The Secret Life of Bees Book Review

Kidd, Monk Sue. The Secret Life of Bees ( New York, NY. Penguin Books, 2002), 302 pp. reviewed by Chrystal Okwuokei, Los Osos High School, Rancho Cucamonga, CA.

 The Secret Life of Bees is a 21st century, fictional novel that takes place in Tiburon, South Carolina. The main character Lily Owens has to deal with the absence of her mother after accidentally "killing" her when she was a child. She struggles to replace the emptiness in her heart because she searches for her mother's love. She runs away from her abusive father T. Ray with her nanny Rosaleen. On their escape they encounter a bright pink house and meet three sisters August, May, and June Boatwright who invite them to live with them. August teaches Lily to become a beekeeper and she learns how to make honey and candle wax.

Lily receives the support, comfort, and love she needs from Rosaleen and the Boatwright sisters. They teach  her to have faith and she begins to feel empowered. Lily continues to learn and grow and eventually moves on from her troubled past. The major themes in the novel are the power of sisterhood and the mother figure which represents universal love. Sue Monk Kidd uses both coincidence and accident to propel the plot because although Lily didn't have a plan on where to go after she ran away from home she is still able to find the truth that she seeks.

The Scarlet Letter

For my 19th century novel I read The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The main theme of the novel is adultery and the consequences that people face if they commit it. For those of you that have read the book before or seen the movie Easy A. You know that the main character Hester Prynne is forced to wear a bright, red, letter A on her clothes, after she conceives a daughter, named Pearl through an adulterous affair.  After being exposed for the crime she struggles to create a new life of dignity. Another theme in the book was guilt. Hester  was a bold woman and  she wasn't ashamed of committing the sin. She doesn't confess to who she had the affair with either. Hester went against the morals of the society and she was judged and ridiculed for not being a righteous woman. In the end her secret is revealed that she had the affair with Dimmesdale and they were buried with a red A on their tombstone. I believe that the moral of the story is that the truth always comes out even if  you try to cover it up so you should always be honest.

Chicana Falsa

 Chicana Falsa by Michele Serros is a combination of poetry and fiction. I really enjoyed reading this novel because it was short and entertaining. Michele Serros describes her life growing up in Los Angeles and struggling to find her true identity. She has to deal with stereotypes and not being considered a real Chicana because of the way she speaks.She wanted to become a writer at a young age but some of  her family members and neighbors didn't  believe she could become a writer because there weren't many Latina writers during that time and she didn't get good grades in English.
Her mother was the only person who supported her dream and encouraged her to continue writing. This was her first novel which she dedicated to her mother after she died, because even though her family was poor her mother spent all the money she saved to buy her a desk where she could write her stories. She struggled to find something to write about but then realizes her life was the perfect story to tell.