Little Bee

Little Bee (Chris Cleave) Kindle Version -- 2009 -- 9

Little be isn't a faint book; while not long, it is heavy. Many novels dealing with charged subject matter and high-faluting morality can also be ponderous, and full of unlikeable idiots who are supposed to be all to real. This is just not the case with Little Bee.

I downloaded Little Bee because I'd seen some positive reviews but (as is my habit), hadn't much read the synopsis. After reading the first few lines, I'd decided to put it off for a few days and start something lighter. After dragging myself through a horrendous excuse for a horror novel, I came back to Little Bee. By the time the book switched to the second narrator at chapter 2, I was fully enthralled, and Little Bee barely let me up for air.

I hate spoilers, and I wouldn't want to spoil Little Bee for anyone, there's too much that happens that you don't need to know a thing about until it happens. But I do want potential readers to know that Little Bee is a whirlwind, hugely accomplished, and a story that works on so many levels. More than anything I appreciated how much I came to love the characters, and to empathize with them.

My only problem really was with the ending. It took quite a while to get around to with too many things happening to quickly, and then ended rather abrubptly. I don't know that I have a better answer to what to do with these people; but I did click the last page feeling slightly abandoned.

If you love stories, if you love the written word -- even if you've read a synopsis of Little Bee and though, "maybe not my kind of thing," I'd just urge you to think twice. I'm really super glad I did.