The Secret Life of Bees

This book surprised me. When I started it, I kept reading because it seemed like something I would enjoy, but I never would have thought that I would feel as deeply as I did during this story. It was a book that portrayed grief through someone who didn't even realize she needed to process and grieve, and that was so beautiful to me. Lily, the main character, grew and matured and healed throughout these pages and it was refreshing to see her embrace her authentic feelings, even when she didn't want to. Anger, sadness, joy, [real, "I choose you in your mess"] love, infatuation, grief, belonging, emptiness, persistence, and so many more real and raw feelings were so beautifully written down on paper and I just absolutely loved it.

One of show more my favorite quotes that I can't seem to stop thinking about is pasted below. Lily was talking about the hurt you go through in life and her ponderings were thought provoking it me:

"I wanted to know what happened when two people felt it. Would it divide the hurt in two, make it lighter to bear, the way feeling someone's joy seemed to double it?" show less

I am often asked for books, not by title or author, but by subject. Do you have any stories about fishing? Can you recommend any novels about Afghanistan? Or, as happened last week- can you suggest something set in South Carolina? Questions like these make it interesting to be in the book business, since as a rule I tend to see the world shelved alphabetically by author, not grouped into the odd interests that vary from person to person. But it is endearing to me that people are always certain that a book exists for whatever they wish to read about. I could at least answer that last person’s question- the one about South Carolina.

A kind of local bias makes me convinced that the Tarheel state has its southern neighbor beat when it show more comes to the quantity and the quality of writers. But when I was asked about novels from south of the border, I had just finished a great story by Charleston native Sue Monk Kidd.

The Secret Life of Bees is the story of young Lily Owens, who has lived nearly the whole of her fourteen years obsessed with the fragmented memory of the death of her mother. Her father is an angry and unloving. Her life is constrained to working on his peach farm and being shunned at school. The only kindness she has known has been from Rosaleen, the black woman her father took from the orchards to take care of her.

It is 1964 and the Civil Rights act has been passed, and Rosaleen goes to town to register to vote. But things go wrong almost at once- the resentment of some of the townsfolk turns violent and Rosaleen ends up in jail. Lily suddenly realizes that they have to escape, or they may both be killed by their various demons. She and Rosaleen break away from a mob of angry men and head towards the town of Tiburon, which Lily found written on the back of a picture in her mother’s things.

They have to hitchhike. They have no food and almost no money. But by the grace of God, they are taken in by three unusual sisters- black beekeepers named August, June and May. Lily calls them the calendar sisters, and their Black Madonna honey is in demand all over the country.

Lily learns many things that summer as she helps August with her bees. She learns how to lie and when to admit the truth. She falls in love, and learns how to let the impossible go. She learns about the secret workings of bee colonies and human families. And of course, she learns much more about her self than she is comfortable knowing.
The Secret Life of Bees is Sue Monk Kidd’s first novel, although the author is well known for her spiritual memoir The Dance of the Dissent Daughter. Readers familiar with that book will see the dissident daughter honored in Lily and each of the calendar sisters. And Kidd’s unusual vision of feminine spiritualilty is beautifully brought forth in the black Virgin Mary, who is more than just a symbol for August, May and June to sell honey. Lily’s voice is fresh and funny, full of unconscious one-liners without being too eccentric or cute. August is as wise as a grandmother, and Rosaleen is as constant as Lily’s real mother is absent.

It all makes for special story, sweet enough to be in real danger of being turned into a Hallmark movie. It is a story about girls and their mothers, the real definition of family, and the indomitable nature of love that crosses all lines- religion, race, even the past and (possibly) the future. By the time the summer is over, Lily and the reader are both initiates into the secret life of bees and the workings of the human heart. show less

Lily Owens lives with her father, T-Ray, on his peach farm, and Lily has grown up believing that she killed her mother, since that's what T-Ray has always told her. She only has vague memories of her mother hurriedly packing a bag and telling Lily to be quick to get ready to leave, then her father entering the room, some shouting, a gun, and a loud blast as it goes off. Her stand-in mother, Rosaleen, the black woman who comes into clean house for T-Ray, decides one day to walk into town and register to vote. This goes over about as well as you think it would in 1960s South Carolina. Rosaleen and Lily both end up in jail, and when T-Ray bails out only Lily, she fears both for her own safety and Rosaleen's, breaks her friend/surrogate show more momma out of the clink, and they both hit the road south. With only an old sticker of a black virgin Mary to guide her, Lily heads to a town she's convinced her mother knew in search of answers. What she finds is a new if unconventional family, one that helps her work through more questions than she knew she had.

On the surface I loved the story and the characters. And the writing is gorgeous. But the more I think about it, the more issues I see. Lily's age doesn't seem well defined, for one; we learn at some point that she's 14, but she really doesn't seem that old in her thoughts and actions, which makes her relationship with Zach - a high school boy - seem off. But more importantly, the black sisters with whom Lily and Rosaleen stay (and Rosaleen herself), although it seems obvious that we're meant to see them as Strong Black Women in a time when SBW were not safe in the South, come off more as a modern version of the Noble Savage, glorified caricatures of the Mammy type, old, wise for their hardships, but still safely quirky and living at the margins of Real Society. So in the end I both loved and kinda loathed the novel. It has lovely moments, but ultimately the main character is a white girl benefiting from nurturing of black women while not really understanding them or their lives. show less

In a well-written and poignant book, Sue Monk Kidd tells the story of Lily Owens, a fourteen-year-old girl living in South Carolina in 1964. Lily is abused by her redneck father, whom she calls T. Ray rather than “Daddy” or some other family name that would indicate closeness and protection. Lily feels unloved and misses her mother, who died when Lily was only four years old. The only person in her life who seems to love her is Rosaleen, her black nanny. Lily cherishes and keeps hidden a few items once owned by her mother, one of which is a jar of honey featuring a black Madonna on the label and referring to Tiburon, a nearby town.

When Rosaleen runs into trouble for trying to vote, she and Lily run away and head for Tiburon. Aside show more from securing safety for Rosaleen, Lily hopes to find out something about her mother.

In Tiburon, Lily and Rosaleen are taken in and given succor by the Boatwright sisters: May, June, and August (jocularly referred to as the “calendar girls”). The women are beekeepers and sell their honey under a label featuring a black Madonna, just like the one found among Lily’s mother’s things. The Boatwrights are black, which doesn’t bother them or Lily, but their white neighbors are sorely troubled by that fact.

The Boatwrights and some of their friends practice some odd religious-like behaviors featuring devotion to a black Madonna. Lily comes to realize that the strength of the black Madonna actually lies within those who honor her. Similarly, Lily sees that she herself has to be the source of her own strength. But she also learns from studying the social interactions of bees in their hives that the ability to be effective and realize power can come from collaboration as well as from individual efforts.

Evaluation: This is a creative coming-of-age story nested inside a social and racial justice parable. It begins as a tale of a teenager who is unloved (by her father), and possibly abandoned (by her mother). She ultimately finds love and self worth by running away from what would traditionally be considered "home," and finding “real” family with a group of nurturing women. All of the characters are well-wrought and either sympathetic or, where appropriate, despicable.

(JAB) show less

Set in South Carolina during the Civil Rights movement - we have our young heroine Lily running away from home with her home's black servant, Rosaleen. Lily runs towards the one hint of her mothers past, a label with a bee on it and an address. There she finds three sisters who are not quite what they seem.

this is a story of Lily finding herself and coming to terms with her deceased mother. And it is a fairly typical feel good story, where the main characters went through some troubles, but ultimately, come out scarred, but stronger. Race relations is fairly prominent in this book, Lily, a white girl, being taken in by three black sisters. Unfortunately, it falls into the "outsider Black Saviour" sort of book, where August, the show more matriarch of the calendar sisters, brings knowledge and wisdom to all those around her, while having no faults of her own.

Civil Rights are a background to this book - This book felt a bit too nice. The Black Madonna worship felt contrived and some of the congregation was a bit stereotypical. Overall, a cute feel good book that won't challenge a reader. show less

“Sunset is the saddest light there is.”

“Above all, send the bees love. Every little thing wants to be loved.”

“That night in my bed in the honey house, when I closed my eyes, bee hum ran through my body. Ran through the whole earth. It was the oldest sound there was. Souls flying away.”

“I’d traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn’t know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can’t ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies.”

I’m a bit late to the party with this one but enjoyed how beautifully written and easy this was to read, despite dealing with some significant issues that are as show more relevant today as in 1964. The storyline was strong and gripping, with a good pace that kept me intrigued. The symbolisation of bees was a perfect backdrop, covering topics such as community, relationships, life and death.

The characters were interesting and thought provoking. Lily was initially naïve, such as thinking that a change in law would easily change the mindset of others, even those who were meant to enforce it. However, we witness Lily mature and grow, recognising her own internal prejudices and taking steps to correct them. Rosaleen was loud, proud and stubborn, but also loving and self-sacrificing. Each of the Boatwright sisters had their own place in the novel and their individual personalities, history and beliefs created a loving and welcoming sisterhood. Each character had their own strengths and flaws which made them all the more realistic and endearing. I would thoroughly recommend this book. show less

In 1960s South Carolina, a white girl runs away from her physically and emotionally abusive father and is taken in by three black sisters who are beekeepers and have thriving a honey and beeswax business.

There were a couple of minor things which bothered me far more than they should have done but which I won't mention here as they were probably my issues rather than the book's. Something which I did think was a flaw was the heavy foreshadowing at certain points which was unnecessary because I was already feeling this isn't going to end well. Apart from that, some interesting descriptions of beekeeping and an intriguing religious atmosphere in a book which I'm going to let percolate in the back of mind for a while.