The Secret Life of Bees

I just finished reading The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I really enjoyed this book. I seriously had doubts about it based solely on the title. Honestly, I thought that it was one of the dumbest titles that I had ever heard. I mean, who really cares about the secret life of bees?!?!? Just make sure they keep makin' me my honey for my tea and I'm happy. I really don't have much time for reading an entire novel that tells me about the secret things that happen between sucking nectar from a flower and buzzing back to make honey. It really doesn't interest me. I guess I pretty much thought... hey, if it's a secret life, keep it that way! Some secrets are meant not to be shared.

Then, my friend encouraged me to read the book and even delivered the book to my home!!! So, I read a bit and I was hooked! The text was engaging and held my interest. I was pleased to find out that it wasn't a story about bees. Mind you, bees to play a huge part in the story but it's not all about the bees. By the way, after reading the book, I do get the title although, I'm still not sure what's so secret about their life. Hehe!

While the story was fun and quick and interesting, there were several parts where I felt that I had to stretch my imagination to believe. Some examples...

• Spitting on the white man's shoes...was she stupid?


• The jailbreak...it was so-o-o easy!


• Ending up at the right house on the first try...they were wandering and just stumbled into the right place?


• Being welcomed as a white girl into the home... Sure, c'mon in! That's not likely to happen!


• No one questioning what a white girl was doing there... in that day, I find this particularly hard to believe.


• A white teen and a black teen driving together through town without question... wouldn't he be beat up just for looking at her?


• The statue of Mary thing... ya, that one took a lot of imagination!

Despite all those, I still enjoyed the book. It was a bit of a fantasy to believe that a girl could stumble into such a great situation accidentally. But it offered hope. I was impressed by all of the coincidences that were throughout the book. It made me suspend reality and believe that sometimes life can be like that...good things popping up out of nowhere!