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by: Sue Monk Kidd List Price: $24.95 Amazon.com's Price: $18.21 You Save: $6.74 (27%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54 EAN: 9780670032372 ISBN: 0670032379 Label: Viking Adult Manufacturer: Viking Adult Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 320 Publication Date: October 10, 2002 Publisher: Viking Adult Release Date: October 10, 2002 Sales Rank: 70939 Studio: Viking Adult Related Items:
Editorial Review: Product Description: 'The bees came the summer of 1964, the summer I turned fourteen and my life went spinning off into a whole new orbit, and I mean whole new orbit. Looking back on it now, I want to say the bees were sent to me. I want to say they showed up like the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary, setting events in motion I could never have guessed.' So begins the story of Lily Melissa Owens, a plucky girl, rich in humor despite heart wrenching circumstances. Living on a peach farm in South Carolina with her harsh, unyielding father, her entire life has been shaped around one devastating, though blurred, memory- the afternoon her mother was killed. Four at the time, she remembers innocently picking up the gun. And, she has her father's eyewitness account of the gun firing. People remind her it was an accident, yet she's inhabited by a torturous guilt. Lily's only real companion is Rosaleen, a tender, but fierce-hearted black woman who cooks, cleans and acts as her 'stand-in mother.' South Carolina in 1964 is a place and time of seething racial divides. When violence explodes one summer afternoon, and Rosaleen is arrested and beaten, Lily is desperate, not only to save Rosaleen, but to flee a life she can no longer endure. Calling upon her colorful wits and uncommon daring, she breaks Rosaleen out of jail and the two of them take off, runaway-fugitives conjoined in an escape that quickly turns into Lily's quest for the truth about her mother's life. Following a trail left ten years earlier, Lily and Rosaleen end up in the home of three bee-keeping sisters. No ordinary women, the sisters revere a Black Madonna and tend a unique brand of female spirituality that reaches back to the time of slavery. As Lily's life becomes deeply entwined with theirs, she is irrevocably altered. In a mesmerizing world of bees and honey, amid the strength and power of wise women, Lily journeys through painful secrets and shattering betrayals, finding her way to the single thing her heart longs for most. 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 Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Bees will have you buzzing.....I was raised in the South - white - and find this a fascinating concept. Enjoyed the book - our book club read it. Warm but not syrupy. Uplifting. Has some tension that ends satisfactorily. Interesting tid-bits about bees also. Find I keep writing the next book in the series in my mind. Guess I don't want it to end. Rating:  - The Secret Life of BoringThis book had a very bad ending to it. The author should have had a different outcome. Would not advise anyone to waste their time on this book. Rating: - Lunda Sexton Knoxville TN
Amazing I Loved It I couldnt put this book down. I wanted to see the movie but I wanted to read the book first now I cant wait to see the movie. It is a book that warms the heart . Great JOB I cant wait for a sequel. Rating: - Very rewarding book to readI enjoyed this book very much and in many situations it hit home with me. It was funny, sad and a learning experience. It will make you laugh, cry and think about what you have gone through and what it was like in the 60's. Rating: - i thought this book wuz greatsue monk kidd did a fabulous piece of work. i instantly became connected with all the characters the pain and hope lily has is so mature for her age. even though i really wanted her to tell the truth earlier and this could not really happen the plot is perfect. i adored the stories of black mary and all the love@the boatwrights give to lily and rosalene. she tells the story with such couragesnous it is a must read. great@ for women or girls preteen and up. |
