Book Group

We met last night at Heather's, over biscuits and honey, to discuss The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I thought the writing was positively gorgeous, and I definitely enjoyed the story. My only complaint was that most of the characters—particularly the black characters—seemed to have come right out of Central Casting: the sassy, fat nanny; the handsome teen-aged boy who plans to go to law school; the regal and wise "queen bee"; and so on. Every single black character was good and smart and noble and deep, which I found somehow patronizing, in a reverse-discrimination kind of way. And the white characters were similarly two-dimensional, from the no-good peach farmer to the civil rights lawyer. I was willing to forgive it all, though, for the lush descriptions and well-wrought phrases. I also found the extended beekeeping metaphor effective and interesting. 

On a side note, Andy and I have already seen "Glengarry Glen Ross" 50 bazillion times, but Andy wants to see it again. We planned for Netflix to get it here yesterday, so he could watch it himself while I was at Heather's. Alas, it didn't arrive until today, so he can watch it tonight while I start catching up on five weeks' worth of New Yorkers that have been languishing on my coffee table.

Comments

[Maribel]

Here's my take on the book (from my book website):
Fourteen year old Lily Owens lives with her abusive redneck father on a peach farm in South Carolina. After an incident she goes on the run with her black nanny and sets up residence with black bee-keeping, madonna worshipping, calendar girls (May, June and August Boatwright). Motherless Lily finds a whole bunch of mother substitutes and as well discovers that the mother is deep within herself (yuck!). Sue Monk Kidd set this novel against the backdrop of civil rights unrest in the mid-sixties. The book got a lot of buzz and it seems most people read it long ago but I had to wait for it to appear at the Book Depot (everything shows up there eventually). Did I like it? It is a very girly book meant to appeal to the sisterhood and sometimes is as cloyingly sweet as the honey the bees produce. Oprah would love it: child abuse, racism, motherlessness, female mysticism, secrets, trust, the triumph of good over evil, all her favourite themes are present. Some reviewers say they were moved to tears by it, I wasn't but then I'm a nasty, narrow-minded jade. I'm not sorry I read it but it's certainly not a keeper, I'll pass it on to my son's girlfriend.

[Anne Glamore]

When I reviewed this for one of my virtual book clubs, people either LOVED it or violently hated it. I have reviewed a wide variety of books, but this one really inspired the most opinions!