Book Review

Sue Monk Kidd's novel, The Secret Life of Bees, displays Lily Owens and her maid, Rosaleen, escape from a prison like home. The soft spoken book is set in 1964 in the deeply racist state of South Carolina. Lily Owen, a young girl, lives with her father and her maid on the jailed peach farm. Lily has been a motherless child since a very young age. Her father, T.Ray, is a emotionally abusiver father with the lack to care for anyone's need. Rosaleen, the maide, is partly oblivious to some situations but is a strong women who reacts without thinking about the consequences. The book mainly revolves around Lily and wanting to understand her mother's past. When Rosaleen has to go to jail, Lily makes a gutsy move by escaping to Tibourn, where she meets the best replacements for what she has been needing.

1. What was the author's purpose(s) in writing this book, and how can you tell? How well was this purpose achieved?
The author, Sue Monk Kidd, constructes a book surrounding the thoughts of this young white girl, Lily Owens. While Lily is living with an offensive father,T.Ray, they were always arguing. The mentioning of her mother would lead to another argument but her mother is the core of their differences. Their unusual daughter and father relationship is a product of the absents of her mother. Lily must dwell in the memory of losing her mother, as well as her father. Though he does not care to her needs, she and Rosaleen take on an adventure to Tibourn, but Lily secretly wants to know more about her mother. Kidd picks up the pace of the book through Lily and the runaway prisoner Rosaleen, going to Tibourn. The purpose of the book, in my opinion, is a story of every child that doesn't feel the love from their raised enviornment but finds it somewhere else no matter where and who it is. The acceptance of this child can be given by anyone who uderstand why this child has left from wherever they came from. In the end of the book, Lily does find what she has been longing, and the best part is the love and "stand-in-mother" comes from various women, who are the Boatwright sisters. It is obvious to the reader but Lily's doesn't fully get a grip on the concept.

8. Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth.
The most intriguing character was May Boatwright. May, who had a twin, is one of the Boatwright sisters. The Boatwright sisters, August, June, and May, are the ladies that Lily thinks knows about her mother. While she stays there, on their bee farm, she learns about each sister from August, the eldest Boatwright sister. May is the youngest, who is the psychologically unstable out of the three. She dwells in the pass of her twin but has a grip on how things should be for everyone else but hers. She is the free one of the family, knows her responsibilitie but does her own thing. The sisters don't object because they know why she reacts to certain things. August told Lily that May and her twin had a close bond. Anything one would feel or do, the other would react in the same manner. The loss of her twin was the other half of May. May stresses when she hears someone, she cares for, is taken away. Zach, the boy who helps August was sent to jail, and May took his sentencing to heart. She doesn't show her stess to everyone but to herself.

This book of course has a strong love for bees. In each chapter, their is facts of bees that correlates with the entire chapter. The relationship between the characters and the bees is similar and bees are seen as powerful healers. I like how Kidd takes relates the two because it comes out to become a great match. Anyone can make anything with honey and bees are the source of this honey. I feel the character are seen as the bees and the honey is the love and care that every character posses. Another concept of the book was the deep racisim in the book. Rosleen was delt with the brutality of racism by hand while she was in jail. Rosaleen was left with scars on her forehead but stood strong with her own values. Then Lily got the feeling of what it feels like when she reaches the Boatwright house of three African American sisters. It wasn't all the sisters but June the middle teacher. Lily best stated her feelings when she said, " there was no difference between my piss and June's. That's what I thought when I looked at dark circle on the ground. Piss was piss." The statement shows how much Lily didn't care about the color of the skin but the personality of the person.

This books writting style flows easily to understand. Kidd style of writing is greatened by writing as if a child was writing this. The reader is seeing throug every detail of Lily Owens. Sometimes people may be annoyed by her, but she was an authentic child character living in this time. Each character is different, possesing a certain personality that is loved by the end of the book. I felt the time period of racism and hatred towards colored people but saw the other perspective. The various situation within a story adds on to what a reader is looking for. Taken into a different world of hatred within Lily and her father, she takes what she has and leaves. The freedom of Lily and Rosaleen builds onto their characters and what they both yearn for in the beginning of the book. The end result may please some but one particular part wanted me to have a sequel. This book is a very sad but admiring book to read for all ages. Lily is possesing everything when she lost her mother.