- Teenage girls, Fiction, South Carolina in fiction, African American women
Sue Monk Kidd's ravishing debut novel has stolen the hearts of reviewers and readers alike with its strong, assured voice. Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the town's fiercest racists, Lily decides they should both escape to Tiburon, South Carolina—a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. There they are taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters who introduce Lily to a mesmerizing world of bees, honey, and the Black Madonna who presides over their household. This is a remarkable story about divine female power and the transforming power of love—a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.
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Character
Earnest, classical in form, grave and intimate.
- earnestironic
- classical in formformally daring
- gravecomic
- intimateepic
- effortlessdemanding
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About the book
- Author
- Sue Monk Kidd, Sue Kidd
- First published
- 2002
- Pages
- 303
- Publisher
- HEADLINE (HODD), Clays Ltd, Viking
- Editions
- 30
- Language
- Spanish, English
- ISBN
- 9780143124320
Where to read
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On Open Library, 70 have read it and 407 want to.
“At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles around the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzzz that hummed along my skin.”
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