The Secret Life of Bees

[Barbara]

Everybody I know loves this book. My mother recommended it, my friends told me to buy it, my librarian practically pressed it into my hand.

And I hated it.

Oh, I know it's well-written. Sue Monk Kidd can write, for sure. It's lyrical. It's sweet.

And it's so cliched and cloying it made me sick to my stomach.

It's the middle of the sixties, and Lily lives with her abusive father on a peach farm. When her only friend, her black maid, is assaulted for voting, they flee town. They go to the only place Lily associates with her mother: Tiburon, South Carolina. Lily has a postcard from there that belonged to hr mother.

I found it so derivative of so many other books. It could be a Hallmark movie. (That is not a compliment, by the way. ) Lily is a good character, and there are some good plot points, but another coming-of-age in the South? Please. And the other characters are so one-dimensional, they're caricatures.

I'm off to read something dark and gritty, that smacks of real life. Just to take this taste out of my mouth.

[Dustyleaf]

*Hands Barb my autobiography "slapping every cheek", a bottle of mouthwash and a torch*