Review: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

3 stars for The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

I like this story; like it well enough to read it from the beginning to the end, but not enough to give it a high enough 5-star rating. Don't get me wrong. This is a good story, but just one which lacks the propensity to resonate with me.

To begin with, this novel is set in the South America, South Carolina, in 1964, the year of Civil Rights Act and intensifying racial unrest. It is set in a time and place which can not have been more different from the one I am from. As if this is not enough, there is the Virgin Mary or rather the Black Mary story, a story within the story which I did not enjoy reading on.

Regardless of setting and religious connotation, the Secret Life of Bees is a touching story that explores life's wounds, uncovers the deeper meaning of home and shows us the way to come to terms with the past. To live and let live.


Publisher: Penguin Books; 1st edition
Publication date: 28 Jan 2003

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Set in South Carolina during 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of a fourteen year old white girl, 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 racists in town, they escape to Tiburon, South Carolina—a town that holds the secret to her mother’s past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily finds refuge in their mesmerizing world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna.

Lily starts a journey as much about her understanding of the world, as about the mystery surrounding her mother. The Secret Life of Bees is a major literary triumph about the search for love and belonging, a novel that possesses a rare wisdom about life and the power and divinity of the female spirit.

*Blurb from author's website*

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