Wednesday, February 08, 2006

The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd

Another small and easy book to read, the blurb on the back of the book really didn't make me want to read this book (part of the reason why I find it hard to just pick up a book and read it - the blurbs never sound interesting), but many people had mentioned that this was a good book that I might enjoy, so one day, on the train, after having it sit in my bag for a good two months, I decided to finally give it a chance.
It wasn't too bad I suppose. At one point when I had nothing better to do with my time, I was actually quite happy to pick the book back up again and try to read as much of it as possible.
The story is about a little girl who is yearning to find out the truth about how her mother died. She has a tense relationship with her father, and after witnessing a heated exchange between her black nanny (the book is set in South Carolina in 1964 around the time the Civil Rights Act was signed) and a group of racist white men she runs away from home and spends the rest of the book with her nanny and some new characters in a completely different town and a different way of life.
I have to admit that I skimmed through certain parts of the book (but I think for almost all books, there'll be a part that my attention span sort of disappears and I just need to do it), but as a whole I really enjoyed the different ideas and characters that were presented in the book.
It had some serious issues, but as a whole, it was quite light and didn't make me feel depressed in any way. There aren't any surprises in the plot and I was happy with the way it ended. Everything made sense and carried out how they felt like they should have.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a simple, quick, positive read.

-picture courtesy of www.chapters.indigo.ca

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