Thursday 23 April 2009

Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd


I bought this book last year (as usual at carboot sale) but I just read it during our Easter holidays. I never heard of the writer, but I bought the book because on the cover it says bestseller and the reviews by other authors were fantastic eg Joanna Trollope said "Wonderfully written, poignant and humorous" and Anita Shreve said "Eccentric, inventive and ultimately forgiving".

And I say...what the ****...? (you can either believe me or J. Trollope/A.Shreve)

(tak sedapla buku ni)

The setting is in South Carolina 1964 where Lily Owens, a 14 year-old white girl (who accidentally shot her mother at the age of 4) had to rescue Rosaleen, her black nanny from the lock-up after she was jailed for assaulting white men (she spat on their boots). They embarked on a journey to trace Lily's mother's path and ended up at the Boatwright's house, where 3 bee-keeping sisters lived.

The first 1/3 of the book is ok, where the author tells about how Lily grew up with the guilt for killing her mother, the physical and emotional abuse from her unforgiving father, and how the love she only find is from her black nanny. Then how she rescued Rosaleen from the lock-up, and their adventure together until they ended up at the bee keepers house.

Then I think the story become so slow and I started to resent Lily (what a character!).

I wonder why it became bestseller? And why they bother to make it into a film? Is it because of the racial issues and now that Obama is president?

I searched for other reviews in Amazon and the readers' reviews actually ranged from 1 star to 5 stars.

So what did I get from the book that I can share with you? (after all, the main purpose of me writing book reviews is to share information, not promote/demote a book)

Probably the best info I can share is about bees! (hahahha, not funny)

So bees have their own community,much like human. They have the..

a) Queen Bee- lay eggs all day long, week in and out-she's the mother of all the bees in the hive.
b) Nest builders- the group that drew the comb. They drew the hexagons with mathematical precisions.
c) Field bees- the ones that go uot to gather nectar and pollen. They have superb navigation skills.
d) Mortician bees- their job is to rake the dead bees out of the hive and keep everything on the clean side.
e) Nurse bees- feed all baby bees
f) The queen's attendants- they fuss over the queen.
g) The only males are the drones who sat around waiting to mate the queen.


Probably the author should be given credits for making a heavy issue (racism / racial tension) a light read.

2 stars from me!

2 comments:

mummy said...

dah berapa kali kita terpengaruh nak beli buku ni sebab review and synopsis mcm best.tapi tak terbeli sebab ada reviewer yg se taste dgn kita kata tak best. nasib baik tak baca.

Lebah jantan kerjanya mengawan je ke.

Mamaboyz said...

itu je lah kejenya....