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Loading... The Secret Life of Beesby Sue Monk Kidd
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. I liked this way more than I would have predicted - I usually don't like southern gothic fiction but it's theme - finding mothers where you can resonates with me. Generosity, tolerance for difference, all the qualities I hope to eventually have. Open doors. Reminds me of a lecture I just attended by Gabor Mate who quoted a study of attatchment - rats who were deprived of adult rearing immediately after birth show obvious behavioural issues but if an adult parent is provided later in life at least some of those problems reverse. (  ) tuliene | Mar 6, 2010 |  Aside from a few moments of pleasent imagery, there was little about this book I enjoyed. I read it for English class in High school and can honestly say that I would never have touched it otherwise. The book has a sickly sweet tone to it that I found very hard to concentrate on. I will not be reading this or other books by Sue Monk Kidd again (  ) cat8864 | Mar 5, 2010 | A quick read, and an easy read, but not cheap or contrived. Yes, it is about bees, sort of, but not overly so. Bees are primarily used as a parallel for the hive of women at the story's center, who congregate at, yes, a beekeeping farm in South Carolina.Lily Owens is fourteen years old, white, and motherless. She's haunted by the possibility that she's responsible for her mother's death. When she and her housekeeper Rosaleen (who is black) get in trouble with the local racists, they beat feet out of town, meeting up with the honey-harvesting Boatwright sisters (who are also black).I only mention who's what color because it seems that Monk herself forgets from time to time in the book.The story of Lily's exile is told simply, which is all that much more remarkable as Lily comes across as a fully-realized person, and one just coming of age as well. Her heartache is palpable in every act, even when she's joyful the spectre of her mother hangs over the scene. While not being preachy, the story exudes the merits of the same alternate history of women we all read about in The Da Vinci Code, albeit truncated, simplified, and sweetened with provincial accents. If you want your little girl to grow into a true woman, how better to raise her than with the idea of the female as equally sacred as the male ideal?Should make for a pretty good movie... (  ) conformer | Feb 9, 2010 | I am currently in love with this book...of course I'm reading about 4 others at the same time, but this one is a standout. Told from the perspective of young girl forced to leave the abusive home of her father and hits the road with her "negro" maid Rosalee. The excerpts from insect/bee books at the beginning of each chapter actually make me wonder if I shouldn't read those too, those tidbits being so interesting. But that was just a rambling side note. The story is told during the Civil rights movement, and the 2 runaways are taken in by 3 black ladies, called the calendar sisters, as their parents named them for the months. The awakening that this child begins to have is intensely satisfying to read about. Her indignation at being judged for being a white is ironic and funny, considering the times, and her own new awareness that perhaps shes a little prejudiced herself, though this self awareness is uncomfortable for her.I love the writing, and will tell all when I'm done ( ) Kace | Jan 30, 2010 | Great story - easy read ( ) sbenne3 | Jan 28, 2010 | 
 Lily is a wonderfully petulant and self-absorbed adolescent, and Kidd deftly portrays her sense of injustice as it expands to accommodate broader social evils. At the same time, the political aspects of Lily's growth never threaten to overwhelm the personal.
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0142001740, Paperback)In Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, 14-year-old Lily Owen, neglected by her father and isolated on their South Carolina peach farm, spends hours imagining a blissful infancy when she was loved and nurtured by her mother, Deborah, whom she barely remembers. These consoling fantasies are her heart's answer to the family story that as a child, in unclear circumstances, Lily accidentally shot and killed her mother. All Lily has left of Deborah is a strange image of a Black Madonna, with the words "Tiburon, South Carolina" scrawled on the back. The search for a mother, and the need to mother oneself, are crucial elements in this well-written coming-of-age story set in the early 1960s against a background of racial violence and unrest. When Lily's beloved nanny, Rosaleen, manages to insult a group of angry white men on her way to register to vote and has to skip town, Lily takes the opportunity to go with her, fleeing to the only place she can think of--Tiburon, South Carolina--determined to find out more about her dead mother. Although the plot threads are too neatly trimmed, The Secret Life of Bees is a carefully crafted novel with an inspired depiction of character. The legend of the Black Madonna and the brave, kind, peculiar women who perpetuate Lily's story dominate the second half of the book, placing Kidd's debut novel squarely in the honored tradition of the Southern Gothic. --Regina Marler(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:58:13 -0500) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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