This is literally the worst book I’ve ever read. I signed up to read about a spelling bee and instead I had to read a bunch of irrelevant smut. The metaphors and similes were awful (comparing a shirt’s color to deodorized toilet water and a tongue to a dead cow). The plot was so disjunct because it was all in present tense. The characters were so poorly developed that it was hard to predict their actions and nothing they said really dit who they were supposed to be. There were also a bunch of plot holes and mistakes. I can’t believe I spent money on this book.

There’s nothing more cheerfully American than a spelling bee. When 12 year old Eliza, an average 12 year old, turns out to be a spelling whiz, the family celebrates (at least dad does) then unravels. Not in a humorous or cheerful way, but in a dark and deeply unsettling way. A car crash in slo-mo. Not what I bargained for but too good to put down.

What a fascinating blend of mysticism, mental illness, and family dynamics. Gorgeous, engaging prose.

2.5 rounded up to a 3. I absolutely hated the ending of this book. This book proves some people, they just don’t need kids.

This book is totally about my family and my childhood, except it was written by Myla Goldberg. (And I must admit it's more exciting and disturbing than my family or my childhood...for one, my only brush with Hare Krishna was at the Crazy Wisdom Tearoom in Ann Arbor, where they played a soundtrack that chanted "Hare, Hare, Hare Krishna" all day long. Great for grading papers.)

So yes, Bee Season is a great read (I devoured it in two hot-and-heavy days) and it makes some very groovy connections between spriritual and intellectual growth, between obsessions and possessions we can see and ones we can only conjure manifestations of. Goldberg captures beautifully the suffocating love and expectations (administered in special cases through skill-and-drill) that parents inflict on their children, as well as the cruelty kids inflict as they seek to aggressively distinguish themselves from their parents. As the book progressed, however, I felt the characters were retreating from me and turning into symbols/crazy people. I like symbols and crazy people and symbols for crazy people (see: the Artist Formerly Known as Prince), but I put the book down feeling a little disappointed, missing the people I had been delighted, for a time, to meet and follow.

What a disturbed and messed up family..... religious obsession in any form, any religion, is warped and vile to my senses. The father here is so caught up in the pursuit of his 'perfect' view of Judaism and what behavior does or doesn't fit his picture, that he has totally failed to see that every member of his family is being damaged, by his obsession. He ignores his daughter in favor of training his son to fulfil his own (the father's) dreams, and then rejects his son in favor of his daughter who suddenly does something noteworthy enough to garner his interest. And, again, his captivation by her seems more the thrill of her unexpectedly fulfilling more of his own fantasies. And all the while, he has be absent for so many years that he does not even know that his wife has left her job and is totally wrapped up in her own mentally unstable world. All of her issues brought on by what? We never quite know, but surely aggravated by her husband's complete absense.

I had lots of compassion for the children, but beyond that - ICK! - I won't be running to read anything else by this author!

This book tells of a little girl who gains the attention from her parents that she has always craved when it is discovered that she has a gift for spelling. Her family, which was already dysfunctional, spirals more and more out of control: her brother, who had been a devout rabbi-to-be, converts to Harre Krishna; her mother is sent to a mental institution; and her father pushes her deeper and deeper into an obscure branch of Jewish mysticism, living vicariously through her efforts. I honestly wouldn't recommend this book. While the characters are engaging and multi-faceted, the tension in the family is grating, and the book is deeply disturbing. Moreover, I think that the narrative itself could have used more editing. It seems like the author took two unrelated concepts -- spelling and mysticism -- and shoehorned them together into the same book. It turns out that the author had studied this particular mystic in college, which would explain her own fascination with him and his concepts, but I feel that it hurts her story overall. Just my two cents.

The word-nerd in me loved the first half of Myla Goldberg's Bee Season, a story half about perfectly average Eliza Naumann and her pursuit to win a spelling bee (and garner the attention of her less-than-attentive parents), the other half about Eliza's family, which seems on the surface to be perfectly normal, but threatens to embark upon paths of destruction as the story progresses.

Maybe it's because I'm not Jewish, but the story starts to decoct into a kaleidoscope of nonsense when a) Eliza's father Saul introduces his daughter to a rigor of Jewish mysticism, b) when Eliza's brother Aaron starts to question his Jewishness, and c) when Eliza's mom Miriam starts losing it (and what it has to do with anything in the story, other than to provide an example of questionable parenting.) (without providing spoilers, it's all the "whys" behind Miriam's character, not sufficiently addressed by Ms. Goldberg that causes this story to unravel).

Having said all that, this book was much better than I thought it would be. My interest stayed piqued throughout, and I even liked the ending. If only I could've bought all the hooey in the second half...

**teensy spoiler

(given my reading of this roughly coincides with the 2013 National Spelling Bee, I can't help but imagine, given the disproportionate number of Indian-Americans who dominate the bee year after year, it's difficult not to
rewrite Bee Season in my head with Eliza's brother Aaron, instead of (or perhaps in addition to) attaining Krishna spiritual enlightenment, also chanting (in Eliza/Kaballah-like fashion) his way to bee-victory. Just sayin'.)

this enjoyable, creepy, sad first novel about a family disintegrating piece by pretty piece got into the h w wilson fiction catlog too. maybe won an award too.

Μπερδεμένο και βαρετό. Δυστυχώς αυτό το βιβλίο είναι φλατ, δεν έχει καμία σπιρτάδα. Επίσης πηγαίνει από το παρελθόν στο παρόν χωρίς σειρά, άλλες φορές ανά δυο παραγράφους άλλες φορές ανά μια (δεν έχει κεφάλαια), και με μπέρδευε τελείως. Επίσης χανόμουν μέσα στους εβραϊκούς όρους που δυστυχώς πουθενά το βιβλίο δεν τους εξηγούσε. Μην μιλήσω για το perfectimundo της Μιριαμ… (ποτέ δεν κατάλαβα τι εννοεί ο ποιητής)… Το βιβλίο αυτό ήμουν σίγουρη ότι θα μου αρέσει, τελικά απλώς το άφησα!

In the beginning was the Word: Logos. If spelling the knowledge and faith contained therein were a requirement for salvation, more than likely most of us would find ourselves cooling our heels in some form of remedial purgatory, seeking divine revelation in a book rather than in ourselves and our fellow sinners. Such is the downward path set before poor Eliza: she just wants to be loved by an attentive father; he wants to create a prodigy fed and nurtured on syllables instead of understanding. If cluelessness -- about what makes his own family members tick -- were a sin, he'd have his own special ring in Dante's Inferno, doomed to accumulate correct spellings that produce nothing but incoherence masquerading as scholarly virtue. His obtuseness strains credulity at times, but fortunately, the painfully believable struggles of Eliza and her brother make up for it.

In this heartfelt exploration of family alienation and spiritual seeking, G. pits scholastic monasticism against communal knowledge and compassion, and if Goldberg stacks the deck against the former to an extent that would make Aquinas protest from his grave, she at least grants Pere Naumann the brains and heart to eventually figure out his mistake. Though this conflict threatens to lapse into a rigid rubric as the novel progresses, Goldberg is talented enough to develop complex characters that evoke our sympathies, partly through eye-raising but credible plot twists and partly through rich language. Like many talented first-time novelists, she tends to lay on that richness until it becomes more of a wearying distraction from the dream world of fiction than a means to enhancing it. But that seems like the kind of narrow-minded, technical criticism Mr Naumann would throw at his daughter's spelling errors.

Is it a "disturbing" novel, as some have commented? Sure, if, like me, you're disturbed by a culture that can seem like a disorienting, if not destabalizing amalgam of theocracy and meritocracy, where success requires a near puritanical belief in self-reliance, and failure gives off a whiff of moral offense. But I would describe story as more compelling than disturbing. Overall, I'd rate this one 3 1/2 stars (rest of our local book club rated it one of best books we'd read in some time). I would read another book by her, and I think she's just come out with a new one.

What i love about this novel is understanding all the missed connections and miscommunication the characters have with each other, understanding the histories and experiences that cause the characters to treat and respond to each other in certain ways, and seeing the root causes of the family's problems and disfunction's.

The book follows Eliza as she prepares for a national spelling bee, her dad who coaches her, her mom, and her brother who goes through a religious journey outside of his Jewish upbringing. Each of the characters experience something and have an internal world that the other characters can not understand, but which the readers are privy to. This allows the audience to understand what the characters can not.

(This book is not about queers, but I could really relate to all the disconnection my family has experienced because they can not fathom why I would choose to be queer. I wish I could read a story like this with all my friends and family members as characters so i could understand why every one acts the way they do.)