Secret Life of Bees

Anna Rose Iverson

Arnold

Honors English

February 28, 2015

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a coming of age novel set in 1964. The protagonist, Lily Owens, is a fourteen year old girl with no mother and a distant abusive father. She and her father live on a peach farm in a small town in South Carolina. Lily has no friends except her nanny, Rosaleen who is also a mother-like figure to her. Rosaleen soon gets arrested and subsequently beaten for standing up for herself to the town racists. This leads to Lily breaking Rosaleen out of jail and running away with her. Lily had a picture that once belonged to her mother. It was of a Black Mary with the name of a town written on the back. This is the town Rosaleen and Lily run to. There they find the Boatwright sister’s bee farm and their new home. The two soon became a part of the family, tending the bees, baking, and praying to ‘Our Lady In Chains’, a black Mary statue that is said to have once belonged to slaves and it would return back to them whenever the landowner tried to take it away. After living in the house for some time she discovers her mother had also spent time in the house, which caused Lily to feel unsettled. But this became worse when two tragedies strike the house in one day. After life goes back to normal Lily learns about her mothers relationship with August. Again just as life gets back to normal a visitor from Lily’s past comes to the house and tries to take her back. In the end the motherless girl gains not one but many new loving mothers around her, supporting her any way possible.

 I would suggest this book to anyone, it is a quick yet still emotional read. Being based in the sixties with prominently black characters, narrated by a young white girl shows the innocence of Lily surrounded by the racist world who judges her new family. The Secret Life of Bees shows that family isn't necessarily blood but those who love you and nothing can hinder that love, not even race, sex, marital status or anything else out of the so called norm.