Lily Owen is a 14 year old girl who lives on a peach farm in South Carolina with her father, whom she calls T Ray because she never fits him. She has memories of a fateful day when she was only four, when her mother was anxiously clearing the closet and packing away.
This is a vividly touching story of a white girl with a good heart who grew up feeling guilty and unloved, and how she eventually found maternal love, friendship and acceptanc
e with coloured people at a time when racism was deep. When Lily and her black domestic worker, Rosaleen, ran away from home after getting into trouble with the authorities, they took refuge in the home of 3 black sisters. The sisters ran a honey business, and it is here that Lily learn abt bee keeping, love and relationships.
When one of the black ladies, May, committed suicide because she was “tired of carrying around the weight of the world”, there was a pall of sadness in the community. But May left them some wise words in her suicide note to her sisters. She had told them that “when it’s time to die, go ahead and die, and when it’s time to live, live. Don’t sort-of-maybe live, but live like you’re going all out, like you are not afraid.”
At the end, Lily finally found peace in her heart. She found the sign she had been seeking all her young life - that her mother had actually loved her and had not simply abandoned her as her father had told her. She found the wisdom to understand the hurt and betrayal her father had felt when her mother left him, which contributed to his bitterness and cruel coldness in his relationship with her, his only daughter.
The Secret Life of Bees is a beautifully written story that is heart-warming and sensitive.
This is a vividly touching story of a white girl with a good heart who grew up feeling guilty and unloved, and how she eventually found maternal love, friendship and acceptanc
e with coloured people at a time when racism was deep. When Lily and her black domestic worker, Rosaleen, ran away from home after getting into trouble with the authorities, they took refuge in the home of 3 black sisters. The sisters ran a honey business, and it is here that Lily learn abt bee keeping, love and relationships.When one of the black ladies, May, committed suicide because she was “tired of carrying around the weight of the world”, there was a pall of sadness in the community. But May left them some wise words in her suicide note to her sisters. She had told them that “when it’s time to die, go ahead and die, and when it’s time to live, live. Don’t sort-of-maybe live, but live like you’re going all out, like you are not afraid.”
At the end, Lily finally found peace in her heart. She found the sign she had been seeking all her young life - that her mother had actually loved her and had not simply abandoned her as her father had told her. She found the wisdom to understand the hurt and betrayal her father had felt when her mother left him, which contributed to his bitterness and cruel coldness in his relationship with her, his only daughter.
The Secret Life of Bees is a beautifully written story that is heart-warming and sensitive.
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