just bee

I just finished reading one of the zillion books on my current "to read list"--The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. All of the women in my life have been telling me for months that I should read this book, and after putting it down several days ago, all I can say is, WOW. The plot, in short, involves a teenage girl who runs away from an abusive father in the 1960s with an African American woman in search of information about her mother who died when she was 4. In South Carolina, Lily (the girl) and Rosaleen (the black woman) meet these 3 other black women sisters, one of whom is a beekeeper and sells honey. Most of the novel is about what happens while Lily lives with these women...

What makes this book so wonderful is its beautifully honest articulation of the yearning for a mother that Lily has, and how that longing is fulfilled in the most unexpected (and for that time period, countercultural) of places and ways. But in the end, it's more than a coming of age story; it's a tale about regret, forgiveness, violence, grace, desire, dreams, politics, religion, power, nature, pain, healing, fear, courage, and Love.

If for some reason you, like me, have been hiding under a rock and not had a chance to read this book, I recommend adding it to your bedside table as soon as possible.