina is a jumbled mess of views--and not very realiztic in most cases. Imagine any black woman with an ounce of sense spitting snuff on the shoes on the 3 worst racists in town. Come on, Sue, what were you thinking? We also have the same tired plot lines of the lost mother, the abandoned child, the mean Southern father--and of course, there has to be the interracial relationship. And amazing at how all of the plot lines are neatly tied up at the end. Kidd has real writing talent, and perhaps she should concentrate on writing young adult fiction. Or non-fiction.
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