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• 3 of 3 people find this helpful

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  • I had a hard time getting into this book, but when I finished I did enjoy it. I look forward to reading it again for a book discussion.

    

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• ― SheReads said on Mar 5, 2007 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • 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 ... Continue

    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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• ― meganzing said on Sep 29, 2007 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • The movie was amazing- usually it's nothing like the book, but this is the best example of not doing that I've seen so far

    

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• ― Frecklez 74 said on Nov 13, 2008 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • fun and adventurous...

  • This story is about hard work, trust, family, and love. The Secret Life of Bees is so fun and adventurous. It is so unique because of the different things that take place, how everything has a purpose, and that you don't realize it at first, but the core of this story is Lily's search for her moth ... Continue

    This story is about hard work, trust, family, and love. The Secret Life of Bees is so fun and adventurous. It is so unique because of the different things that take place, how everything has a purpose, and that you don't realize it at first, but the core of this story is Lily's search for her mother, and finds a place she never expected.

    

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• ― SAAS MS said on Sep 24, 2008 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • Really enjoyed. Although I didn't like Mermaid Chair too much.

    

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• ― Moonbeach03 said on Jan 4, 2008 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

"The bees came the summer of 1964, the summer I turned fourteen and my life went spinning off into a whole new orbit, and I mean whole new orbit. Looking back on it now, I want to say the bees were sent to me. I want to say they showed up like the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary, setting events in motion I could never have guessed." So begins the story of Lily Melissa Owens, a plucky girl, rich in humor despite heart wrenching circumstances. Living on a peach farm in South Carolina with her harsh, unyielding father, her entire life has been shaped around one devastating, though blurred, memory- the afternoon her mother was killed. Four at the time, she remembers innocently picking up the gun. And, she has her father's eyewitness account of the gun firing. People remind her it was an accident, yet she's inhabited by a torturous guilt. Lily's only real companion is Rosaleen, a tender, but fierce-hearted black woman who cooks, cleans and acts as her "stand-in mother."

South Carolina in 1964 is a place and time of seething racial divides. When violence explodes one summer afternoon, and Rosaleen is arrested and beaten, Lily is desperate, not only to save Rosaleen, but to flee a life she can no longer endure. Calling upon her colorful wits and uncommon daring, she breaks Rosaleen out of jail and the two of them take off, runaway-fugitives conjoined in an escape that quickly turns into Lily's quest for the truth about her mother's life.

Following a trail left ten years earlier, Lily and Rosaleen end up in the home of three bee-keeping sisters. No ordinary women, the sisters revere a Black Madonna and tend a unique brand of female spirituality that reaches back to the time of slavery. As Lily's life becomes deeply entwined with theirs, she is irrevocably altered. In a mesmerizing world of bees and honey, amid the strength and power of wise women, Lily journeys through painful secrets and shattering betrayals, finding her way to the single thing her heart longs for most.

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