Rating: 
Summary: An Exquisite Debut
Review: Every once in a while something comes along that demands your attention, be it a piece of music, a painting, or maybe something as simple as a brilliant sunset. "Bee Season" is one of those things. Myla Goldberg has a gift, like Joyce Carol Oats of conveying great depths of emotion with the sparsest of words. The story of little Eliza Naumann, a very ordinary girl who discovers an extraordinary gift in the spelling of words, becomes a painful journey of self discovery for her entire family. The first third of the novel manages to build an ample amount of suspense as Eliza moves from one spelling bee victory to the next. Her subsequent winnings color the rest of the novel with her father Saul and brother Aaron each making choices that could change their lives. My only shortcoming with the novel was my own lack of knowledge with the Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism. Much of what happens in the second half of the book revolves around this subject and had I known a little bit more about it I would've been even more involved than I already was. I'll anxiously await her follow up. Hopefully this is the start of a long literary careery
Rating: 
Summary: States of Being in Bee Season
Review: We are introduced at the start of the novel to a spunky and intelligent young woman. Her efforts at mastering the art of spelling become a foil upon which her entire family dysfunction is played out. The impossible task of learning to spell every word in the English language becomes a parallel to the father's blindness to his wife and son's intense personal struggles. The creative genius in the novel lies in its recurrent parallelisms. Each character is searching for something perfect. The mother's need for perfectamundo as demonstrated in her kleptomania is only made more tragic by her husband's failure to know her at all. The son's spiritual quest is at times comic and sad. He too is seeking a connection with his father which is unattainable. Ultimately, the one who understands that in order to "be" she needs to control the experience of the "bee" is the fiesty and very likeable protagonist. I whole heartedly recommend this very enjoyable and readable novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Spelling as Meditation
Review: Being a high school student whose grade-school glory was the spelling bee, I was intrigued into buying this book by its apparent subject matter. Eliza's early description of spelling as something like a movie theatre in her mind reminded me of my own visualizations on the stage. Once I became immersed in the book, I desperately wanted Eliza to win her bees, as if it would make my fifth place finish in the state bee validated somehow (for those who are wondering, I got out on "circinate" -- it means to encircle -- by one letter. I knew every word after it too).My main interest in the book is petered out, however, somewhere in the middle. At that point, my fixation on Eliza traveled to her mother, Miriam, and her world of Perfectimundo, and then to Aaron, her brother, and his religious conversion. I never became too interested in Saul, but perhaps that is because he was the most normal in the family. The characters' constructions are interesting, but they all seem to have a certain fragility that keeps them from being fully formed. It's as if a sculptor had to settle for his masterpiece to be sitting rather than standing because the top of the stone is too heavy to be supported by a mere pair of legs. Likewise, Goldberg's story doesn't quite allow any of the characters to stand on their own. They are too connected to act on their own, and too distant to act together. All of these characters are sitting sculptures, none of them able to stand quite on their own two feet, and none of them able to support each other.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing writing, but the story is very dark.
Review: I'm in awe of Goldberg, for having the mind to conjure this story. But I didn't enjoy reading this book, and enjoyment is my number-one goal in reading any novel. The story gets darker and darker, and probably because of that, it seemed a bit long. But it is certainly original and thought-provoking, and the scenes are all sharply drawn.
Rating: 
Summary: Vastly overpraised
Review: I cannot believe that so many people loved this book. To me it is a case of "The Emperor's New Clothes." Who could care about any of these characters with the exception of Eliza? What a lot of boring writing about mysticism and transcendence. I struggled to finish it because the book has been so well reviewed. I need characters who are real flesh and blood. I need a story worth pursuing. I need ideas that resonate. I see very little of any of that in this boring novel.
Rating:
Summary: The fabric of families
Review: This first novel examines the fabric that holds a family together, as well insulates the family members from each other. The center of Naumann family is the Saul, the vibrant father who is the guitar-strumming cantor at the local synagogue. He runs the household, in both literal and figurative senses. His lawyer wife Miriam is rarely around, and thus Saul takes care of the chores, which he enjoys, and provides strong encouragement to his children, who live to please him. Aaron, the older child, is the apple of his father's eye. He learned the Jewish prayers as a small child; by the time of his bar mitzvah (his crowning glory) he could lead the entire service. He and Saul enjoy a special relationship, and spend every evening practicing guitar. When fifth-grader Eliza wins the spelling bee at school, everyone is surprised (particularly Eliza). She had missed the cut for gifted and talented status in the second grade, and spent her afternoons watching TV reruns and after-school specials. When Saul begins to appreciate Eliza's enormous gift, he realizes she may have the tools to reach his lifelong dream. Saul's new interest in Eliza comes at the expense of Aaron, who seeks other ways to be appreciated and to belong. Miriam's obsessive tendencies become increasingly reflected in the behavior of her children. This novel is very skillfully rendered with an omniscient viewpoint that allows the reader insight into all characters, even within the space of a single paragraph. This is particularly important for the Naumann family, where many important things remain unsaid.
Rating:
Summary: don't waste your time
Review: It was one of the dumnest books I have ever read. Everyone in the book is disfunctional and that topic is never resolved. Please don't waste your time!
Rating:
Summary: Good first effort
Review: There's so much to enjoy on the surface of Bee Season that I really wish I could have given it a better rating. The main character is interesting and likable and the reader often finds him/herself drawn deep into her thoughts. Recollections of childhood images and actions are often right on target. There are some wonderfully written passages that just sweep you along in their language and imagery. And the overall vision--characters in search of order/revelation holds the work tightly together in terms of theme and imagery. Maybe too tightly. Too often I found myself thinking that like her characters, Goldberg had a hard time letting go of her own desire for a patterned order. Scenes, dialogue, plot points sometimes seemed to have been created simply to fit within or draw attention to the larger structure rather than as natural outhgrowths of the characters and their actions--the author's hand a bit too visible as it connected the dots and filled in the outline. I also wish she had let her characters develop a bit more slowly into their newer selves rather than rushing through some of the changes, as well as broadened some of their characterization. That said, as I mentioned earlier, there's a lot to enjoy in here. You may not find yourself eagerly turning pages or trying to finish it in a single sitting, but you will find yourself rereading passages here and there so as to spend more time with such good writing. One expects unevenness in a first novel and this is no exception, but much of it bodes well for the next--I'll look forward to reading it.
Rating:
Summary: This first novel rings the bell!
Review: A Jewish family of seekers, all searching for G-d and perfection, each in his or her own way. Surprising and rich in detail and humor, ringing true. Excellent read. Engrossing and enriching.
Rating:
Summary: G-r-i-m, Grim.
Review: This is a beautifully written novel. However, when I finished it, I asked myself, How could a story of four people seeking transcendence be so throroughly depressing? Perhaps because they sought the divine everywhere except in the love they shared for each other. As portrayed in this book, personal communion with a higher power is a toxic pasttime. A riveting read, deserving of a high rating. But one that left me feeling a tad sick.
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