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Summary: A Wonderful Book About the Power of Women
Review: This is a great book, and I would recommend it to anyone, particularly anyone female. Sue Monk Kidd creates a world of real people who you can truly care about, and reminds us that there is strength within us all. I loved reading it and hated when it was over.
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Summary: Seeking Memories of a Mother
Review: In" The Secret Life of Bees,"we meet Lily Owens and her abusive father, T.Ray . This story is set in the South in 1964. Lily has a dark memory of her mother's death and follows a clue she found among her mother's possessions. The clue-a picture of a Black Modonna. We follow Lily's quest for understanding and acceptance in this very moving,well-written novel.
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Summary: Try to overlook the stereotypes
Review: We read this book as a faculty at the school where I teach. I identified a lot with Lily's search for identity as I, too, lost a parent at a young age. At times, the author made Lily's sense of longing jump off the page for the reader, and I actually had to put it down (too emotional for me). That being said, I am concerned about the stereotypes of black women that may have been put forth in this book. I kept picturing Mammy from Gone With the Wind whenever Rosaleen was being mentioned. I also worry as a history teacher that the civil rights' aspect wasn't covered carefully enough. (For example, as a black man, Zach would have known better than to drive into town with a white girl). Overall, a great book- extremely uplifting and empowering.
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Summary: The best book I have ever read!
Review: I cannot stress to anyone enough on what an excellent book this was to read. I am a casual reader, taking my time to enjoy the book,however, this book just swept me away and I just couldn't put it down! It is not only spiritual but emotionally fullfilling! I LOVED it and have recommended it to everyone I know!
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Summary: Realistic Characters
Review: Lily, the daughter of an abusive peach farmer, runs off with her Nanny, Rosaleen, after hearing something very disturbing about her deceased mother. With little idea on where to run to, Lily decides to go to the town that her mother had written on the back of a picture of a black Mary. This idea leads her to the answers of her biggest life questions.What makes this book so great is how realistic the characters are. Susan Monk Kidd does a beautiful job of showing the various and complex sides of each characters personality so the reader really feels like s/he has met these characters by the end. All of the characters actions throughout the book are realistic, and the dialogue is great. Definitely a fun, quick summer read.
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Summary: A Feat of Narration
Review: Not one of my favorite reads this year, but I think this book was well-written for what it is. Many readers seem to overlook the fact that this story is delivered by a very young narrator. That in itself is a creative challenge--to be true to the story, the author can't use a single word that's outside of Lily's vocabulary--or concept of the world around her that's beyond her experience. That's not easy to do, and I think the author pulls it off here.
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Summary: WOW! Did I ever HATE this book!?
Review: Where was the plot?! Where were the people?! Maybe they were stuck somewhere in the muddle of hundreds of painstakingly constructed one-sentence poems and tiresome, unoriginal little lectures on racism, how many words there are in the English language for "love" (one - for anyone out there who could possibly NOT know that already!), sisterhood, bees; but who could care? This book is self-conscious, pretentious, boring, sophomoric, empty, sticky-sweet.
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Summary: So beautifully written
Review: Lily Owens finds refuge with the Boatwright sisters in a pink house with a black madonna holding court in the living room. All the sisters are named after summer months. June, the musician, is bitter after being jilted. May, sensitive to all the pain in the world writes down painful incidents and inserts the bits of paper into a wailing wall to stave off insanity. August, stout, confident, sympathetic and incredibly wise and spiritual, has bee hives which supply Tiburon, South Carolina with honey and candles. Lily Owens and her nanny flee to Tiburon to escape legal troubles and find solace, acceptance, and kindness. Lily talks to herself throughout the book with a common sense approach to surviving life, without any hint of feeling a victim. Through the Boatwright sisters, she finds her past and the wisdom to survive the future.
This is a gem of a book; well written, funny, sad, enlightening for those who missed the civil rights division in the 1960's. I want to visit the house, the sisters, the "Daughters", and feel the hum of the bees for myself.
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Summary: My praise knows no bounds
Review: I read this book for school, so going into it i had low expectations of its quality. After about the first 100 pages my thoughts against the book were completely demolished. I hate to say it, but when categorizing the book, it would probably be more a drama, leaning toward chick-flick-dom. This is only because Lily's life is based on the power of emotions and how strongly they have been engraved into her, etched since she was a baby. Though it is a more emotional book, it is not BOGGED down by emotion. There are subtle mentions of characters outside of Lily's emotions, while Lily basically dictates her life through her emotions to the reader. Lily relies heavily on metaphor to communicate what she is thinking and the workings of the mind of a nine year old (maybe wrong on age, eh), given what Lily has been through, probably because she is too young and doesn't know how to express her emotions through words so she relates them to nature. The pace of the book is very consistent and very comfortable, never flying from event to event (except for the last 70 pages or so, when the major events that seem to tie loose ends fly by) and always giving enough for the event and the reactions from the central characters before sliding in another factor that helps bring on the next proceeding event. I loved the writing style, almost thinking as if Kidd had written this in the 60s because the dialogue and the thoughts are so crisp and right - on for the mindset of the characters in that time period in the South (Tiburon, South Carolina). To fully understand the emotional spectrum of this novel, you need to be able to pick up on subtle slip-ins. It seems that they will be talking about one thing and then, for some reason, a philosophical statement relating to bees/beekeeping will appear. DONT DISCARD THESE. If you don't write them down and all the ideas that pop up here and there, you will totally be blindsided by some of the events in the end and why Kidd put them there. Plus, the excerpts from actually beekeeping books at the beginning of each chapter: after reading the chapter and then reading those little excerpts over, you figure that they aren't just comments, but metaphorical overviews of ALL the events in that particular chapter, which suggests that the adventures of Lily, Rosaleen, the Boatwrights, etc. were all carefully constructed to the life/responsibilities of a bee and the respect and devotion of the beekeeper. Sue Monk Kidd must've done a lot of research to write this book. And it paid off, to say the very least.
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Summary: Wonderful writing
Review: This is the story of Lily. Lily is a young girl from South Carolina who has an oppressive, overbearing, violent father named T. Ray. Mom [Deborah] died in a tragic accident and Lily is raised by Rosaleen. Rosaleen commits a crime and is jailed and then hospitalized. Lily 'breaks her out' and Lily and Rosaleen go on the lamb. The story revolves around Lily's experiences as she thinks about her unlawful act, the death of her mother, her relationships with her new friends, racial equality, sexual maturity and southern justice. So well written, so well told. The only reason I gave this book 4 stars was my struggle through the middle section. Author Sue Monk Kidd seemed to lose her focus after about 150 pages but got it back as the book came to climax. Certainly worth reading, I look forward to Ms. Kidds next book.
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