Rating: 
Summary: Paradise Found
Review: One word comes to mind when I think of this novel: rich. The richness of the Southern language and settings that Ms. Kidd uses are true to those of us native to the South. This is the story of Lily, a young girl concerned with finding the truth about her mother. Is this truth what Lily feels in her heart or what her father tells her about her mother? Using the sparse clues left behind by her mother, Lily sets out to find where this truth lies. This leads her to Tiburon, South Carolina and a paradise full of beauty, love, and spirituality to which Lily has never before been exposed. I fell in love with this novel and wanted to be a part of this paradise Lily finds. In fact, it was hard to put this book down because I wanted to know more about the characters and their lives. I look forward to reading more from this author.
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Summary: Our Decade's "Color Purple"
Review: Everyone feels the need to compare books to what we've already read. I don't know if that is fair, an insult, or a compliment. It is what we all do though. If the comparisons to yesteryear are to be believed and "My Fractured Life" (Rikki Lee Travolta) is being considered this decade's "Catcher in the Rye" (JD Salinger) - a point I actually don't take issue with - then "Secret Life of Bees" (Sue Monk Kidd) should just as equally be considered this decade's "Color Purple" (Alice Walker). It is a coming of age story of a young girl who learns what it is to be a woman and what it is to be black (although in this case as a white girl in the care of blacks she is learning from the outside as opposed to in the Color Purple where it was a black girl learning herself). Like "My Fractured Life" and "Life of Pi", whether we call it our decades "Color Purple" or anything else, "Secret Life of Bees" is surely one our decade's classics.
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Summary: In true Memoir fashion
Review: Secret Life of Bees is a truly wonderful memoir that borderlines at times on making you almost believe that it is fictitious. A powerful look in to the life of little Lilly's world. This memoir has some of the similarilties to that of "NIGHTMARES ECHO" in that is it an honest reflection of past abuses and the journey to healing, it is powerful and understandable. You see the courage of what the author is telling you with lessons buried deep within the words of the book. I am truly impressed with Sue Monk Kidd's writing and will be looking forward to more.
Janice Freeman-avid memoir reader
Rating:
Summary: For What It¿s Worth¿
Review: For whatever my recommendation may be worth, I highly suggest putting "The Secret Life of Bees" on your TO DO list of books to read. With the exception of "The Da Vinci Code," "My Fractured Life," and "The Time Traveler's Wife" there aren't many books that I can name that come close to "The Secret Life of Bees" in terms of sheer ability to capture the reader from page one and hold on to the last page. That statement isn't made to knock other books. I read hundreds of books a year and enjoy many writers. Very rarely though can a book grab a hold from page one and carry that attention without ever wavering all the way to the end. "The Secret Life of Bees" does just that.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful!
Review: I loved this book from the first word. A girl with no mother, a black nanny, and an abusive father, who is searching for herself and the past she can't remember and her father won't talk about. She is brave and yet needs protecting at some points, which is where her old nanny comes in. They take a journey together, which helps her find out more about her mother. They end up in a home with other black women and see all kinds of personalities, but the one thing that brings all these women together is the 'black Madonna' which they reveer, only to later find out that this picture of the Madonna is just a label on a jar of honey. They find strength within themselves and each other, supporting each other all the way. This is a great book about overcoming the pain life can deal you, and the search for self and faith. Highly recommended!
Rating: 
Summary: Strong writing, but tired cliches
Review: I confess to being a little hesitant going into this book. It is, after all, that most cliched and irritating of literati faves: a coming-of-age story set in the American South. Lily, a motherless 14-year-old girl lives with her bigoted abusive father on a peach farm in South Carolina. Her goals involve befriending black people and finding information about her long-dead mother. Just summarizing this thing inspires the eye-rolling. But the book does have some saving graces. First, the writing is incredible. Voice, pacing, transition, and word choice are all stellar. On a micro level, Ms Kidd is magnificent. Some of her macro judgements (plot, theme, some characterizations), however, are a little shaky. Despite the predictability of telling such a tale from the young girl's point of view, I thought the decision worked here. Lily herself is absolutely charming. She is completely honest with the reader, often to her own detriment. If the story had been written from anyone else's point of view, Lily would have been pathetic: abused motherless little girl who harbors way too much guilt and angst. This book could have gone off the deep end real easy. But Lily is a survivor and an optimist, and her naive faith drives this book. Mostly. As you might expect in a story of this sort, there was plenty of menstruation angst, boyfriend nervousness, junior cheerleader tryouts, and all that stuff. There was also an abusive father (cliche, I know, but at least he wasn't a drunk!). All of these things were painful to read. However, something that made this book somewhat fresh was the strong theme of race. For a nice chunk of the book, Lily is on the lam with her black housekeeper Rosaleen, traipsing through 1960s South Carolina after busting Rosaleen out of jail for offending some white guys. I was struck with the parallels to Mark Twain, only here the adventure was overlaid -- sometimes heavy handedly -- with a female sensibility. Nice. The race angle also provided a fresh spin on the boyfriend angst. Lily is, of course, attracted to a beautiful, strong, talented, ambitious black boy named Zach. Why Zach even bothers with a chinless (her description, not mine), whiny kid like Lily is anyone's guess. Maybe to drive the plot forward? Who knows. I very much hope that the author wasn't assuming that all black men are attracted by default to white women. That's a bunch of bunk, and it bugs me that it might even be a subtext here. Other than that potential squick -- and the stereotypic characterization of Rosaleen as a fat, loving, black housekeeper with a heart of gold -- race was handled fairly deftly. The characterization of August and her sisters as educated, interesting folks who just happen to be black was nice. The episodes concerning Rosaleen and her quest to register to vote were compelling. Embedded feminism -- again, almost a default in this genre -- was also handled well in this book. Recurrent natural images of moonlight and water were beautiful and deliciously pagan. In fact, the author managed to create a new religion just for girls: part Catholicism, part goddess-centered paganism, part ancestor worship. The religious aspect was interesting, but not as compelling as the author wanted it to be. I could tell she was trying to impress me with the notion of Mary as a goddess protector. But I didn't buy it. I could tell that Lily bought it, though, and that was enough to keep me reading. The whole book was a quest for independence, I think. To find confidence and drive within, without always needing that crutch of others' acceptance. The book almost achieved that. But it gave in at the last, to deliver a happy ending. Lily comes to terms with her own guilt (yay) and does stand up to her father (again, yay), but she also retreats to complete dependence when she decides to stay with August and Rosaleen and the Daughters of Mary. This dependence isn't a horrible thing: she is, after all, 14. I finished the book with the generous expectation that Lily would grow up and eventually achieve self-sufficiency. She showed some signs. Now that I think about it, much of the book was cliche. But it was also a good read. The strength of the narrative voice saved it, and it had some absolutely gut-twisting parts. The line beginning "She was all I ever wanted" .... well, that was about as painful and breathtaking and unexpected as having your airbag deploy.
Rating: 
Summary: Overrated
Review: I wish I could be more positive about this book, but I found the characters to be one dimensional and unbelievable--a little too much honey.
Rating:
Summary: An Amazing Literary Accomplishment
Review: One of the best fiction books I've read. SECRET LIFE OF BEES is life changing in an odd way, which is odd in and of itself for a fiction book. NIGHT and MY FRACTURED LIFE capture that sense due to the biographical voice that emulate life, SECRET LIFE OF BEES manages the life changing sense due to the evolution of the character. We don't mistake SECRET LIFE OF BEES for anything but fiction, but it is powerful fiction that addresses issues of race, gender, and becoming an adult. Very powerful.
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Summary: Sweet story
Review: "The Secret Life of Bees" is the story of a fourteen-year-old girl, Lilly, who grew up in South Carolina in the 1960's. Her mother died when she was four years old and left her with an angry, abusive father who is incapable of showing love. Lilly grows up feeling alone, unloved, and hollow inside because she never got to know her mother. When she reaches the boiling point of hurt and frustration, Lilly and her nanny-type figure, Rosaleen, run away from home and end up living in Tiburon, South Carolina. Your imagination will be stretched as the pair wind up at the home of August and her two sisters, but August ends up both providing both a vital link to Lilly's mother's history and a source of maternal love. She also teaches Lilly about the practice of bee-keeping. All of these circumstances allow Lilly to let go of her fears surrounding her mother, and even to eventually confront her father. I love the development of Lilly as she strives to grow up, and the infromation about bees that is sprinkled into the story is great. The story does become a little contrived at some points, but the author achieves the emotional stress that she is striving for. You may appreciate this story even more if you are female so that you can relate to some of the feelings and insecurities that Lilly shares as a young woman, but I (as a man) was still able to appreciate her growth into independence (though as a man, am less open to the emotional floodgates that are being opened here.) I recommend the book as a light read that rides on the parallel tracks of Lilly's touching story and the informative discourse on bee-keeping.
Rating:
Summary: fac-check on bees
Review: As the daughter of a beekeeper I found the inconsistencies between the behavior of the bees in the book and the behavior of real bees to be distracting to the point where it spoiled the book for me. I wish the author had not only visited a beekeeper, but had gone back and asked him to read her story. Bees do not fly at night. They do not swarm at night. I remember the days when my own dad took the honey. It was always done on one of the hottest days of summer. The bees could smell the honey circling through the extractor set up in our kitchen. Thousands upon thousands of them would be lined along all the windows trying to get in. A quickly opened door would bring a hum of unwanted intruders buzzing throughout the house for the rest of the day. Clean up broken bottles of honey in a honey house? No way! You leave the door slightly ajar, walk away, and the bees will spend the rest of the day cleaning up every last drop for you and bringing it back to their hive. Research!
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