Secret Life of Bees

My Book Review

My house is made up of yellow and white limestone. My friend Jane's is bright red brick. If you were to ask me what the color of her house means to me... I would say an easy way to identify this house. In my opinion, the color of someones house is just not a way to detect anything from her personality. It is simply put, the color of her house. What if I were to tell you that that red was a symbol of love? That the reason it was red brick was because Jane's parents loved each other so much they decided to express the love in the color of their house just to remind them of the love they share? Seems a little outlandish but at the same time seems extremely normal. The author, Sue Monk Kidd, showed us very well, by including quotes from other books and through her text, principles that should be carried with us throughout our life.

The character development

in this book was very good. Through the first couple of pages I found out about Lily and her thoughts. Eventually I learned about Rosaleen and when she drips the snuff juice on the shoes of the older white men when the harrass her for voting. At first she seemed to not really care much for Lily but in the end, I thought of her as a more motherly figure for her, she seemed like the strong type of mother, the one who fights for the rights of he children. When the two eventually get to Tiburon, they meet August, June and May. August Boatwright, is obviously the eldest of the trio, she witholds much of the power in the household and is the one everyone looks up to. By the end of the book I saw her as more of the ever-loving motherly type. Ms. June Boatwright automatically has a resentment towards Lily and the two seem to clash in Lily's thoughts. When we find out in the end why that is, you see it's because she is another strong-willed black woman. June would be the type of mother I could see urging you to stand up to the bully in your classroom. May, the fun and entergetic one of the bunch seems just like the sweetest lady you've ever meet. You wouldn't want to bring up anything that would upset her as the slightest thing could send her to her wailing wall (the wall she made to cry and store her prayers in). May was a little bit off her rocker to say the least but she would be the mother who showed you the beauty in anything. Of course, the last four lady's I introduced were the few who were "stand-ins" for Lily's mother. They each gave Lily Owens something she could learn from.

Ms. Kidd was extremely good at burning an image into my head. When August and Lily went to the hives to do bee patrol I could place myself right with them. '"They're cooling the hives down," she said,and her breath brooke over my face with the smell of spearmint. "That's the sound of one hundred thousand bee wings fanning the air." She closed her eyes and soaked it in the way you imagine people at a fancy orchestra concert drinking up highbrow music. -- We had our ears pressed up to a giant music box. Then the whole side of my face started to vibrate as if the music had rushed into my pores.' (Kidd, 147-148). I could feel my own pores vibrating and chills running up and down my spine as I imagined they would have done if I was there. That type of imagry and description is my favorite. The way it was presented to me throughout the book let me see how much of a great place this Tiburon, South Carlolina was in the 1960's. This description and detail leads me to the third reason why I see Ms. Sue Monk Kidd as a successful writer.

The dialogue used in The Secret Life of Bees was exquisite, she used just the right amount to get a real picture. It didn't matter if it was Lily talking to herself or, Zach and her talking or even June and August. I was placed into the conversation as an innocent bystander as explained here:

"I want you to know that I---" He stopped and looked up into the tree tops.

I stepped nearer to him. "You want me to know what?"

"That I--I care about you. I think about you all the time."

It crossed my mine to say there were things he didn't know about me... but I smiled and said, "I care about you too."

"We can't be together now, Lily, but one day, after I've gone away and become somebody, I'm gonna find you, and we'll be together then." (Kidd, 231)

Ms. Kidd used the dialogue as a terrific means of getting a point across. You could tell when August was speaking to Lily the thoughts she processed came right out of the insight August gave her. The language used in this book was