The Honey Thief

This book was anti-climactic. There was no major storyline, nothing really happened, and then it just ended. The characters felt one dimensional and the book left me with questions about all of them. I did not like this book at all. ( )

A mom and her daughter move to the country to avert the troubled path the daughter has begun to travel. There, the daughter is befriended by a beekeeper. Some disconcerting and seemingly unnecessary scenes. ( )

A very good read with complexities that kept me wondering about this unusual girl, her widowed mother, and the events that brought them to move to a new town. This story was authentic, sometimes haunting, and always enjoyable.

Graver did an excellent job at unraveling the mystery behind the death of 11 year-old Eva's father, and it was both shocking and believable. Graver writes with a quietness that I totally enjoyed. A lovely novel that I would recommend. ( )

The Honey Thief presents a coming of age story of a girl, Eva, on the cusp of adolescence who has recently moved to the New York countryside from the city, in a desperate attempt by her widowed mother to escape a troubling past. The immediate impetus for the move is Eva's series of compulsive thefts. Her mother, Miriam, moves Eva out of the city in an attempt to stop the behavior. For Miriam Eva stealing is much more troubling than just adolescent misbehavior. Why that is is related throughout the book in a series of flashbacks, that tell the story of Eva's parents early relationship and their marriage, before Eva's father's death, several years after her birth. Yet, the country does little to help Eva, and, if anything, her problems worsen. The one mitigating factor for Eva seems to be her introduction to a local beekeeper, who invites Eva to watch and learn about his bees. But through a series of chance encounters the one stable and satisfying part of Eva's life will be endangered too.

Eva's story is an interesting one, and the relationship she develops with Burl the beekeeper is an interesting and nuanced one that Graver develops with skill. Ultimately I found the end of this book much less satisfying than the first 3/4 of the text. The ending was a surprise, but unsatisfying. It's difficult to explain why without giving away the ending, but suffice it to say that I found there to be little resolution for the most sympathetic and interesting character in the book. But up until the end the rest of the text was engaging, full of complicated characters and problems. Eva's family is one in which all members are burdened, both by the past and by illness, and much of Eva and Miriam's tell is really an attempt to deal with these problems. Graver is a good writer, I simply wished she'd handled the ending with more complexity. ( )

Rarely am I captivated by a mother/daughter story, and this book is one of the exceptions. I don't know if it is because the book features bees and honey, themes that have been favorites since reading one sentence about Yemeni honey in Motoring With Mohammed years ago, or because Elizabeth Graver is so skilled at telling a mother/daughter story without being overly sentimental. The sticky sweet honey is the only thing sticky sweet in the story.

This is also a story of mental illness and the fear of inheritance. This part of the story is not at all a side story; it is very much a part of the mother/daughter story even though neither exhibit mental illness. It makes one wonder if knowing there is a chance of illness makes life easier or just makes one question every deviance, or even perceived deviance, from the norm as a sign of impending illness. ( )