The Secret Life of Bees (Paperback) by Sue Monk Kidd - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists

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Dolly rated it:

07/11/07

bookshelves: thought-provoking

Read in April, 2004

recommends it for: people who like Southern-flavored coming-of-age books and

I confess to being a little hesitant going into this book. It is, after all, that most cliched and irritating of literati faves: a coming-of-age story set in the American South. Lily, a motherless 14-year-old girl lives with her bigoted abusive father on a peach farm in South Carolina. Her goals involve befriending black people and finding information about her long-dead mother. Just summarizing this thing inspires the eye-rolling.

But the book does have some saving graces. First, the...more I confess to being a little hesitant going into this book. It is, after all, that most cliched and irritating of literati faves: a coming-of-age story set in the American South. Lily, a motherless 14-year-old girl lives with her bigoted abusive father on a peach farm in South Carolina. Her goals involve befriending black people and finding information about her long-dead mother. Just summarizing this thing inspires the eye-rolling.

But the book does have some saving graces. First, the writing is incredible. Voice, pacing, transition, and word choice are all stellar. On a micro level, Ms Kidd is magnificent. For instance, despite the predictability of telling such a tale from the young girl's point of view, I thought the decision worked here. Lily herself is absolutely charming. She is completely honest with the reader, often to her own detriment. If the story had been written from anyone else's point of view, Lily would have been pathetic: abused motherless little girl who harbors way too much guilt and angst. This book could have gone off the deep end real easy. But Lily is a survivor and an optimist, and her naive faith drives this book.

Mostly. As you might expect in a story of this sort, there was plenty of menstruation angst, boyfriend nervousness, junior cheerleader tryouts, and the requisite abusive father. All of these things were painful to read. However, something that made this book somewhat fresh was the strong theme of race. For a nice chunk of the book, Lily is on the lam with her black housekeeper Rosaleen, traipsing through 1960s South Carolina after busting Rosaleen out of jail for offending some white guys. I was struck with the parallels to Mark Twain, only here the adventure was overlaid -- sometimes heavy handedly -- with a female sensibility. Nice. In fact, all of the embedded feminism was well done. Recurrent natural images of moonlight and water were beautiful and deliciously pagan. The author went to a lot of trouble to create a new religion just for girls: part Catholicism, part goddess-centered paganism, part ancestor worship. The religious aspect was interesting, but not as compelling as the author wanted it to be. I could tell she was trying to impress me with the notion of Mary as a goddess protector. But I didn't buy it. Lily bought it, though, and that was enough to keep me reading.

The whole book was a quest for independence, I think. To find confidence and drive within, without always needing that crutch of others' acceptance. The book almost achieved that. But it gave in at the last, to deliver a happy ending.

Now that I think about it, much of the book was cliche. But it was also a good read. The strength of the narrative voice saved it, and it had some absolutely gut-twisting parts. The line beginning "She was all I ever wanted" .... both painful and breathtaking. ...less

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Kerry rated it:

03/08/07

Read in January, 2003

recommends it for: Chicks

Okay, hear me out. This is SO not the kind of book I normally read. It's the kind of book my mother reads. You know the type I'm talking about: "Reviving Ophelia", "Not Without My Daughter"...mother-y books. It was, in fact, my mother who demanded I read this book, because she read it in her book club. DOUBLE red flag. That is when I normally drop the book and run as fast as possible away from her, screaming and flailing my arms. But when she gave me this book I happen...more

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Elaine rated it:

06/26/07

bookshelves: mainstreamlitfic

Read in June, 2007

A coming-to-age novel set in South Carolina at the height of desegregation. Lily is a lovable pre-teen who'd grown up believing she killed her mother (accidentally) and is trying to escape a brutal, abusive father. Filled with a cast of eccentric characters, Lily runs away with Rosaleen, a black servant, and finds herself in a beekeeper's sanctuary, where secrets come spilling out of the closet for a cymbal-clashing ending. Although rendered very close to the voice of a believable pre-teen, ...more

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Amy added it

10/10/07

bookshelves: don-t-believe-the-hype, very-badreads

recommends it for: maroons

Read this in a couple of hours while I was babysitting. Not always a good sign; particularly when the reason I am looking for material is that the only other house options are natural health and yoga magazines, as I am a dedicated chainsmoker with terrible posture.

Some of the ideas patly blurbed on the back seemed compelling. Mary definitely wasn't a WASP, so that's interesting; beekeeping is fertile for extended metaphor; and tough runaway girlchildren are a favorite, chixploitatio...more

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Sammy rated it:

06/12/07

bookshelves: the-best

Read in January, 2005

Ahhh! *gasp* *choke* *stammer* I can barely find the words to say how much I loved this book. Honestly, The Secret Life of Bees has to be one of the best books I've read in a while. I just want to give it several A+'s and a kiss!

It was touching, well-written, beautiful, full of expression, insightful, anything you could want in a book and then some. It started off with a bang, that wasn't a bang... it grabbed you, but didn't startle you so much that the rest of the book was dull in c...more Ahhh! *gasp* *choke* *stammer* I can barely find the words to say how much I loved this book. Honestly, The Secret Life of Bees has to be one of the best books I've read in a while. I just want to give it several A+'s and a kiss!

It was touching, well-written, beautiful, full of expression, insightful, anything you could want in a book and then some. It started off with a bang, that wasn't a bang... it grabbed you, but didn't startle you so much that the rest of the book was dull in comparison. There was romance, love, family, racial issues, religious experiences, and bees.

I have a feeling the title may deter a lot of people thinking that, oh, it's a book about bees! Well, there is a lot mentioned about bees, but it only helps enrich the story. With elements in the bees lives that tied in nicely with the lives of Lily Owens and the bee keeping sisters. All the characters are full and developed, except for the asshole racists in the very beginning of the book and somewhere in the middle, but even then real life racists aren't full and developed either. I'm sorry if you're a racist and you're reading this, but... well, fuck off. Mwa ha ha ha!

The only problem I had with this book was that I wished it was longer... but I think it was the perfect length. Nothing dragged out and nothing cut too short. Like little bears porridge, chair, and bed, it was perfect! I'm not surprised their making a movie out of it... I just hope that most people read the book before going to see it, because if they mess it up in the movie, that could deterr a lot of people from reading this wonderful book. And typically books are better than movies, because there's more and you have more freedom for thought. I also want them to cast me. *wink wink*

Sue Monk Kidd mentioned about possibly writing a sequel, possibly after she finishes writing her current work in progress The Mermaid Chair (which, if she continues writing like she did in this book, I will gobble up as soon as it comes out). I hope she doesn't write a sequel though, because The Secret Life of Bees can truely stand on it's own. And I'm sure as much as many people want to read more about Lily Owens and the Daughters of Mary, I think it will be hard for the second novel to live up to the expectations the first one made. This book may make it hard for Sue Monk Kidd... but if her writing continues to be as stellar as the writing in this book... she will have a fan base almost as big as J.K. Rowling. Potter-heads note the word almost....less

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Sarah rated it:

05/18/07

Read in May, 2007

I'm picking this up again out of desperation. it's pretty bad. the pacing is terrible, the characterization is spotty, cliched, and rarely believeable, and there is so much shlocky dime-store 'wisdom' stuffed into the pages that it's a wonder anything ever actually happens, plot-wise. writing from the point of view of a child or adolescent is hard, and authors rarely get it right. this book certainly doesn't.

oh god, and the epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter are so hit-...more

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Kathaileen rated it:

11/03/07

bookshelves: novels

Read in July, 2004

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

This book is set in the south in 1964. Lily, a 14-year-old white girl is heading to town on the Fourth of July, her birthday. The Civil Rights Amendment has just passed. Rosaleen, the black woman who has raised her since her mother’s death when she was four years old, is heading into town to register to vote. Some red-neck white boys start to give them a bad time and for whatever reason, Rosaleen decides to empty her snuff jug on top of their shoes. They immediately start to beat up on her and...more This book is set in the south in 1964. Lily, a 14-year-old white girl is heading to town on the Fourth of July, her birthday. The Civil Rights Amendment has just passed. Rosaleen, the black woman who has raised her since her mother’s death when she was four years old, is heading into town to register to vote. Some red-neck white boys start to give them a bad time and for whatever reason, Rosaleen decides to empty her snuff jug on top of their shoes. They immediately start to beat up on her and she ends up in jail. In the meantime, Lily’s abusive father picks her up, takes her home and tells her to wait there while he deals with his orchard workers, that he will deal with her when he gets back. Lily packs a bag of clothes along with a photograph of her mother and a picture of her mother’s of a black Madonna with ‘Tiburon, SC’ written on the back. She heads into town to see Rosaleen and finds out she’s in the hospital because the sheriff let the white boys who beat her into her cell so she could apologize. Lily springs Rosaleen from the hospital and they hitchhike to Tiburon.
When Lily goes into a store to get them something to eat she sees jars of honey with the same black Madonna on them as her picture. She asks where the honey came from and is directed to a bright pink house outside of town. There are three sisters living there. August is the beekeeper, June is the school teacher and May takes care of the house. When they tell the women they have no place to stay, they let them stay in the bee shed out back.
The women have many women friends and they all collect around the pink house. This is the first time in Lily’s life that she has ever felt like she belonged. It’s kind of like a beehive. I think the Queen could be the ‘Mary’ that used to be on a ship’s masthead because everyone cares for it and celebrates around it. The figure has one hand on her heart and the other in a fist lifted in defiance – kind of symbolizing the black woman’s spirit (like Rosaleen dumping her snuff jar and then not apologizing). They all have their jobs to do to keep the ‘hive’ going.
I loved this book....less

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Mayla rated it:

03/23/08

Read in February, 2008

The Secret Life Of Bees
Sue Monk Kidd

Penguin Group, 2003, $14.00, 336 pgs.
ISBN 9-78-014200-1

“Most people don’t have any idea about all the complicated life going on inside a hive. Bees have a secret life we don’t know anything about” (Kidd 148). The Secret Life Of Bees allows us to discover more about creatures we think less of. Bees – what do they do? Disgusting and small, how complicated can things be for them? All they do is make honey and buz...more

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Chai rated it:

05/11/08

bookshelves: i-own

Read in May, 2008

I actually liked this book. I only read the reviews afterwards and noticed that a lot of people complain of the stereotyping, and embarrassingly - I was so in love with the characters that it didn't phase me, I'm ashamed. I did notice that the 'blacks' were all painted as stereotypes but I figured that the author was just using a voice that kept with the times - back then, that's how everything was seen. But now I feel a little conflicted because god damn, I hate stereotypes and I'm usually the ...more I actually liked this book. I only read the reviews afterwards and noticed that a lot of people complain of the stereotyping, and embarrassingly - I was so in love with the characters that it didn't phase me, I'm ashamed. I did notice that the 'blacks' were all painted as stereotypes but I figured that the author was just using a voice that kept with the times - back then, that's how everything was seen. But now I feel a little conflicted because god damn, I hate stereotypes and I'm usually the first to jump up-and-down and shake my fist.

I loved Lily, I have been struggling to actually like a protagonist in a novel for a long while, so was pleased when I took to Lily immediately. I think that it was a real honest, true voice of a fourteen year old, you could feel the wide-eyed wonder, the naivity and the angst without it being irritating. I loved how she grew and learned; gained courage and wisdom; without the morals of the story beating you over the head. I absolutely loved August and Rosaleen. To be honest, I loved them all. I was even rooting for Zach and Lily to hook up - it made me feel like a teenage reader again, in parts.

I loved the feminist undertones, these women were strong, capable and gutsy. I love the part where August explains why she never married. I loved how the women's spirituality was dealt with an off-beat 'religion' and even though I'm atheist - I still thought that the way that these women had made sense of the world, was empowering and beautiful. It was rather pagan; peaceful yet powerful. I found most of the book to be highly original and kept reading not only because of Kidd's great use of words, but because I really have not ever read anything like this before! I love unique.

I loved the storyline, I loved the beautiful prose. I think too, that I was so fascinated by this book because it is so far removed from my life and what I know of the world. Being Australian, reading about the South (from Kidd's perspective anyway, taking on board the fact that she stereotypes) was a page-turner for me. Some of the passages in the book were really quite stunning. Here's my favourite paragraph.

Every human being on the face of the earth has a steel plate in his head, but if you lie down now and then and get still as you can, it will slide open like evelator doors, letting in all the secret thoughts that have been standing around so patiently, pushing the button for a ride to the top. The real troubles in life happen when those hidden doors stay closed for too long....less

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Leah added it

12/02/07

Read in October, 2007

recommends it for: everyone!!!

Leah Gerber
Mrs. Ebarvia
Honors World Lit
11/26/07
Book Review: The Secret Life of Bees
What is more enjoyable than a good book? The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is the best book I have read in a long time. Holding the reader’s interest is a key part of writing a good book and I could not put it down. Kidd has written many other novels such as The Dance of the Dissident Daughter and The Mermaid Chair. The story starts out with Lily Owens isolated on a farm, fo...more Leah Gerber
Mrs. Ebarvia
Honors World Lit
11/26/07
Book Review: The Secret Life of Bees
What is more enjoyable than a good book? The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is the best book I have read in a long time. Holding the reader’s interest is a key part of writing a good book and I could not put it down. Kidd has written many other novels such as The Dance of the Dissident Daughter and The Mermaid Chair. The story starts out with Lily Owens isolated on a farm, forced to sell peaches for her abusive father. Her black housemaid Rosaleen is her only escape from the hell she calls home. Then, a series of events pushes her to the limit. Rosaleen gets beaten up and put in jail, and when her father, known as T-Ray, tells Lily that she accidentally killed her mother, and that her mother never loved her, it is the last straw. Becoming a fugitive from the law and breaking Rosaleen out of jail, she runs away to Tiburon, South Carolina. Using a picture of a black Mary as a clue, she finds a family that knew her mother. Creating a web of lies, Lily assumes a false identity and stays with the colored Boatwright family to discover about her past and what really happened to her mother.
The Secret Life of Bees was so incredible I have but one negative point; the ending was extraordinarily weak. It was exciting until the book actually ended. The father comes to get his daughter, putting you in suspense, but then the T-Ray just gives up and leaves. For such an inspiring story it seemed as though Kidd had given up, and just didn’t care about how the story ended, almost as if she put a little bit of herself in T-Ray’s character.
The novel is amazingly well written, and once the book was over, I was begging for more. What I loved about it was how I had never seen this plot before. The way Kidd presents the story keeps you from knowing things that the characters do-at least until the point when she reveals it-which I liked because it is different. Most authors use dramatic irony, but this is the opposite. Another point that appealed to me was how you could feel the character growing each and every day. The way she intertwined racial problems with an unlikely family without making it depressing was brilliant. She shined a light on a whole new dimension to the topic.
I think Sue Monk Kidd could have changed the ending. It was very exciting until ‘she lived happily ever after’. Anyone can write that, but what makes this novel unique is that Kidd and Lily are not anyone-they are someone. Even with this minor flaw, this may be the all time greatest novel I have ever read. With each character so unmatched and important, every person can find them self somewhere in this enlightening and heartwarming story. It will make you laugh, cry, and long for your family. I cannot think of someone who would not like this book, so I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. “You gotta imagine what’s never been.” And Kidd did just that. She created a modern novel that can be read again and again.
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Hannah rated it:

11/26/07

recommends it for: Anyone

Reading the Secret Life of Bees is like meeting the best friend of your childhood within the confines of 302 pages of prose. Lily Owens is a 14-year-old girl who only wants a place to belong after running away from her miserable father with her black nursemaid Rosaleen. With nowhere else to go, Lily and Rosaleen are taken in by three eccentric sisters: black beekeepers who hold the clues to Lily’s past, and quite possibly her future. Expertly set in 1964 in the heart of the American South, Li...more

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Anna rated it:

05/12/08

bookshelves: book-club-popular-fiction

Read in May, 2008

recommended to Anna by: book club

It was ironic that I read most of this book on Mother's Day. At the core, this book isn't about race relations, the Virgin Mary, or even beekeeping, though those are all interesting parts of the story. It's a book about mothers. Mothers who are imperfect, mothers who make mistakes, and women who become mothers because they see people who need to be loved. I can't readily connect to most of those other topics, but everyone on the planet knows what it's like to have--or need--a mother in their...more

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Adam rated it:

07/28/08

Read in July, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

An interesting novel which becomes even more interesting when approaching the vast number of theological inherent within. The following analysis takes a look at the importance of forgiving others in order to forgive yourself and therefore develop a better understanding of who you are.

Lily Owens, an adolescent girl growing up in South Carolina during the 1960s, learns an important lesson about forgiveness in Sue Monk Kidd’s Novel The Secret Life of Bees. In order to learn this les...more An interesting novel which becomes even more interesting when approaching the vast number of theological inherent within. The following analysis takes a look at the importance of forgiving others in order to forgive yourself and therefore develop a better understanding of who you are.

Lily Owens, an adolescent girl growing up in South Carolina during the 1960s, learns an important lesson about forgiveness in Sue Monk Kidd’s Novel The Secret Life of Bees. In order to learn this lesson of forgiveness, Lily had to leave both her home on the peach farm in Sylvan, South Carolina and her abusive father T. Ray and flee to Tiburon, South Carolina where she ultimately lives with the Boatwright sisters. Rosaleen, her nanny, is her lone companion for this journey. Throughout her life she has lived with many hardships including an emotionally absent father, a feeling of guilt over her role in the accidental death of her mother, a diminished self-wroth due to her poor relationships at school, and the possibility that her mother had abandoned her. These issues are further exacerbated when she breaks Rosaleen out of jail and begins a stream of lies in order to try and re-establish herself in a new environment, protect herself from her past, and discover the truth about her mother. The accumulation of these events forces her to question whether she can offer forgiveness to anyone. She thinks to herself, “People, in general, would rather die than forgive. It’s that hard. If God said in plain language, ‘I’m giving you a choice, forgive or die,’ a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin.” (277) Ultimately, it is with the help of Rosaleen, the Boatwright sisters, the Daughters of Mary, and the Black Madonna that she is able to come to forgive others and therefore herself.
Lily has numerous issues with self-esteem that arise from her family situation and are made manifest by her perceptions of her interactions with classmates. Her mother died when she was four and consequently she was raised predominately by her father and Rosaleen, neither of whom offered much help with her hair nor her sense of fashion. In fact, she describes the outfits she made for herself in home economics class as “outfits only the Pentecostal girls wore.” (8) This, along with her fear of “clumps of whispering girls who got quiet” when she passed, made her feel that “half the time [she] was impersonating a girl instead of really being one.” (9) This low self-esteem did not simply stem from not having the help of a mother but also from the way her father treated her. Punishments ranged from verbal abuse for instance saying, “You act no better than a slut” to physical abuse when he made her kneel on “a mound of grits the size of an anthill” a punishment she had experienced since she was six. (24) Furthermore, T. Ray dashed her aspirations to attend college because he believed that college was “a waste of money for girls.” (15) Finally, her father serves as a horrible example of forgiveness, a task he lacks the willingness to perform. Despite being alive in the biological sense, he has chosen death over forgiving his daughter, his wife, and himself.
Lily is also plagued by her relationship with her deceased mother who died when she was four as the result of an accidental shooting. The shooting occurred during an argument between her mother and T. Ray. During the altercation, her mother pulled a gun from the closet which was knocked to the floor and picked up and accidentally discharged by Lily, killing her mother. As a result of her role in the shooting, Lily feels an immense amount of guilt which further diminishes her self-worth. “This is what I know about myself. She was all I wanted. And I took her away.” (8) This accident is who she views herself to be. The void she created was apparent to her at the strangest times “Like training bras…the magnitude of driving me to junior cheerleader tryouts…But you know when I missed her the most? The day I was twelve and woke with the rose-petal stain on my panties. I was so proud of that flower and didn’t have a soul to show it to except Rosaleen.” (13) And the only way she could fill even a portion of the void was to take out the three items she had from her mother, a photo, a pair of white gloves, and a picture of the Black Madonna. Her relationship with her mother becomes even more strained with the realization that her mother may have abandoned her. During an argument with T. Ray, he says to her “The truth is, your sorry mother ran off and left you. The day she died, she’d come back to get her things, that’s all. You can hate me all you want, but she’s the one who left you.” (39) Lily refuses to believe her father, but has little to no proof and so she sets off with Rosaleen whom she breaks out of jail and heads to Tiburon, South Carolina in hopes of discovering the truth. From this point onward, she and Rosaleen are fugitives of the law.
Lily and Rosaleen hitch a ride to Tiburon where Lily’s lies begin. They stop at a convenience store where she lies to the clerk and steals a can of snuff for Rosaleen while he is not looking. She also learns from the clerk that her mother’s Black Madonna picture is found on the honey produced by the Boatwright sisters on the outskirts of town. She and Rosaleen arrive at their house and Lily creates an elaborate story about their past and their current trip to Virginia. Unbeknownst to her, August Boatwright, the eldest of the three sisters, knows that her story is false since she was the nanny for Lily’s mother Deborah in Virginia when she was a child. Rather than sharing her knowledge with Lily, she allows Lily the opportunity to become adjusted and helps to provide her with the necessary tools to meet the challenge ahead.
During the months that follow her arrival, Lily has an opportunity to learn about herself through interactions with the Boatwright sisters, the Daughters of Mary, and the Black Madonna. From the youngest of the three sisters, May, Lily learns valuable lessons on how to deal with pain and grief by writing the problem on a piece of paper and placing it in May’s version of a “wailing wall.” May also teaches them a valuable lesson about living in her suicide note explaining “it’s your time to live. Don’t mess it up.” (210) This is important in helping to restructure Lily’s worldview. From June, Lily learns how to accept others and what it means to be accepted. In the beginning, June is cold, but after a while, she accepts Lily forming an important bond for Lily because it provides her with a feeling of acceptance that she had lacked up until this point. Her feeling of acceptance is amplified by the Daughters of Mary. This acceptance demonstrated to Lily that “They didn’t even think of [her] being different.” (209) This acceptance was something she had craved in her life to this point and she would turn to them at the most important time, when she needed their help to free herself from T. Ray.
Ultimately, it is August and the power of the Black Madonna that facilitate Lily’s forgiveness of herself and her family. After months spent with August, she decides that she needs to admit the truth and stop living in a dream land. As a result, August confirms that her mother indeed left her, but had returned for Lily when she was shot. The news is not taken well, as the image she had created of her mother was destroyed. Despite August’s attempts to calm Lily by reminding her of her mother’s humanity and our capacity to make mistakes, she is unsuccessful in the moment and concludes by telling Lily, “There is nothing perfect…there is only life.” (256) These words, along with the rituals of the second day of Mary Day, trigger relief for Lily. As part of the ritual, they bathe the Black Madonna in honey as a form of preservation. For Lily, this facilitated contentment “for the first time since [she’d] learned about her mother.” (260) In the Black Madonna, she, like the Daughters of Mary and the slaves before them, found relief . “It seemed to them she knew everything they suffered.” (109) It was this knowledge that meant so much to Lily whether it manifest during the rituals of evening prayer, touching the heart of Mary, the reception of the body of Mary, or the visual image of the Black Madonna in chains. The Black Madonna holds a great amount of power for Lily. August describes this power saying “You have to find a mother inside of yourself. We all do…You don’t have to put your hand on Mary’s heart to get strength and consolation and rescue…You can place it right here on your own heart.” (288) In fact, the “Black Madonna goes into the holes life has gouged out of us.” (302) Because Lily is able to fill these voids in her life with the Black Madonna, she is able to develop an acceptance of her life. She comes to forgive her mother because she realizes that no one is perfect. “You just have to close your eyes and breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is.” (285) Since she can not change what her mother did, she must accept it and have faith that she did what she thought was best. She also comes to forgive T. Ray after determining that he did love her mother and that his anger for life existed because he chose not to forgive. Finally, Lily chooses to live her life and forgive herself. Choosing to follow August’s mantra, she realizes that “Regrets don’t help anything.” (280) It is certainly easier to choose death, but the strength she gains from those around her in Tiburon allow her to choose to live and forgive herself and others.

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Rae rated it:

07/02/07

recommends it for: People Who Liked Number One Ladies Detective Agency

This was a harmless, heart warming book that did not change my life or enrich my thinking in any large way - except perhaps that I am slightly less afraid of bees. One thing that is a slight pet peeve with me is the healing power apparently inherent in the culture of the 'other'. Here is the formula: 1 caucasian person, hurt and broken by the world they live in, be it by family, work or environment + 1 minority culture (black or asian is fine) = that one caucasian person finding the true wonders...more

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Sandi rated it:

10/10/08

bookshelves: 2008

Read in October, 2008

To me, the difference between is a good book and a great book is whether you have to suspend disbelief or whether you just believe. I became curious about “The Secret Life of Bees” when I saw the preview for the upcoming movie in the theater. It looked mildly interesting and overly sugary. You know, one of those feel good stories about people coming together despite racial differences. It’s been done a gazillion times and the stories are usually trite and maudlin. (I will say that the...more

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Jeffrey rated it:

07/24/08

bookshelves: popular-fiction

I surveyed my class and 80% gave it two thumbs up: 5 stars. That's 28 out of 35 students. The rest of the class gave it an OK: 3 or 4 stars. So my giving it 5 stars has been backed by research into the general public's taste. ;=)

Now, I'm not much for spending time on fiction. I don't need entertainment, I need information. But as a story teller, occasional writing class instructor, I like to keep up with some of the new fiction.

Bees is pretty good. I don't get a sense o...more I surveyed my class and 80% gave it two thumbs up: 5 stars. That's 28 out of 35 students. The rest of the class gave it an OK: 3 or 4 stars. So my giving it 5 stars has been backed by research into the general public's taste. ;=)

Now, I'm not much for spending time on fiction. I don't need entertainment, I need information. But as a story teller, occasional writing class instructor, I like to keep up with some of the new fiction.

Bees is pretty good. I don't get a sense of the forced or trite here like I do in a lot of fiction. In reading most fiction, I can almost hear the writer thinking. I guess it's because I write and my intimate knowledge of the craft allows me to see a lot before it comes. Kind of like an actor who you know is just acting. But Kidd's writing is like Will Smith in Ali or Jamie Fox in Ray. In Ali there is no Smith and in Ray there is no Fox. Art works best when it's done by the talented who tap into the moment so right, so purely it stops being art and becomes real. Bees is real.

Some readers on Goodreads and Amazon had trouble with such things as the bee quotes at the start of each chapter being a bit obvious, the religious theme (didn't state but I'm sure it has to do with the women eating cake as the body of Mary), the triteness of a coming of age story and some of the characterization (ie: stereotypical African / American women) and so forth, but I believe these are more personal problems than problems with the story. In the overall scheme of analysis, these issues were cosmetic, superficial at best. Most liked it: In my class. At Goodreads. On Amazon.

I find it humorous that many of the pseudo-reviewers / intellectuals (if I throw in some over priced words, I'm a big-time reviewer) love to sling review-speak but have no or little experience in hands-on experience: writing. Maybe it's writer-wanna-be frustration or other personal issues. There’s a lot to be said for freeing oneself of inhibiting characteristics / weaknesses and the success and release of open-mindedness. Nevertheless . . .

Bottom line, I was impressed and I've read a lot of stories and written many myself. I know the difficulties involved in making a story work, making is real, and connecting to readers. This book does all that and more. Highly recommended.

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Krenzel rated it:

11/16/08

Read in June, 2008

"The Secret Lives of Bees" is the simple yet moving story of Lily Owens, a 14-year-old white girl, and her aching search to connect with her mother, who was killed in a terrible accident when Lily was four. Without her mother, Lily was raised by her abusive father T. Ray and a "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, an African-American woman who had previously served as a picker on T. Ray's peach farm. In the summer of 1964, two events serve to alter Lily's life – first, Rosaleen is...more "The Secret Lives of Bees" is the simple yet moving story of Lily Owens, a 14-year-old white girl, and her aching search to connect with her mother, who was killed in a terrible accident when Lily was four. Without her mother, Lily was raised by her abusive father T. Ray and a "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, an African-American woman who had previously served as a picker on T. Ray's peach farm. In the summer of 1964, two events serve to alter Lily's life – first, Rosaleen is arrested for pouring snuff juice on the feet of three of the town's worst bigots and, second, T. Ray tells Lily that her mother never loved her. Armed with one of the few possessions remaining of her mother – a picture of a black Mary, marked "Tiburon, S.C." – Lily breaks Rosaleen free from prison and together they set off to Tiburon. It is in Tiburon that "the bees come," as Lily finds her way to a group of beekeepers, who welcome both her and Rosaeen into their home. In searching for a sense of her mother, instead, in these beekeepers, Lily finds both a spiritual awakening and a sense of community, ending her journey with not just one mother but many mothers to care for and look after her.

First, Tiburon provides a spiritual awakening for Lily. Bees are the symbol of one's soul – according to one popular saying, "When a bee flies, a soul will rise," or, in other words, a person's soul will be reborn if bees are around. In searching for the meaning of her mother's picture of the black Mary, Lily comes to Tiburon and, while at a grocery store, notices honey jars adorning the same image. She finds out the honey is made by August Boatwright, who, along with her "calendar sisters," May and June, agrees to take Lily and Rosaleen into her home. It is here, among the bees, that Lily's soul begins to rise. In her new home, Lily discovers a statute of the black Mary, her right arm raised, her fingers closed in a fist, and a faded red heart painted on her breast. Every Sunday, August convenes a group, known as the "Daughters of Mary," which pays tribute to this statue, touching their fingers on her faded red heart. Initially not invited to take part in this ritual, Lily feels like an outsider, the fractured place in her heart pierced whenever she looks at the statue. As Lily gains acceptance within the group, she is emboldened to touch Mary's heart, but still she fails to undergo any substantive transformation. Finally, August explains to Lily that Mary is not some statute, "She's something inside of you," and asks Lily to touch her own heart to find the power (Mary’s fist) and love (Mary’s heart). Whereas, at T. Ray's church, Mary "never got much attention," in Lily's new life with the Daughters of Mary, Mary is not only prominent, but she is powerful. Lily eventually comes to see Mary every day, not just in the statute but in herself: "I feel her in unexpected moments, her Assumption into heaven happening in places inside me. She will suddenly rise, and when she does, she does not go up, up into the sky, but further and further inside me." Instead of feeling the fractured place in her heart when looking at Mary, Lily now feels the holes being "gouged out." While looking for traces of her earthly mother, she has instead found her spiritual mother, her soul being reborn.

In addition to finding power within herself, Lily also finds power within the Boatwrights' community. The symbol of a bee colony as a female community is used extensively throughout "The Secret Lives of Bees." In a bee colony, there is no role for males; they are "reared only at the times of year when their presence is required," or when it is time to mate. On the other hand, females are indispensable: "[i]solate a honeybee from her sisters and she will soon die." Like the bees, Lily is leading a secret life: she is a runaway who has freed a black woman from jail. She lies to the Boatwrights and tells them her father is dead and that Rosaleen, beaten and bloodied in jail, has just fallen down the stairs. At first, Lily is apprehensive of her new surroundings: "I could have been in the Congo for how unfamiliar it felt. Staying in a colored house with colored women, eating off their dishes, lying on their sheets – it was not something I was against, but I was brand-new to it, and my skin had never felt so white to me." Eventually, though, Lily finds sanctuary in their community, participating in their odd rituals, becoming a "true beekeeper," and especially coming to love August, the kind maternal "queen" of their community. Finally feeling secure enough to reveal her secrets, Lily confesses to August that, not only is she a runaway, but she was the one who killed her own mother. Even if it was an accident, she still believes she is unlovable. August insists otherwise, telling her how she loves her, Rosaleen loves her, the Boatwright sisters love her, and all the Daughters of Mary love her too. According to bee lore, "A queenless colony is a pitiful and melancholy community [. . . b]ut introduce a new queen and the most extravagant change takes place." While Lily has lost her mother, there is no more aching, because she realizes she has "more mothers than eight girls off the street." August, Rosaleen, and the Daughters of Mary all represent new "queens," or mothers in her life. With their support, Lily undergoes "extravagant change," beginning her new life, a life that she loves.

As Lily undergoes her transformation, initially it is unclear what the book’s message is: do we find power through our own spirit, or through others? While August tells Lily that she can find Mary – or her spirit – inside of herself, in reality, Lily’s spiritual discovery occurs as she makes connections with others, specifically, August and the Daughters of Mary. It is through them that she is able to overcome her prejudice that an African-American woman cannot be her mother and comes to not only accept all of her new mothers but also comes to identify with the image of the Black Madonna. When Lily asks August why she puts that image on her honey jars, August answers that doing so allows black women to see themselves as divine because "everybody needs a God who looks like them." That Lily, as a white girl, comes to identify with the Black Madonna suggests a female solidarity – that we see ourselves along gender lines. But there is also a Black man who attends the Daughters’ meetings with his wife. While his i

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