Product Description
Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the town's fiercest racists, Lily decides they should both escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters who introduce Lily to a mesmerizing world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna who presides over their household. This is a remarkable story about divine female power and the transforming power of love--a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.
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Amazon.com Review
In Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, 14-year-old Lily Owen, neglected by her father and isolated on their South Carolina peach farm, spends hours imagining a blissful infancy when she was loved and nurtured by her mother, Deborah, whom she barely remembers. These consoling fantasies are her heart's answer to the family story that as a child, in unclear circumstances, Lily accidentally shot and killed her mother. All Lily has left of Deborah is a strange image of a Black Madonna, with the words "Tiburon, South Carolina" scrawled on the back. The search for a mother, and the need to mother oneself, are crucial elements in this well-written coming-of-age story set in the early 1960s against a background of racial violence and unrest. When Lily's beloved nanny, Rosaleen, manages to insult a group of angry white men on her way to register to vote and has to skip town, Lily takes the opportunity to go with her, fleeing to the only place she can think of--Tiburon, South Carolina--determined to find out more about her dead mother. Although the plot threads are too neatly trimmed, The Secret Life of Bees is a carefully crafted novel with an inspired depiction of character. The legend of the Black Madonna and the brave, kind, peculiar women who perpetuate Lily's story dominate the second half of the book, placing Kidd's debut novel squarely in the honored tradition of the Southern Gothic. --Regina Marler
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 Lovely and Sad Story ( karieh )
I know I am very late to the party when it comes to "The Secret Life of Bees". It was at a second hand store, and was the best of what was available, so I picked it up. The words and images in this novel set in 1964 South Carolina in 1964 were very evocative...when Kidd describes the oppressive heat - I can practically taste that hot, dusty air.
There were sections when Lily reflects on the mother she's lost and the father she never really had that touched my heart. This young girl's voice comes through so strong and clear that sometimes I forgot the loss she'd experienced. And then I would read something like this.
"That night I lay in bed and thought about dying and going to be with my other in paradise. I would meet her saying, "Mother, forgive. Please forgive," and she would kiss my skin till it grew chapped and tell me I was not to blame. She would tell me this for the first ten thousand years."
Anyone who has ever been either a parent or a child (!) couldn't help but be touched by the pain and loneliness behind those words.
Lily is a girl full of pain, hungering for the slightest bit of affection, and fueled by anger. And yet, I didn't get a sense that she wanted anyone to pity her - she just wanted the smallest chance at a normal life, the tiniest sign that someone valued her as a person, could recognize the hurt she felt.
"Did this mean that if I told May about T. Ray's mounds of grits, his dozens of small cruelties, about my killing my mother - that hearing it, she would feel everything I did? 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?"
This book was an interesting mix of racial tension, Southern life, 1960's politics and the mysteries of female relationships. With so many intertwining issues, it was difficult for me to focus on the underlying message, but I did take an image from here, a message from there. And sometimes I just enjoyed the writing.
"The first week at August's was a consolation, a pure relief. The world will give you that once in a while, a brief time-out; the boxing bell rings and you go to your corner, where somebody dabs mercy on your beat-up life."
At other times, I found my cynicism rising - sometimes, (and I understand how ironic this will sound in a story of girl whose mother dies and whose father does not love her) sometimes the events unfolding struck me as "too good to be true". Or more accurately, to coincidental to be believable.
In the end, though, this book has many lovely parts, many small windows into a world and time and life I will never know.
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 The Bees Knees
Best read,artfully written.I was literally pulled from page to page. Cannot wait to see the film version, hope it follows the riviting story faithfully.
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 Wonderful Book... ( haffordr )
What a fantastic novel! I am so in love with the story and with the characters that I cannot wait to see the movie on 10.17.08. Sue Monk Kidd is an amazing writer and story teller. When you are reading you will actually feel like you are in the story. I gave the book 4 stars instead of 5 because I wasn't exactly thrilled about the ending, but other than that I LOVED it.
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The Secret Life of Bees and the Secret of Life ( mofan )
Lily Owens doesn't have much incentive to hang around home. Her father beats her, her mother is dead, and her nanny is jailed and beaten by racists as she registers to vote. Surrounded daily by bees swarming in her honey-filled bedroom wall, she captures some of them to prove to her neglectful father that there is a problem in her room. One day she opens the jar to let the bees fly free, and she feels a voice inside saying, "Lily, your jar is open." Thus begins her adventure. Rescuing Rosaleen, her nanny, from jail, they run away. Following clues from items left behind by her mother, Lily ends up in a little pink house in Tiburton, South Carolina, where she finds out who her mother was, what life is all about, and where true strength and courage lie. She finds friendship, love, support, and some women who are more her mother than her mother had ever been. The recurrent theme of bees and honey lead Lily to appreciate nature and the beauty of simplicity and reality. The characters in this book are flamboyant and unrealistic in many ways but also very endearing. As the book finishes, it is difficult to leave the little pink house.
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The Reader On the CD Version Does a Wonderful Job!! ( bavaniowl )
This is such an interesting and fascinating book to listen to. I listened with baited breath. I just might want to read the book myself as well. Lily the main character is so lovable as are all the characters that are brought vividly to life. I so enjoyed the dialogue and the historical references from the 60's. I especially loved the implication of the Black Madonna. Lily's search for who her mother really was and choosing to leave behind abusiveness was so significant in emphasizing a personal transformation. It was a complete surprise that she found her strength in the divine presence as a Black Mary. This was such a magical element in the story . There were a great many gems of wisdom throughout the book and the bee metaphors were brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed the story told by August to Lily in the story involving Beatrice(Beatrix),a nun who left the convent and then changed her mind years later wanting to return to the convent only to discover Mother Mary had taken her place. This also was skillfully done using Beatrice(Beatrix) a formal version of Bea- again using `bee'...perhaps this was not intentional.
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