Rating: 
Summary: Okay, but doesn't live up to the hype
Review: I read this book based on all the rave reviews it was getting in the press, and although it's a decent read, I think it's way overrated. It can get downright sappy in places. I think Sue Monk Kidd is a gifted writer, but her work is better aimed at the young adult crowd.
Rating: 
Summary: Paradise Found
Review: One word comes to mind when I think of this novel: rich. The richness of the Southern language and settings that Ms. Kidd uses are true to those of us native to the South. This is the story of Lily, a young girl concerned with finding the truth about her mother. Is this truth what Lily feels in her heart or what her father tells her about her mother? Using the sparse clues left behind by her mother, Lily sets out to find where this truth lies. This leads her to Tiburon, South Carolina and a paradise full of beauty, love, and spirituality to which Lily has never before been exposed. I fell in love with this novel and wanted to be a part of this paradise Lily finds. In fact, it was hard to put this book down because I wanted to know more about the characters and their lives. I look forward to reading more from this author.
Rating:
Summary: Our Decade's "Color Purple"
Review: Everyone feels the need to compare books to what we've already read. I don't know if that is fair, an insult, or a compliment. It is what we all do though. If the comparisons to yesteryear are to be believed and "My Fractured Life" (Rikki Lee Travolta) is being considered this decade's "Catcher in the Rye" (JD Salinger) - a point I actually don't take issue with - then "Secret Life of Bees" (Sue Monk Kidd) should just as equally be considered this decade's "Color Purple" (Alice Walker). It is a coming of age story of a young girl who learns what it is to be a woman and what it is to be black (although in this case as a white girl in the care of blacks she is learning from the outside as opposed to in the Color Purple where it was a black girl learning herself). Like "My Fractured Life" and "Life of Pi", whether we call it our decades "Color Purple" or anything else, "Secret Life of Bees" is surely one our decade's classics.
Rating:
Summary: In true Memoir fashion
Review: Secret Life of Bees is a truly wonderful memoir that borderlines at times on making you almost believe that it is fictitious. A powerful look in to the life of little Lilly's world. This memoir has some of the similarilties to that of "NIGHTMARES ECHO" in that is it an honest reflection of past abuses and the journey to healing, it is powerful and understandable. You see the courage of what the author is telling you with lessons buried deep within the words of the book. I am truly impressed with Sue Monk Kidd's writing and will be looking forward to more.
Janice Freeman-avid memoir reader
Rating:
Summary: For What It¿s Worth¿
Review: For whatever my recommendation may be worth, I highly suggest putting "The Secret Life of Bees" on your TO DO list of books to read. With the exception of "The Da Vinci Code," "My Fractured Life," and "The Time Traveler's Wife" there aren't many books that I can name that come close to "The Secret Life of Bees" in terms of sheer ability to capture the reader from page one and hold on to the last page. That statement isn't made to knock other books. I read hundreds of books a year and enjoy many writers. Very rarely though can a book grab a hold from page one and carry that attention without ever wavering all the way to the end. "The Secret Life of Bees" does just that.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful!
Review: I loved this book from the first word. A girl with no mother, a black nanny, and an abusive father, who is searching for herself and the past she can't remember and her father won't talk about. She is brave and yet needs protecting at some points, which is where her old nanny comes in. They take a journey together, which helps her find out more about her mother. They end up in a home with other black women and see all kinds of personalities, but the one thing that brings all these women together is the 'black Madonna' which they reveer, only to later find out that this picture of the Madonna is just a label on a jar of honey. They find strength within themselves and each other, supporting each other all the way. This is a great book about overcoming the pain life can deal you, and the search for self and faith. Highly recommended!
Rating:
Summary: Strong writing, but tired cliches
Review: I confess to being a little hesitant going into this book. It is, after all, that most cliched and irritating of literati faves: a coming-of-age story set in the American South. Lily, a motherless 14-year-old girl lives with her bigoted abusive father on a peach farm in South Carolina. Her goals involve befriending black people and finding information about her long-dead mother. Just summarizing this thing inspires the eye-rolling. But the book does have some saving graces. First, the writing is incredible. Voice, pacing, transition, and word choice are all stellar. On a micro level, Ms Kidd is magnificent. Some of her macro judgements (plot, theme, some characterizations), however, are a little shaky. Despite the predictability of telling such a tale from the young girl's point of view, I thought the decision worked here. Lily herself is absolutely charming. She is completely honest with the reader, often to her own detriment. If the story had been written from anyone else's point of view, Lily would have been pathetic: abused motherless little girl who harbors way too much guilt and angst. This book could have gone off the deep end real easy. But Lily is a survivor and an optimist, and her naive faith drives this book. Mostly. As you might expect in a story of this sort, there was plenty of menstruation angst, boyfriend nervousness, junior cheerleader tryouts, and all that stuff. There was also an abusive father (cliche, I know, but at least he wasn't a drunk!). All of these things were painful to read. However, something that made this book somewhat fresh was the strong theme of race. For a nice chunk of the book, Lily is on the lam with her black housekeeper Rosaleen, traipsing through 1960s South Carolina after busting Rosaleen out of jail for offending some white guys. I was struck with the parallels to Mark Twain, only here the adventure was overlaid -- sometimes heavy handedly -- with a female sensibility. Nice. The race angle also provided a fresh spin on the boyfriend angst. Lily is, of course, attracted to a beautiful, strong, talented, ambitious black boy named Zach. Why Zach even bothers with a chinless (her description, not mine), whiny kid like Lily is anyone's guess. Maybe to drive the plot forward? Who knows. I very much hope that the author wasn't assuming that all black men are attracted by default to white women. That's a bunch of bunk, and it bugs me that it might even be a subtext here. Other than that potential squick -- and the stereotypic characterization of Rosaleen as a fat, loving, black housekeeper with a heart of gold -- race was handled fairly deftly. The characterization of August and her sisters as educated, interesting folks who just happen to be black was nice. The episodes concerning Rosaleen and her quest to register to vote were compelling. Embedded feminism -- again, almost a default in this genre -- was also handled well in this book. Recurrent natural images of moonlight and water were beautiful and deliciously pagan. In fact, the author managed to create a new religion just for girls: part Catholicism, part goddess-centered paganism, part ancestor worship. The religious aspect was interesting, but not as compelling as the author wanted it to be. I could tell she was trying to impress me with the notion of Mary as a goddess protector. But I didn't buy it. I could tell that Lily bought it, though, and that was enough to keep me reading. The whole book was a quest for independence, I think. To find confidence and drive within, without always needing that crutch of others' acceptance. The book almost achieved that. But it gave in at the last, to deliver a happy ending. Lily comes to terms with her own guilt (yay) and does stand up to her father (again, yay), but she also retreats to complete dependence when she decides to stay with August and Rosaleen and the Daughters of Mary. This dependence isn't a horrible thing: she is, after all, 14. I finished the book with the generous expectation that Lily would grow up and eventually achieve self-sufficiency. She showed some signs. Now that I think about it, much of the book was cliche. But it was also a good read. The strength of the narrative voice saved it, and it had some absolutely gut-twisting parts. The line beginning "She was all I ever wanted" .... well, that was about as painful and breathtaking and unexpected as having your airbag deploy.
Rating: 
Summary: Overrated
Review: I wish I could be more positive about this book, but I found the characters to be one dimensional and unbelievable--a little too much honey.
Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Literary Accomplishment
Review: One of the best fiction books I've read. SECRET LIFE OF BEES is life changing in an odd way, which is odd in and of itself for a fiction book. NIGHT and MY FRACTURED LIFE capture that sense due to the biographical voice that emulate life, SECRET LIFE OF BEES manages the life changing sense due to the evolution of the character. We don't mistake SECRET LIFE OF BEES for anything but fiction, but it is powerful fiction that addresses issues of race, gender, and becoming an adult. Very powerful.
Rating:
Summary: If you're not quite sad enough, read this
Review: I am rating "The Secret Life of Bees" right down the middle at a three because there are equal parts good and bad to this book. I am tempted to rate it worse because most of the bad parts are at the end, so I am now feeling rather disappointed in it, but if I had written a mid-book review, my tone would be much better. Since over 500 other reviews have already been written for this book, I won't get too deep into the plot details. Basically, the story is first person narrative told by a fourteen-year-old girl, Lilly, who grew up in South Carolina in the 1960's. Her mother died when she was four years old and left her with an angry, abusive father who is incapable of showing love. In short, Lilly feels alone, unloved, and hollow inside because she never got to know her mother. Skipping forward in the story, Lilly and her nanny-type figure, Rosaleen, run away from home and end up living in Tiburon, South Carolina. To say that the series of circumstances leading them to this house is unbelievable would be a gross understatement. This house is owned by three sisters, and the eldest sister, August, turns out to be the maternal figure for which Lilly has spent her life searching. Through several other series of totally unbelievable circumstances, we find out that August also was a maid for Lilly's mother when her mother was a child. There are more and more examples of circumstances like this upon which the story is built, and I am not going to go into them here. I will let you decide whether you want to discover them for yourself. What I will tell you about the "Bee" story is that a lot of positives do exist buried within the eye-ball roll inducing hooks that you are forced to swallow. One of the real strengths is the development of the character of Lilly through parts of the book. I found myself really caring about her and her circumstances through many sections, even though the feeling was not consistently carried throughout the book. I really got wrapped up into her story in the opening chapters and felt emotionally involved. But the storyline just demanded too much of my imagination. After some point in time, the plot became overly predictable, and several, several blatant attempts to tug at my heart strings began to, quite frankly, nauseate me. There is a great base of characters and a beginning to a great story found in this book. But I found myself becoming more and more desperate for the ending as the story trudged forward so that the emotional wringer would finally spit me out. "The Secret Life of Bees" started strong but lost its way. And for that reason, I give it a 3.
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