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 black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina-a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sister, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.
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[At night I would lie in bed and watch the show, how bees squeezed through the cracks of my bedroom wall and flew circles round the room, making that propeller sound, a high-pitched zzzzz that hummed along my skin]***
(Penguin Books, 28 January 2003, 333 pages, ebook, #popsugarreadingchallenge 2019, a book with at least one million ratings on good reads, bought from @AmazonKindle)
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I've never read the author before but the movie is among my favourites so I was really looking forward to reading the book. It ticked all the boxes for me and is masses better than the movie. I loved everything about this book. This is a coming-of-age story and I haven't read one of those in a while so I found this one enjoyable aspect of this fantastic book. The characters are fantastic, especially Lily, Rosaleen and May and I felt in love with all of them. This book is a great example of strong female characters and a friendship between women. Lily's father is a monster in this book, he barely seems to notice she's alive and to blame her for her mother's death and actually tell her this to her face is beyond awful. I loved how much Lily and Rosaleen develop throughout the book. Though I wish I'd read this before I saw the movie as I kept seeing the actors and actresses in my head as I read. I also loved the fact Lilly was the narrator.