The Secret Life of Bees

My mother has been trying to get me to read this book since she did, probably since the mid-late 2000s. I think she enjoyed the book so much because the protagonist's name is Lily (and mother is Lilly). Finally, Lower Merion library delivered and I was able to finish it on-time amidst my coursework.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Genre: Fiction, Women's Fiction, Young Adult/Coming-of-Age
Publication date: January 20003
Setting: Summer 1964, South Carolina

The novel is set in the South during the civil rights era, and 14-year-old, white, Lily is unhappy with her current situation. Her mother is dead, her father is authoritative and unloving, and she seems to have virtually no friends. Lily does have Rosaleen, a black peach-picker turned nanny who wants to register to vote in South Carolina. On Lily's 14th birthday (conveniently, July 4th), she becomes brazen and runs away from home, taking Rosaleen with her, and travels to Tiburon, SC. Her goal is to find clues and insight into her mother's past. Lily and Rosaleen meet the Boatwright sisters, May, June, and August (yes, like the months). Lily tells a made-up story of being an orphan traveling to Virginia. The sisters don't buy the story, but accept the runaways into their home and look after them for the summer. Lily becomes August's pupil in beekeeping and quickly develops a crush on the black boy Zach, who also helps with the beekeeping.
Eventually, summer ends and Lily fesses up to August about her past and some obvious plot lines are revealed about the connection the sisters have to Lily's mother. No surprises.

The book was OK. It was a little too sister-sisterly for me, with too much female support and care (not that I don't like girls sticking together, but it was just an overload). That being said, the intended audience is women - of any age, mostly single/divorced. And the storyline was so obvious, of course she falls for the black boy (which was taboo in the South in the 60s), and of course the sisters knew her mother. Looking back, the novel seems like a young adult book because of the limited plot and the story being told by a 14-year-old, and for that I label it "coming-of-age." I would have preferred the story to be told from August's perspective or in third person.
However, it was interesting to see how even a young teenager was so aware of racism and social inequality - she didn't care about color, but she knew that others did and tried to keep the peace when there was racial turmoil. Very astute for a young girl.

I give myself kudos for unintentionally reading a book dealing with race and civil rights around MLK Day, kismet.

DD rating: C

Next read: The Book Thief and/or Multiplication Is for White People. One of these I have to read for a grad class (two guesses which), and the other has been sitting in my Kindle library for over a year.