Tolog Review: The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret life of Bees
by Sue Monk Kidd
reviewed by Chloe Walters-Gudino

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a novel that will truly touch your heart. The novel is about a young girl named Lily who met the meaning of what family is, and how love can change your life. Lily Melissa Owens was a girl who lived with her father. Her father, T. Ray, was far from the father type. He bossed Lily around and did not care for her. T. Ray also always stopped a question about what and why her mother is dead, and would do anything to change the subject. She then decides to leave her abusive home, and takes Rosaleen, an African- American maid that served for Lily and T. Ray. You could say that Rosaleen was her “step-in mother.” Lily found out where her mother was raised, Tiburon, SC from her mother’s old belongings. As they were headed to Tiburon, Lily sees a picture on a honey jar of “Black Mary,” the same image that her mother used to have. She and Rosaleen then arrived at the house of the makers of this honey and honey jar. The makers were the Boatwright sisters: August, May, and June. Lily then asks if she and Rosaleen could stay due to shortage of food and money. The Boatwright sisters then open up their pink home to the two. Lily then learns what love in a family is like, and what it is like to like as an African- American in the 60’s. Lily notices how these sisters treat each other, and how they opened up their home to someone who needed their help.

As first, the novel went at a slow pace, but at the same time you can feel the love, pain, and despair. You then want to find out what will happen next because of how high the emotions will run. What you will learn from this is how people can love you in the most caring way. You will feel the happiness when the joy spreads throughout the words. I would recommend this book because you see a girl who was unloved by her own father. Then she saw how a FAMILY who is not her own blood gave her their hearts because she was apart of their FAMILY. This is a novel that describes meaning of how hatred could turn into something greater, happiness!