Me ha gustado ha habido partes donde te emocionas un poco, pero ha sido una buena lectura.
Sinopsis: Carolina del Sur, 1964, en plena lucha por los derechos civiles. Una adolescente y su amiga negra deciden escapar del duro porvenir que les espera en su ciudad, y a la vez buscar respuestas sobre lo ocurrido a la m adre de una de ellas, fallecida en extrañas circunstancias. Por el camino se encontrarán con tres hermanas afroamericanas que se dedican a la apicultura y que las acogerán en su casa... Una novela emocionante y evocadora.
El personaje mas entrañable o que mas me ha gustado ha sido August, y la protagonista ha ratos me precia un poco rencorosa, a ratos me caía bien. Tambien me gustó mucho la hermana de August, May.
Valoración: 7.5/10
# 31- Un libro sobre una familia. Reto Popsugar 2023.

The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd

The Secret Life of Bees is a book by author Sue Monk Kidd. Published: November 8th 2001.

The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of a 14-year-old white girl, Lily Melissa Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed.

She lives in a house with her abusive father, whom she refers to as T. Ray. They have a no-nonsense maid, Rosaleen, who acts as a surrogate mother for Lily.

The book opens with Lily's discovery of bees in her bedroom. Then, after Rosaleen is arrested for pouring her bottle of "snuff juice" on three white men, Lily breaks her out of the hospital and they decide to leave town.

They begin hitch-hiking toward Tiburon, SC, a place written on the back of an image of the Virgin Mary as a black woman, which Deborah, her mother, had owned.

They spend a night in the woods with little food and little hope before reaching Tiburon. There, they buy lunch at a general store, and Lily recognizes a picture of the same "Black Mary" but on the side of a jar of honey.

They receive directions to the origin of that honey, the Boatwright residence. They are introduced to the Boatwright sisters, the makers of the honey: August, May, and June, who are all black. Lily makes up a story about being an orphan. Lily and Rosaleen are invited to stay with the sisters. ...

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «زندگی اسرارآمیز زنبورها»؛ «زندگی اسرارآمیز»؛ «زندگی پنهان زنبورها»؛ نویسنده: سو مانک کید؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: سال 2005میلادی

عنوان: زندگی اسرارآمیز زنبورها؛ نویسنده: سو مانک کید؛ مترجم: شقایق قندهاری؛ تهران، علم، 1383؛ در 430ص؛ شابک 9644053958؛ داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

عنوان: زندگی اسرارآمیز زنبورها؛ نویسنده: سو مانک کید؛ مترجم: صدیقه ابراهیمی (فخار)؛ تهران، البرز، 1384؛ در 376ص؛ شابک9644424506؛

عنوان: زندگی اسرارآمیز؛ نویسنده: سو مانک کید؛ مترجم: گیتا گرکانی؛ تهران، کاروان، 1385؛ در 379ص؛ شابک9648497346؛

عنوان: زندگی اسرارآمیز؛ نویسنده: سو مانک کید؛ مترجم: عباس زارعی؛ تهران، آموت، 1393؛ در 379ص؛ شابک9786006605579؛

داستان «لی‌لی» دختری چهارده ساله است؛ دختری که همراه با پدر و دایه‌ ی خویش، در یک مزرعه‌ ی هلو، خارج از ناحیه‌ ی «سیلوان» زندگی می‌کند؛ او در چهار سالگی، مادرش خویش را از دست داده، و خود را مقصر مرگ مادر می‌داند؛ و در عین حال با پدرش نیز رابطه‌ ی خوبی ندارد؛ «لی‌لی» به زنبورها، علاقه‌ ی ویژه ای نشان می‌دهد؛ او دختر ساده‌ ای است، که شخصیتی افسرده دارد، و هماره احساس می‌کند، که دیگران او را دوست ندارند؛ «لی‌لی» به همراه دایه‌ اش به شهر می‌رود، و از خانه می‌گریزد؛ و ...؛ متن این کتاب در مدارس، دبیرستان‌ها و دانشکده‌های «آمریکایی» در قالب درس ادبیات تدریس می‌شود

نقل از متن: (بال‌های آن‌ها را می‌دیدم که مثل تکه‌های کروم در تاریکی می‌درخشیدند؛ در سینه‌ام اشتیاق ناشی از حضور آن‌ها را حس می‌کردم؛ نوع پرواز آن‌ها که برای یافتن گُل نبود، و فقط می‌خواستند باد ناشی از بال زدنشان را حس کنند، قلبم را می‌شکافت؛ در طول روز صدای آن‌ها را می‌شنیدم که در دیوارهای اتاقم تونل می‌زدند: صدایی شبیه به پارازیت رادیویی که از اتاق بغلی می‌آمد، و آن‌ها را مجسم می‌کردم، که دارند دیوارها را تبدیل به شانه‌های عسل می‌کنند، و از آنجا عسل تراوش می‌کند، تا من آن را بچشم؛ سر و کله ی زنبورها از تابستان 1964میلادی پیدا شد، تابستانی که من چهارده ساله شدم و مسیر زندگی‌ام کاملاً تغییر کرد، منظورم این است که مسیر زندگی‌ام واقعا و به طور کامل تغییر کرد، حالا که به گذشته نگاه می‌کنم، باید بگویم که زنبورها را برای من فرستاده بودند؛ می‌خواهم بگویم آن‌ها همان طور که جبرئیل، فرشته الهی، بر مریم پاکدامن نازل شد، بر من آشکار شدند و وقایع چنان رقم خورد که اصلاً انتظار نداشتم؛ می‌دانم که نباید زندگی کوچکم را با او مقایسه کنم؛ اما باور دارم که این مسئله برای او اهمیت چندانی ندارد؛ بعدا دلیلش را خواهم گفت؛ فعلاً همین قدر بگویم که با وجود تمام اتفاقات تابستان آن سال، هنوز هم حس خوبی نسبت به زنبورها دارم، اول جولای 1964میلادی، توی رختخوابم خوابیده بودم، و منتظر بودم زنبورها پیدایشان شود، به چیزی فکر می‌کردم که «روزالین» درباره ملاقات‌های شبانه با زنبورها گفته بود؛ او گفته بود: «زنبورها قبل از مرگ جمع می‌شوند.»)؛ پایان

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 15/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 05/07/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

Neke knjige su tako nježne,tako tople i nose prekrasne misli i upute da znaš da ćeš ih pamtiti čitav život,e takva je i ova knjiga.
Sve o pčelama,sve o ljubavi,gubitku,tuzi,teretima koje nosimo na duši,o pronalasku sebe i predrasudama koje otkrijemo kad se ogolimo sami pred sobom.

"Kada se sve sabere i oduzme, Lili, to je jedina svrha dovoljno velika za ljudski život. Ne samo voleti – već i istrajati u ljubavi.“

Topla preporuka

Fourteen year old, Lily Owens has only ever wanted to be loved by her parents. With a less than loving father, it seems the only hope she will have is to cling to the memory of her deceased mother in hopes that she had loved Lily before her death. When Lily's father T. Ray, tells her that her mother left her behind when she was younger, that is all the excuse she needs to run away from him and his terrible and hurtful lies.

Set in the 1960s, during the Civil Rights Movement, Rosaleen, the housekeeper, is now allowed to vote. Unfortunately on her way to town, she finds herself in jail. Lily cannot leave her behind to be beaten, or worse killed, by the men that put her in there, so she devises a plan to break her out and bring her along on her new adventure to find out more about her mother.

When they reach Tiburon, South Carolina, they meet the Boatwright family. The three African-American sisters, August, June, and May all live in a pink house and keep bees. They sell the honey around town and pray to Our Lady of Chains. Needless to say, the Boatwright sisters are unique in every way and as they welcome Lily and Rosaleen into their lives, Lily begins to feel as if she never wants to leave. She knew from a picture of the Black Madonna that she found in her mother's belongings that matched the same picture on the honey jars that August sold around town, that she was in the exact spot she needed to be to find out more about her mother. But Lily was keeping secrets. She had lied to everyone that was quickly becoming important to her about why she was there. Only the truth would produce the raw facts about everything she has always wondered about.

This was a heartwarming story about people learning the meaning of love and how to love. I really enjoyed the strong, independent, female characters and watching them learn and grow the more I read. The story has a nice flow and was enjoyable throughout, and as a bonus, I did learn some interesting facts about bees!

I loved this book. I cried several times. I was angry, warmed, saddened, moved emotionally and spiritually and pleased by the whole experience. This was a real page turner. Abject racists will hate it but everyone should love it. Sure, it is "just a novel" but so many of its issues happen in life everyday without all of the "coincidences" which wrap all of those issues into one storyline. Though, stranger things have happened.

This book was a joy to read. It represented a time in American history where change was in the air. The time was the summer of 1964. President Johnson had signed the civil rights bill and Rosaleen, a Negro woman, the nanny for Lily Owens, a 14-year old white girl, in Sylvan, South Carolina was planning on registering to vote for the first time. As fate would have it Rosaleen is arrested and beat up in jail and this starts the adventure of Rosaleen and Lily.

Lily is trying to find out more about her mother who died when she was four in a accidental gun death. Lily blames herself for her mother's death and dreams of a life of what could have been if her mother had lived. T.Ray Owens is her father. She calls him T. Ray. He has kept a roof over her head, food on the table, and clothes on her back. That sums up her relationship with T.Ray. Continue reading to meet the women that give Rosaleen and Lily purpose and answers all the difficult questions about life.

Quotes:

"The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters."

The secret of a good lie is don't overly explain, and throw in one good detail.

"Actually, you can be bad at something, Lily, but if you love doing it, that will be enough. "

Despite the night, the heat had lingered on bad as ever, and I could smell the hot dampness of our bodies as we combed the woods with a spot of light four inches across.

Ugh, wish this had remained a "secret" to me.

I know this was a popular book when it came out 18 years ago in 2002 (were there not many good books that year?), so I'll be swimming upstream here, but I would suffer 10 bee stings over reading this contrived, forced, schmaltzy, mess again. Sue Monk Kidd is 72 now, has made her money from this one, so I won't feel so guilty about highlighting some of the problems.

CHARACTER: Hey authors? If you're going to go with the first-person narration, you better be damn sure you've NAILED the character. I never knew, felt, or recognized main character "Lily". At times she sounded like an 8 year old kid (think Scout, without the good writing). Other times it felt like a pre-teen girl in one of my 6th grader's novels. Then she sounded like some baby boomer/grandma. There were several other characters and they were just paper thin cut outs. I think Mrs. Kidd intended to make some racial statement here? But the characters were almost embarrassing stereotypes. So I never felt sad or happy or worried about these "fake" characters.

SETTING: So Mrs. Kidd made sure she TOLD me over and over and over that they were in South Carolina, and they do this and that in South Carolina, and this is South Carolina. And by the way, it's 1964. Yep, we are watching Ed Sullivan because....that's right, it's 1964, in case I didn't tell you already, and president Johnson is on T.V. and the Civil Right's Amendment is being passed because it's 1964 and we are in South Carolina. Oh my god. There are so many contemporary authors that have done a SPECTACULAR job in wrapping you up in the setting. Mrs. Kidd - please, please read these authors (look at my previous reviews for names) and soak in everything you can about creating atmosphere. Telling me the character is sweating by using yet ANOTHER horrible BEE METAPHOR does NOT make me feel the heat!

PLOT: Each chapter opened with a quote from a book about bees, beekeeping, beehives. It felt to me that someone said, "hey, Sue, what a cool idea! Readers will eat this up". All it felt to me was gimmicky and forced. The story was so utterly silly, contrived, and unbelievable. I can't say too much here as I don't want to give spoilers. But let's just say it's the whole theme that's been done over and over: abused kid, runs away, learns love from random people. The coincidences I'm expected to buy-in to as the reader are ridiculous. Kidd wanted me to feel something in this girl's story, but she couldn't get me there because of all of the silliness. One scene with the abusive angry father - Kidd probably thought, "oh, wow, my readers will bawl over this one". Instead, I was saying, "ho hum, ho hum". I even chose watching the stupid presidential debate rather than reading this homespun, meaningless drivel!

Here's just one small passage from page 95 to highlight the kind of ABC Afterschool-Special dialogue: "That's because May takes in things differently than the rest of us do. August reached over and laid her hand on my arm. See, Lily, when you and I hear about some misery out there, it might make us feel bad for a while, but it doesn't wreck our whole world. It's like we have a built-in protection around our hearts that keeps the pain from overwhelming us. But May - she doesn't have that. Everything just comes into her - all the suffering out there - and she feels as if it's happening to her. She can't tell the difference." Are. You. Kidding. Me.?

As you can see, I've got a real bee in my bonnet over this overrated honey trap!

This book would be absolutely amazing, if there was anything ingenious about this book. It’s a story about Lily, a 14 year old in the racist American South. Sounds familiar? There is more. She is motherless, and is laden with guilt over having accidently killed her mother. Her father is evil. No really, like pure, unadulterated evil , with no redeeming qualities or anything. And, SURPRISE!!! He is abusive! And tortures Lily. Never saw that one coming!

Who was persistently screaming Cliché!!! all the time I was reading the book?

Oh yeah, must be the story!

Except for the 3 May sisters, all the characters had less life than carbon cut outs. Lily sounds nothing like a 14 year old. She is either drowned in sadness over her mother or is busy checking out the hot Zack guy. There was something highly unrealistic about her character. It was like the author knew about aspects people like in a character, and just added them up. Like different pieces of separate puzzles, forcefully assembled together.

The very same goes for the story. Oh so convenient circumstances, highly predictable chain of events, and then a rushed and dressed up climax. Such a waste of a beautiful prose, and bee allegories.

I suspect that even the bees would be offended. And so would black Mary. If you just kick out lily, and events relating to her then the novel would be absolutely enchanting. Why is a happily ever after absolutely necessary even at the cost of a realistic plot? Why couldn’t the author use her brain instead of being so keen to please the reader?
A very very disappointing novel.

2.5 stars

Ps: Although this has nothing to do with the book’s real story, I must mention that I find bees very interesting. It was in 10th grade that I learnt about the “waggle dance” method that the bees used for communicating. So I found the tid bit of information about bees before every chapter. The bee song was amazing too! But no extra star for those.

There are books you read along the way that take your breath away. This was definetly one of them for me. I truly connected with the main character Lily toward the end of the book. On page 278 was when my breath was taken, when tears sprang from my eyes, and I thought this could be me talking at 14 years old. It read .."I wished she'd been smart enough, or loving enough, to realize everybody has burdens that crush them, only they don't give up thier children. In a weird way I must have loved my little collection of hurts and wounds. They provided me some real nice sympathy, with the feeling I was exceptional. I was the girl abandoned by her mother." To say more about this would only create more tears so I will move on. I will say I love a great line in a book. The ones I could read again and again and often times write down simply because it touches me, makes me think, makes me cry, or makes me laugh. There were many in this book but the one I will end with is a quote from August, "People can start out one way, and by the time life gets through with them they end up completely different." I continue to be molded by lifes circumstances (and the books I read)! Thanks Jen for recommending such a great read!

Lily is a 14 year old girl who is living in the south in the early 1960's with her abusive father and her black nanny, Rosaleen. Her mother died when she was 4 years old and she lives with the guilt. Lily and her nanny, find themselves in trouble and she runs away with Rosaleen hoping to find out more about her mother. She comes to a small town in South Carolina where they end up staying with 3 black sisters. The story is about love, hope and the banding together of strong women and how they help each other. Although there is a strong, good message in the novel I found it very slow and the writing a little shifty.

Thoroughly disappointing. Sue Monk Kidd, a white southern woman, attempts to try to show how amazing black women are, and yet ultimately falls short by making the story all about the white adolescent girl. I read a really great statement about the movie, which can be said about the book: "Despite [the writer] Ms. Prince-Bythewood’s best efforts to retain a sense of history, and [August Boatwright] Queen Latifah’s shrewd refusal to play her character according to stereotype, the film becomes a familiar and tired fable of black selflessness, in which African-Americans take time out from their struggle against oppression to lift the battered self-esteem of white people who have the good sense not to be snarling bigots. Even [protagonist Lily Owens] Ms. Fanning, weeping on cue and looking uncomfortable otherwise, seems a little abashed that the movie, in the end, has to be all about her."

It took me forever to get through this book. For the life of me, it seems sort of pointless to have done so.

Yet another white woman using fiction to erase her guilt.

#########SPOILER ALERT############

5 Bee-utiful stars ⭐️️⭐️️⭐️️⭐️️⭐️️

"Bees have a secret life we don't know anything about."

I read The Secret Life of Bees fifteen years ago and was pleased to reread it for a 'Real Live Book Club'. I enjoyed the beautiful descriptive and sometimes humorous writing about fourteen-year-old Lily Melissa Owens and Rosaleen, her fierce-hearted, black "stand-in mother".

"I'd never been inside a preacher's car before. It's not that I expected a ton of Bibles stacked on the backseat, but I was surprised to see that, inside, it was like anybody else's car."

Lily and her father, she calls him T. Ray, live on a peach farm just outside Sylvan, South Carolina, population 3100, where there are Baptist churches and peach stands. Her life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. Deborah Fontanel Owens, her mother, died on December 3, 1954, the day Lily became four-years-old.
When Rosaleen insults three of the deepest racists in town, she and Lily end up in jail. T. Ray comes to take Lily home.

"The speedometer needle on T. Ray's truck wiggled so badly I couldn't make out whether it pointed to seventy or eighty. Leaning into the steering wheel, he jammed his foot onto the accelerator, let off, then jammed it again. The poor truck was rattling to the point I expected the hood to fly off and decapitate a couple of pine trees."


Lily decides to spring Rosaleen free from jail and free herself from T. Ray.

"We started walking. If you think the country is quiet, you've never lived in it. Tree frogs alone make you wish for earplugs."

They escape to Tiburon, South Carolina - a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna.

Our Lady of Chains (Black Madonna)
"Obadiah down on his knees in the mud, bent over the washed-up statue. The statue standing proud in the praise house, Our Lady's fist in the air and all the people coming up one at a time to touch her heart, hoping to find a little strength to go on."
"Well," August said,..."you know, she's really just the figurehead off an old ship, but the people needed comfort and rescue, so when they looked at it, they saw Mary, and so the spirit of Mary took it over. Really, her spirit is everywhere, Lily, just everywhere. Inside rocks and trees and even people, but sometimes it will get concentrated in certain places and just beam out at you in a special way."

"June played[her cello]with her eyes closed, as if May's spirit getting into heaven depended solely on her. You have never heard such music, how it made us believe death was nothing but a doorway."

"The problem[with people]is they know what matters, but they don't choose it. You know how hard that is, Lily? I love May, but it was still so hard to choose Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters."

While reading THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES I learned facts and folklore about bees and honey.

'"When a bee flies, a soul will rise," he[Zach]said.
I gave him a blank look.
"It's an old saying,"August said. "It means a person's soul will be reborn into the next life if bees are around."'
"Is that in the Bible?" I said.
August laughed. "No, but back when the Christians hid from the Romans down in the catacombs, they used to scratch pictures of bees on the walls. To remind each other that when they died they'd be resurrected."

Lily helped August put black cloths on the hives to remind them that life gives way into death, and then death turns around and gives way into life.

This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.