Year 2, week 17: The Secret Life of Bees

This week's book:
The Secret Life of Bees
By Sue Monk Kidd

This week's book had been on my to read list forever. I mean literally ten years or more. Someone had bought a copy for my mother after one of her cancer surgeries. I don't know if she ever got around to reading it.

Every time my mother needed surgery, so many people would send my mother gifts and flowers. She was so loved, that mama of mine. I clearly remember a copy of The secret Life of Bees sitting on the table by that recliner my mother recovered in after every surgery. Now I'm not sure if the copy I recently read was the same copy, I'm pretty sure I picked it up at a used book sale or Goodwill or something like that. I kept meaning to read it and then I would read something else. Well, since I have been listening to audiobooks while I quilted, I decided to get all those books I have been meaning to read and never gotten around to reading. The library my family has had library cards for didn't have a wide selection of audiobooks so I sort of just had to pick books that I've been meaning to read. I got a new library card that I have been told has a much better selection and a much better staff of nice people who want to help you.

I started the Secret Life of Bees not really knowing much about it other than every lady over the age of fifty had suggested it and that Queen Latifah was in the film adaptation. Well, ladies and gents, the book was very good. It tells the story of Lily (whom my daughter thought was hilarious when she overheard the book in the car) and her caregiver running away from their dreadful lives. Lily accidentally shot and killed when she was a child. She then lived with her abusive father before running back to the home where her mother used to live. She befriends three sisters that raise bees and collect honey for a living. The book is about the strength of women and how women don't need a man to be happy. The story made me think of other books I have read that have to do with the south during the civil rights movement. The Help and The Ya Ya Sisterhood are just two examples of the feel of the Secret Life of Bees. I very much enjoyed the book and wanted to either listen to or read it until it was done. Although I think the ending seemed wrapped up a little too well, all the plots are wrapped up with a neat little bow, I think it was still a good book. When I took the book to my book group Christmas party for its book exchange, everyone who commented on how they either had loved it when they had read it or been dying to read it at some point. I would definitely recommend this book.