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Summary: The Secret Life of Bees
Review: A delightful read! The touching story of a pre-teen girl desparately seeking some affection which she finds in an unexpected place. The blurb in the book is somewhat off setting and not a real enticement to read this book. Our book discussion group read this last month and evryone raved about it.
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Summary: The Secret Life of Bees
Review: Great story filled with wonderful characters.
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Summary: Not Only For Adults
Review: I picked up this book only because it was always lying around the house(my mother buys books than it takes her about a year to finish them), and wow I am glad this was the book that I choose. I am a sixteen year old trying to cope with the death of my older brother four years ago and while Lily was dealing with a very different loss in this book the realizations that she came to about life, death, and family really affected me. Not only is this a book about family for a more mature audience I think that this is a great book for anyone my age who really wants a good read about the life and trials of someone their own age.
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Summary: great book club selection
Review: If you are looking for a wonderful new book with strong characters and a narrator's strong voice, this is it. The discussion guide at the end was helpful for our book club discussion. I recommend this to female readers of all ages!
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Summary: Read in a day...
Review: And I NEVER can finish a book in a day, but this one just flew by! I just lost all sense of time. The characters are so wonderful and well realized. Their surroundings are made so real with Kidd's terrific prose. Like the other reviews, I want to know what happened to them all - especially Lily and Zach. Highly recommended!!
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Summary: I miss them!
Review: I loved this book! I couldn't put it down! Now that I'm done I miss the characters.
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Summary: Bee Happy
Review: This book "fed my soul"--it is certainly refreshing to read a book that just makes you feel good all over!! The writer is plain talking, writes with added humor and great sensitivity and with an easy to read straight forward approach. I personally feel that it's a book that would make a great gift to almost anyone---it's delightful! Everyone would "get it"...unlike other books that ramble on and are filled with "not needed" sex scenes. Leaving something to the imagination is wonderful!! (and I'm no prude! Sue Kidd needs to do more of this and soon!! It's the best read I've had in some time. Hat's off to the author!!
Rating: 
Summary: The Secret Life of Bees.
Review: I enjoyed this book immensely. It was a simple story
about several different subjects. Which were handled
in language of a young girl trying to find love. With
a little bit of religious faith. I really liked
Lily alot. I also liked the characters of the men in
the story.
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Summary: A Book for the Heart
Review: The Secret Life of Bees
By Sue Monk KiddLily Melissa Owens is a 14-year-old white girl growing up in a peach infested County. Her abusing father T. Ray turns all her love and doting against her by punishing and making her kneel on grits, mutilating her knee caps, for the smallest things. Lily snaps and runs away with her black housekeeper Rosaleen. The setting of the story is very much the South Carolina, known for its segregation and violent white policeman.
When, Lily runs away to Tiburon, SC, the mysterious location written on the back of the only photo of her deceased mother, she finds the love she wanted for so long from the least likely person. Lily dreams up a world of integrated and loving lifestyles between both black and white people when she realizes what love can be received when given. Her snuff spitting nanny (per say) is taken in by the lovely Boatwright family while Lily is only accepted by August Boatwright, the oldest of the three sisters. June, a husband-seeking woman, looses herself in the dead world she takes as her occupation (she plays the cello for deceased people). May, the youngest of the three, is known for her temper tantrums as she has difficulty in differentiating between her sorrows and others, the remedy of this mental problem is the Wailing Wall, located outside the Boatwright home where she writes down her thoughts and sticks them in the crevices of the sorrowful hedge that keeps May in high spirits.
The Secret Life of Bees, the title both pulled me towards the book and also made it more interesting. The Boatwright family is a group of beekeepers, who sell "Black Madonna" honey. The picture of the black Mary is one of the small souvenirs that Lily's mother left behind. This black Madonna pulls Lily to the home of the Boatwright starting the tale of tales. August teaches Lily how to work with the bees and live with them in harmony. Most people believe that bees are horrid, painful creatures but to the Boatwrights they are the beginning and generation of life, August helps Lily by changing her prospect of bees and life.
Although the Boatwright family doesn't believe the stories of a dead father and an aunt located in Alexandria, their love and giving towards the young girl and older black woman is definitely a life-changing event. This book is one of the best fiction books I have ever read; Kidd is a great a writer and I hope for other great novels to come. I totally believe that both teens and adults should read this novel, as it is exciting, sad and full of emotional roller coaster rides that make life as it is.
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Summary: Cliched
Review: Haven't I read this book before? No? Well, then it just feels that way. The Secret Life of Bees is another Civil Rights era coming of age story. Here it tells of how a girl on the cusp of becoming a 'woman' is taken better care of, and is better nurtured, by black women than she is by her white father. It is a book that furthers stereotypes while purporting to expose them. It left me feeling disturbed -- and not in a good way.
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