Rating: 
Summary: Beautifully written, but too feminist for me!
Review: Passages of this novel are simply poetic in their beauty. It was a joy to allow the imagery and personality of the prose to wash over and sink in as I read. The story is interesting and involving, even for a middle-aged male like I am. However, why do so many female writers seem to feel it necessary to create such unbalanced stories? There's not a single positive adult male in the book. Yes, there are minor male characters--the lawyer, June's boyfriend--but such minor personalities cannot compete with the hateful T. Ray and the racists in both towns. Meanwhile, all the women are flawless in their character. So June is hesitant about accepting two more into her household, she eventually comes around. I wish a talented writer such as Ms Kidd obviously is would turn those talents to presenting more balanced views of the world.
Rating: 
Summary: What a great surprise
Review: This book was chosen as our book club book this month. I didn't think it sounded real good from the back cover description, but I couldn't put it down. I laughed and cried as I read this book. I could see this 14 year old girl as she did these things, learned about herself and her mother, and fell in love for the first time. It was a true surprise to me.
Rating: 
Summary: Simply written, nice book
Review: All the hype about this book made me go to the library to find this book and devour it, and I must say the first 150 pages were quite enjoyable. It is the story about a southern girl who supposedly accidentally shot her mother when she was four years old, and she must live with her mean father T. Ray. She calls him T. Ray because he was never much of a father to her, making her kneel on grits as a punishment. Rosaleen is a black housekeeper who is basically the girl's second mother. She knows that Rosaleen loves her even though she has a tough shell around her warmness inside. Rosaleen brings the girl to town one day when she goes to register to vote and spits snuff juice on the three most infamous racists in town, ending up beat up and in jail. The girl gets her out of jail and bring along some of her belongings to run away, including a picture of the Black Madonna plastered onto wood and a photo of her mother. They meet the calander girls, whose label looks exactly like the black madonna. The girl assumes that the calander girls (called so because they are named May, June, and August) must have known her mother.The book drags a bit in the middle and towards the end, so I took away one star. It's not a bad book- it just isn't as good as I thought it would be. Many of the occurences in the books are not possible and the characters are flat and stereotypical. Worth a read if you are out on the beach and want to read something that won't take much thinking (that's not a BAD thing!).
Rating:
Summary: Don't Wait To Read This Book Any Longer!
Review: Sue Monk Kidd, like young Lily a daughter of the South, is perhaps best known for her memoir The Dance of the Dissident Daughter. In this, her first novel, she's avoided those themes heretofore apparently part and parcel of southern literature - a noble family fallen on hard times, a hereditary streak of madness; all so essential to the work of a Conroy or a Faulkner. Kidd instead concentrates on a single facet of the American South: learning to gauge the boundary between races. Kidd has painted a little corner of the South, where life among "the coloreds" is seen through the eyes of a young white girl. Casual racism is imputed to all but a few whites, including Lily herself. The greatest truth that Lily learns from the bees is that without a queen, the hive will die. Without a mother - her own queen - Lily is dying inside, and she cannot come alive until she finds her new queen in Tiburon. We watch as Lily comes of age, learning hard lessons and harder truths. We watch as she learns the truth that so few of her time and place seemed to know; the truth that it is friendship and caring and love that bind people together, not the color of their skin. The world was such a different place in 1964, a world where schools, swimming pools, drinking fountains - indeed, everything - were segregated. It is such a different place today, but not so different as it could be; not so different as it should be. We're left to wonder, whatever happened to the freckle-faced girl who did so much growing up that summer? Did she go on to become the writer she wanted to be? Did she finally learn how to live, and how to love? Make this book a must-read! Other Amazon quick-picks I recommend (and hope you support) are THE LOSERS CLUB by Richard Perez, and WILL@EPICQWEST.COM by Tom Grimes
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: One of my favorite books. As many reviewers have noted, the story is very touching. It is also very funny. Lily's descriptions of events are downright hilarious. When I finished, I was so sad to leave everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Makes You Feel Warm
Review: A story that is both heartwarming and heartbreaking. I was amazed by how much I fell in love with this book. The writing is unique. The story just wraps you up like a blanket and warms you. I have not loved a book so much since My Fractured Life and Life of Pi.
Rating:
Summary: Secret Life of Bees
Review: It is a charming book. I love this book. Some parts are sad, and some are happy. I couldn't put this book down. I wanted to keep on reading and see what would happen next. I would defintly recoment this book to anyone.
Not only is this a book, it also teaches you some things about honey. I know it is sweet, but i didn't know that it is also medicine.
It is wonderful that Kidd uses bees in the book. Sue Monk Kidd has a wonderful writing style. You can tell that she has really thought about her book and put alot of thought into it. When she describes the rituals of what the sister do, it feels like you are in the middle of the scene. It feels great.
This was a good book and maybe someday when I have time, I will read it again and again
Rating:
Summary: The bond between mothers and daughters
Review: I really enjoyed this book, not only did it provide a lot of insight as to what life was like in the 60s, and race relations back then but it also told the story of a young girl growing up with an abusive father and learning what having a mother really means. She learns to understand that people are more than just the color of their skin and that the connection between mothers and daughters is a bond that even death cannot break. Lily provides us with a great lesson, and one that i definitley enjoyed learning.
Rating:
Summary: Through a child's eyes
Review: Brilliant and poignant look at a child, through the childs eyes at a life filled with twist and turns. You share with little Lilly the maternal loss, betrayal and guilt that she has been dealt in her life. you also witness the beautiful writing of Sue Monk Kidd. Though this book at times is a bit slow, and the words used are at times huge- the over all book is explosive, hence the 5 stars. I highly recommend this book. Also recommended: Nightmares Echo, Running With Scissors, The Only Girl In The Car,Bastard Out Of Carolina.(...)
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Understand the lure of this book
Review: After reading this book, or should I say, trying to read it, I am baffled at its appeal. Monk is a very good writer, but the book is riddled with ridiculous stereotypes characters, no plot, silly "twists" and an ending suitable for 6th grade literature. Monk's idea of race relations in 1964 South Carolina is pure fantasy--would a black woman really spit on the shoes of the three worst racists in town? Would a black teen drive a white girl around in his car, in a small Southern town--and no one notices? Also very peculiar about this book is how no one seems to have any family or friends. Lily and her father T. Ray appear to live in a world all their own. There are no grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins--kinda strange for an old southern family. T. Ray has no friends, doesn't date, has not looked at another woman since Lily's mother died? Even Zach, the handsome and bright black teen who Lily meets when she runs away to live with the Calendar sisters. Doesn't he have any family or friends? Surely a boy that good looking, intelligent, witty, and nice would have girls running after him by the dozen. But yet, he seems to have no family, no friends, no one except Lily and the Calendar women. Who does he live with? The middle of the book, which just rambles on and fills space while we wait for the big climax--to find out the relationship between August and Lily's mother--literally put me to sleep. Nothing happens. Just tired and stupid cliches, stereotyped eccentric black southern women, and so on. Anyway, this would have done well as a short story--about 10,000 words. Because there is nothing more to the story. This is a book in dire need of a good editor.
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