FOLLOW THE BLACK MADONNA. (The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd)

Member Name: thingywhatsit

Product:	The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
Date:	01/07/06 (1871 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The paperback is better value.

Disadvantages: Not deep enough for my tastes.

The secret Life of Bees.

"This is a wonderful book, by turns funny, sad, full of incident and shot through with grown-up magic reminiscent of Joanne Harris"

Daily Telegraph.

I am not sure what made me read this book because the subject matter is not one that I would have chosen, although I found the story to have been quite a reasonable read. The cover was quite tempting, and the storyline from a buyer's perspective seemed interestingly different. My copy was given to me.

The Story itself.

The story centres around the life of Lily Owen, daughter of a harsh man who keeps a Peach farm, and who grows up almost in a fantasy world of her own making, having lost her mother at the age of four in an accidental shooting incident. It's 1964, a year that was making changes with the introduction of the Civil rights act, in South Carolina, and when the nanny, Rosaleen, who has become dear to Lily is arrested for insulting a white man, she secures the escape of Rosaleen and a voyage of discovery begins. Having only one clue from the life of her mother to follow - a picture of a Black Madonna, which bears the words "Tiburon, South Carolina", the journey takes them to stay with three sisters, who shelter them from harm and welcome them into their home. Where the story takes the reader is for them to discover, although its' tender manner of taking the journey through realistic emotional turmoil, and indeed where that journey leads, does make the story work.

Characters

I thought that the characters were a little hard to get used to, but that gradually you felt sympathy for the young girl, and a kind of disappointment about the lack of any kind of relationship between Lily and her father. Much was explained as the pages turned, and brought the story together. I loved the characters of the three sisters that Lily and Rosaleen meet on their journey, and here, the picture was a delicately woven one that gave sufficient information and descriptive explanation to make the story work. Each of the characters within the story are reasonably believable and the reader can associate with the manner in which they behave, even though the hard times in which the story is based are ones that perhaps will never touch their lives.

My thoughts.

The book was described as "The Phenomenal Number One Bestseller" on the front cover of the paperback version, although I have learned to take descriptions of this kind with a huge pinch of salt. The writing style is "nice", easy to read and relate to, though not clever or intellectual. The book is reasonably short, and would be a good book to travel with, not requiring heaps of concentration, though interesting and different enough to make you want to turn the page.

I liked the little quotes that began each chapter, focused on bee-keeping, which becomes a part of a well written tale. Each give little facts about bee-keeping, although the significance of them helps reinstate the story being told.

The emotional picture that is painted is very accurate, and grief plays a huge role in the story, as the young Lily tries to come to terms with her checkered past, and find out more about the death of her mother, and how to move beyond grief, to a future. I was not surprised in many ways that the people surrounding the girl had swept the events under the carpet for most of her growing up years, and it follows that the child needed to come to terms with what had happened to this woman, who had left the child with definite ideas about the day of her death, and ones that Lily needed to explore.

I liked the way in which the oppression and fight for equal rights between races was portrayed, and the way in which it was described as affecting the characters that became important players in the story, making it heart rending in places, sad, violent perhaps, but realistic, and the depth of the personalities that the author produced. It was a good read, though not one that I shall ever feel the need to read again. I would be tempted to buy her other work as well entitled "The Mermaid Chair", also based geographically in the same area of America, and to a certain extent similar in nature with searches into the past, which endeared me to this book. The Secret Life of bees was the first novel from this author, and I believe that maturity in writing style might actually make the writer very readable indeed. In fact, this book has sold 4.5 million copies, and has been hailed as a modern day classic. Myself, I think the lady has a nice style, though the book's style and presentation seems to me to be a style that can and will be improved upon with time.


# Hardcover: 320 pages
# Publisher: Viking Books (Jan 2002)
# Language English
# ISBN: 0670894605

I have two versions of this book, the Viking one and the Headline Book Publishing one, though of the two, the Viking one is better in its presentation, i.e. not such a Mills and Boon type cover, and would be the one I would choose from the two. Plus it has the added advantage of being hardcover.

Readability : 8/10 I prefer something meatier.
Writing Style : 7/10 though I believe it will mature into more.
Is it worth buying at a bargain price of less than 1.00 GBP on Amazon second hand for the paperback? Yes, at that price, although I would be reluctant to part with more. She is an interesting writer and I look forward to the books she will write in the future. The hardback is more expensive at 12 GBP although mine was given to me by an avid reading friend.

Rachel

Summary: At the price for the hardback, too expensive.