• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Sue Monk Kidd: The Secret Life Of Bees

OKAY!!!!! i just googled this and i have had this novel confused with a recipe for bees by gail anderson dargatz. i read a cure for death by lightning by her and did not like it so i have always avoided both bee books thinking they were one in the same.
i will read sue monk kidd's bee book then, as i have heard it is great.
 
The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd

This book had been on my TBR list for a while, and when I was looking for something to read next I came across it. I picked it up, and finished it, in less than five hours.
This book is the story of Lilly Owens, a girl living in South Carolina in the sixties with her father, who she calls T. Ray and her "other mother" Rosaleen. Lilly's mother was killed when she was a child, and her death is her first memory.
I picked up this book thikning it would likely be a good, if shallow read, and found it to be actually quite beautiful.
Through various circumstances, Lilly and Rosaleen find themselves exiled from the small South Carolina town they've speant they're lives in. Lilly heads them towards Tiburon, the name of a town on the back of a picture that belonged to LIlly's mother.
Here we meet the Boatwright sisters, three black beekeepers named after months of the year. Through them Lilly discovers herself and the fact that spirituality isn't what the Pastor at her church always told her it was.
I don't want to give away to much, but this book was absolutely beautiful, and I'd encourage anyone to read it.
 
Please do, I desperately want someone to talk about it with, but can't seem to find anyone else who's read it. I think I'm buying it for my closest Aunt for Christmas.
 
That reminds me... I bought this book awhile back but lent it to my Sister :(
Must get it back, I would still quite like to read it!!!!!
Be interested to know what you's think of it, have heard its a very good read :)
 
Prairie_Girl said:
Please do, I desperately want someone to talk about it with, but can't seem to find anyone else who's read it.
Click to expand...
Hi :D

I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it. It was, as you have already stated, a very quick read, but I don't think that that took anything away from this beautiful novel. One of the best things about this book, IMHO, is that it manages to be uplifting and beautiful without being too sickly-sweet or sentimental.

A very easy and quick read, I would recommend it as a beach read or one to read while travelling - it really is a relaxing story which does not require much focus.

Well that's enough of my mostly incoherent rambling... what did someone else think of it? :)
 
I agree that it managed to be completely uplifting. It felt a lot like Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya's at times, but a little more real. I really liked that we don't know what really happens to lilly in the end, like we do with Secret, we know all along where Sidda is at age 40. I really would like a companion novel to this book.
 
I just finished The Secret Life of Bees a few days ago.

A few thoughts: it brought to mind To Kill a Mockingbird very strongly. Aside from the obvious (coming of age story set in the Jim Crow South at the dawn of the civil rights era, told from the perspective of a young motherless girl), there's something very similar in the voice, the sensitivity and openness to humanity, and the attention to detail.

Another book it brought to mind is The Shipping News, primarily because the beekeepers motif, with quotes at the beginning of every chapter, seemed very similar in narrative function to the motif of nautical knots and lore in The Shipping News. It's a nice trick for foreshadowing and metaphor, and I think it worked just as well here.


I really enjoyed the overall style and pointed observation. The two main characters—Lily and Rosaleen—were developed well enough. Lily, in particular, really captured a person on the cusp of adulthood, with all the confusion of adolescence and the intellectual capacity to pry into her own thoughts. August was well drawn. But the rest were rather cursory. The lack of dialogue kept the characters locked in their physical portraits, which I think was a missed opportunity.

Also I think the beekeeping theme and the Black Mary stuff was overdone. Also, as usual, I can't help think the ending could have been better. It seemed like the climax (when things about the mother are revealed) came well before the actual ending, and I thought there was a lost opportunity for more suspense in the revelations. Also, scenes with all the honey all over everything . . . well, I just thought they were too much.

But I do strongly recommend the book, especially for anyone who enjoyed To Kill a Mockingbird. It is different enough to be entirely new, but resonates with the same themes in a slightly more mature perspective.


(Posted this without reading thread. I shall now read the thread and reply if something jumps out.:eek: )
 
I read this book a couple of weeks ago and thought it was beautiful. It only took a couple of days to read and I just loved it. It was moving but also humorous and sad as well but like someone else said not sickly sweet. just an easy read which I loved.
 
I was lucky enough to get a free copy of this with a magazine a couple of months back.

I really enjoyed it. Sometimes its quite a relief to read something not too big, not too taxing but still thought provoking.
 
The Secret Life of Bees is one of my top ten favorite books ever. The characters are simply unforgettable.
 
I LOVED this book! I hear it's being made into a movie staring Dakota Fanning. She wouldn't be my first choice to play Lilly but she is talented enough.
 
Pearl said:
I LOVED this book! I hear it's being made into a movie staring Dakota Fanning. She wouldn't be my first choice to play Lilly but she is talented enough.
Click to expand...
Oh my dear lord, I hope you are wrong. I would love to see the movie, but would have second thoughts if Dakota was cast as Lilly. I am /so/ sick of her and I don't think that she is right at all. To be honest, she just annoys me :mad:
 
I checked IMDB.com and she deffinatly is set to play Lilly. I have to agree with you on her though. I'm very sick and tired of seeing her in EVERY little girl role in just about EVERY movie coming out. Hollywood needs to give other girls a chance to prove themselves.
 
Pearl said:
I checked IMDB.com and she deffinatly is set to play Lilly. I have to agree with you on her though. I'm very sick and tired of seeing her in EVERY little girl role in just about EVERY movie coming out. Hollywood needs to give other girls a chance to prove themselves.
Click to expand...
Exactly how I feel! She's been used too much, and I think that most people are sick of her. Her agents have killed her carrer by casting her so much, IMO. Not that I mind, though. I'm so annoyed that they are using her, I probably won't see the movie anymore, that's how much I dislike her.

I like the new avatar, btw :) Very cool.
 
I saw her on Ellen last week, andwas actually suprised by how grounded she was. I'll probably see the movie, though they better be damn careful with casting the Sisters.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top