Secret Life of Bees, The

Sue Monk Kidd exemplified a truly brilliant creative work when completing The Secret Life of Bees, that of which I would read over and over again. Everyday tasks were transformed into interesting events that readers were given the tools to imagine what was being spoken about in specific detail. The author innovatively transformed what could have been bland characters, into dynamic people with imaginative personalities that were surrounded in an intricate atmosphere. Sue Monk Kidd’s work incorporates artistically assembled writings, filled with vibrant characterization, usage of description, and technique of narration.

I am inviting you to an adventure filled with exploration and vivid description. Surround yourself with characters so amazingly developed that you relate effortlessly to them as individuals. Don’t be surprised as you begin reading how quickly you will connect and begin to share their heart wrenching emotions. This novel overflowed with tremendous detail throughout its entirety, luring readers to instantly become captivated from the very beginning. Exploring through everyday challenges, such as death, independence, heart ache, racism, historical turning points, suicide, struggles with ones self-esteem and love, Kidd turns these into intricate detailed situations intertwined with marvelous specificity.

In The Secret Life of Bees, the reader is taken through a journey with the main character Lily Owens, of her crossings through abuse, heart ache, confusion, acceptance, and rejection. When Lily was four years old her mother was shot and died. Lily, who had been living with her abusive and neglectful father, T. Ray, had been convinced by him that she was the one who shot her mother. While holding dearly onto past memories of her mother, she wanted to prove that her mother loved her. However, T. Ray’s persistence began to play havoc on her memories. She soon felt that she remembered when she saw the shiny object on the floor that her mother had dropped, she picked it up and a loud ‘bang’ noise came out of it. Lily soon began to look at Rosaleen, their black full time housekeeper, as a motherly figure. However, since this takes place in South Carolina in 1964, it is no surprise that Rosaleen is faced with racism to the highest degree when in public. Lily didn’t understand why black people were being treated so unfairly, and when Rosaleen was placed in jail for a minor incident, Lily filled with fury caused by T. Ray’s hurtful words freed Rosaleen. Lily and Rosaleen then venture to Tiburon, a name of a city found on the back of a photo of the Black Madonna, once belonging to Lily’s mother. Eagerly searching to discover Lily’s mothers past the two are taken in by three black beekeeping sisters. This is when the true discoveries begin.

As Kidd guides us through the story, Lily slowly begins to remember bits and pieces of what had happened the day her mother had passed away all the while discovering new lessons. Kidd’s novel is compiled of situations filled with feelings depicted in inspirational ways that allows you to truly feel for the character. A perfect example of this was when Lily reflects back on a memory of her deceased mother:

“When she passed it to me, she held on to my hands for a second. The frame contained a picture of a woman in profile, her head bent toward a little girl who sat in a high chair with a smudge of baby food on the side of her mouth. The woman’s hair curled in forty directions, beautiful, like it had just had its hundred strokes. She held a baby spoon in her right hand. Light glazed her face. The little girl wore a bib with a teddy bear on it. A sprig of hair on top of her head was tied in a bow. She lifted one hand toward the woman.

Me and my mother.” (Kidd 275)

Within the first sentences of this quote, we see the struggle between Lily recognizing the difference between her ‘mother’ and a ‘woman’. We are able to embrace the emotions of Lily, by the emphasis that is placed on the last line and how it is broken from the previous paragraph. Also we see in the next quote how ingeniously the author reaches out to her audience to offer a fulfilling understanding of the insurmountable yearning the young child holds, wishing for nothing more but to be away from her current atmosphere.

“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 zzzzz that hummed along my skin. I watched their wings shining like bits of chrome in the dark and felt the longing build in my chest. The way those bees flew, not even looking for a flower, just flying for the feel of the wind, split my heart down its seam.” (Kidd 1)

Kidd wrote with extraordinary detail, and gained my complete attention. The Secret Life of Bee’s strived to connect to readers by painting vivid pictures, allowing one to relate both physically and emotionally. Sue Monk Kidd created situations so that anyone could relate in either past or present time, fully involving their imagination and attention. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a captivating and high quality read.