The Secret Life of Bees

Rating:
Summary: A sensational read
Review: have made it a point of reading inspirational books which can help me have a positive outlook to life. Though it reads like a non-fictional memoir, "The Secret Life of Bees" even though it is fictitious, has been tremendously helpful to me as an inspirational book. It is brilliantly written with amazing details and beautiful settings. It showed the unique creativity of the author. This hard to put down book, is sure to capture your heart with its imagery.

Sue Monk Kidd does a brilliant job of laying out a storyline that is not only believable, but is interesting as well. I could not put this book down. Lily Owens will capture your heart. Despite the abuse from the hands of her father T. Ray, she turned out to be a survivor. Sharing her destiny with the beekeeping sisters, and their Black Madonna honey, she finally attains some emotional security in her life. May, one of the sisters is someone who inspires. This is a novel for young adults and adults, because at 14, Lily fights with the hazy memory of her dead mother whom she misses and longs for in rural South Carolina of 1964, where racial violence is inescapable. She finds solace in her surrogate mother - the family's black servant, Rosaleen, who later becomes a victim of racial hatred. It moved on to the escape of Lily and Rosaleen, the search for the identity of Lily's mother's identity and the quest for a sense of belonging in her life This journey led Lily and Rosaleen into the lives of three strange but alluring beekeepers who set Lily who helped Lily to grow up and be at peace with her family and its history.

The story is told through Lily's eyes, mouth, mind and heart, and as such it is deep, hilarious and inspiring. When we read about the beehive and honey-making, we get the sense that Lily has a deep desire for nurturance, owing to the absence of a mother in her life. The Secret Life of Bees will certainly strike a chord with any family.

I recommend : THE USURPER by Janvier Tisi, NIGHTMARES ECHO, THE JOY OF MOTHERHOOD, DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE

Rating:
Summary: cute read
Review: Interesting book, good for a quick enjoyable read. Don't expect to be blown away.

Rating:
Summary: Quick, satisfying read
Review: Read the story of Lily, a young girl trapped in the difficult situation of having a rough father and no mother in the turbulant Civil Rights era. When Lily's sole friend and housekeeper gets in trouble as she demostrates her newfound right to vote, she decides to run away and find a new life in Tiburon, South Carolina where she suspects she will find out more about her deceased mother.

The characters are somewhat different than convention but nonetheless interesting and endearing, and Lily's coming of age and the place in the world that she finally finds for herself is a quick, satisfying read.

Rating:
Summary: Do You See Color?
Review: Sue Monk Kidd is a highly respected author who has successfully illustrated her views to her readers.She clearly attempts to make a powerful statement about how a person's surroundings cannot define their beliefs. Here is a young girl, barely an adolescent, who is surrounded by prejudice and hatred, yet essentially does not see color. Lily discounts the opinions of those who place race and ethnicity as a priority in deciding who a person is. She, instead, believes that who you are lies within and cannot be defined by the color of your skin.
This, in itself, is a remarkable feat considering that I, in this day and age, cannot honestly say that I know anyone who does not see color. It's as simple as seeing someone on the street and acknowledging them as "a black man" or a "white woman". We all acknowledge race, ethnicity, and gender and associate it with stereotypes which we have been programmed to believe. Considering how far we have come in terms of technological and scientific advances since the time that this novel was written in 1964, this fact is unfortunate. We have, as a people, yet to conquer one of the few barriers which still stand. Sue Monk Kidd succeeds in reminding us that the problem and solution lie within ourselves.
Sue Monk Kidd accomplished her goal in producing a genuinely "good piece of literature". She made me put down her book and question not only the morality of society's standards, but also my own beliefs. She left me with the same question that I will leave with you: Do you see color?


Rating:
Summary: Great
Review: An amazing reading experience. "Secret Life of Bees" is one of the best books in the last 5 years. A joy to read.

Rating:
Summary: The tapestry of life
Review: Enjoy southern books and southern writers? I sure do. That's why I eventually found my way to SECRET LIFE OF BEES. I had been reading any and everything I could get my hands on-everything from Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD to the ubiquitous and charming CHILDREN'S CORNER of Jackson McCrae. BEES is such a good book. It encourages the reader to make lemonade out of the lemons they have been handed in life. It is a guide to living. Although it can be a fast read, I recommend that it is read slowly, so the reader can soak up the lessons that we all need to learn, but may be having a hard time doing so because we have so many fears in life. So many of us are afraid of letting down our protective shields that we just let life's lessons bounce right off of us. The author helps us realize that a person's skin color is just that--we are all just people no matter what color our skin may be. It takes us beyond color into acceptance, appreciation and love. It allows us to see people for who and what they are instead of just color, or lack of color.

Rating:
Summary: Captivating
Review: This book is so wonderful! I could not put it down. The story is engrossing and wonderfully written. If you like this book also try, A Northern Light By Jennifer Connelly.

Rating:
Summary: Hard lessons for a young girl!
Review: This is a great book that looks at a racial issue of Blacks versus Whites, and the troubles that Black people had in the early 60's, through the eyes of a young girl. While initially she is innocent and doesn't see the difference between colors of people, she learns some hard lessons that teach her otherwise.

The writing in this book is beautiful and the character Lily is fascinating. She is a wonderful person, who sees people for what they really are. The character of Rosaleen was a bit unbelievable for me. She went from being the mother figure in Lily's life, to being looked after by Lily.

This is still a wonderful book. Well worth picking up and reading.

Rating:
Summary: Hauntingly BEAUTIFUL
Review: I am IN LOVE with this book! Lily Owen, (who reminds me of the teenage girl in My Ishmael) whose earliest memory is a nightmare of love, abandonment and violent death, nevertheless holds her own while in a living nightmare of abuse from her father T. Ray. (Why T. Ray? Is it because the name fittingly sounds like T. Rex????)

And the bees in her bedroom -- buzzing and purring and comforting her as Lily lies awake - sometimes terrified of them, sometimes yearning for their presence, like a long-lost mother's hand on her brow......What Bee dance, what message do they have for her? Who is sending them to her....?

As a child, I was told the legend of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, Poland (purportedly painted by St. Luke; while painting the picture, Mary told him about the life of Jesus, which he wrote in his gospel).

My Nonna Lucia also told me about the (legend? reality?) ancient Madonna statue located at a church in Italy, holding a female Baby Jesus in her arms. I wonder if Sue Monk Kidd knew about this as well, when she wrote this book.

In any case, this book is wrapped up in, supported by, and set into glorious motion by a mountain of female strengths, by Lily's wisdom beyond her years ("was thinking of how much older fourteen had made me. In the space of a few hours I'd become forty..."), and her humor even while living in her abusive situation (and as an abused child myself who used humor to deflect some of the "bad stuff", I can find this depiction very believable). The legend of the Black Madonna, the whirlwind strengths and talents of the Calendar sisters, including May, who leaves the book in order for a mother to reappear, and Rosaleen, who imparts a wise, unpredictable yet solid strength interspersed with comic relief. The males in this book are either villains or Drones who relate to the Calendar sisters but who are sketchily portrayed (with the exception of Zach and to a lesser degree, T. Ray).

When Lily finds the answer at the end of her quest for her mother, it is not an end, nor is it a beginning, but a logical progression with surprises and lots ... lots of love, and lots more work for Lily to do now that she has found her real family.

And who exactly IS the Queen Bee in this wonderful novel?

Well... maybe that's for me to know, and for you to find out. Although ..... I'm still not EXACTLY sure who rightly deserves that title -- the Calendar Sisters? The "Daughters"? The Black Madonna?

This is a TERRIFIC book for a Book Group Discussion (men are also welcome to attend!)! Don't forget to bring the honey cakes.


Rating:
Summary: Try This Wonderful Book For Yourself
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? Find out for yourself. Read this wonderful book. In addition to The Secret Life of Bees, I also recommend an obscure little romance, an Amazon quick-pick, called The Losers Club by Richard Perez - strange and wonderful.