Section 4 Pages 225-300

After reading this final section of the book, I was mostly satisfied with the ending. There was no M. Night Shyamalan-style twist endings like if Lily was her own mother or something equally stupid. However, the arc with T. Ray and Lily did end with me wanting to find out more.

Throughout the novel, We learn that T. Ray is not an ideal father. He punishes Lily harshly for no good reason, he doesn't care for or or even about her, and he wages psychological warfare on Lily by telling her that her mother left her and that she killed her. At the end of the novel, we see T. Ray fly into a fit of rage, but this time confusing Lily for her mother, Deborah. I think this is to show how much more angry T. Ray is at Deborah instead of Lily.

This took me by surprise, since the T. Ray we all know and love would just snatch up Lily and Rosaleen and give them the beating of their lives, but it appears that T. Ray is very hurt from all this, and is not really angry at Lily, but more so at her mother for leaving her.

As for the book as a whole, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The characters were more than just 1-dimensional entities. For example, T. Ray is not just some evil dad who does nothing but harm. He is a very damaged man who just wants his wife back, but cannot get her back.

Section 3 Pages 150-225

This section of the book made me considerably angrier than the last two.
Within 10 pages of this section, I was already angry at Lily. She decides out of the blue to CALL T.RAY.

WHAT IN GOD'S GREEN EARTH WOULD YOU DO THAT FOR?

You JUST fit in with the Boatwright crowd, and then you pull this and just end up being more upset for finding out that SURPRISE! T.Ray doesn't know what your favourite colour is!!!!!!

Another major thing that angered me was the fact that May committed suicide. This all started when it was rumored that a white movie star was bringing his black girlfriend to a movie, which was a big no-no in South Carolina in 1964. Zach, a boy whom Lily befriends earlier on in the book, is put in jail. August, not wanting May to go hysterical, does not tell her emotional sister what happened. One way or another, May finds out what happened, and drowns herself in the river with a rock. May is dead.

This surprised me very much, since so far, this book didn't seem to be the one where a lot of people close to the protagonist die. There was no major bond between Lily and May, which usually ends up cursing the latter into dying midway through the book to die to somehow teach the protagonist a lesson.

It also surprised me that when I thought about it, Zach getting arrested might not have been the only reason May ended her life. It could have been the fact that August and June were hiding it from her, because they thought she couldn't handle the truth. since she'd always been so emotional in the past.

Overall, I am liking this book as of page 225. I think that next section Lily might finally come through and tell August the truth, since she's been hinting at it throughout this section.

All Abuzz About Bees!

The low-pitch buzz commonly associated with bumble-bees does not come from the bees flapping their wings, as one thought. It actually comes from twitching the flight muscles very quickly. This allows the bee to warm up before flight

Journal Entry #2 Pages 76-150

In this section of the book, I feel that a lot more things happen than in the previous section. For example, we learn about the three sisters August, May and June.

We learn that May had a twin sister named April, and how close they were. "If April got a toothache, May's gum would plump up red and swollen just like April's". When they were 11, April got into a rut of severe depression, and finally killed herself with her father's shotgun.

We also learn that May has a "wailing wall", to help her deal with her emotionality. I think that this is a sign of how someone who is suffering from trauma or depression from a past event can find help in anything.

In this section of the book, one major theme is romance. Lily meets a young black man named Zach, who works at the bee house after school. At first, Lily sees nothing different in him than anyone else, but slowly she starts falling in love with him. But she knows that since she's white and he's black, they'll never be able to be together.

I think that this section of he book was more interesting than the last as well, because not only do more things happen, but we learn a lot more about certain characters. To me, learning about characters is more entertaining than just having the plot move along at a slow-ish pace that is happening in The Secret Life of Bees.

One thing that I really like about this book, is the dozens of little facts about bees that are scattered around the novel. For example, at the beginning of every chapter, there is a fact at the top of the page, and when Lily is learning about how to work at the honey-house, she is told several facts about how bees live and what the queen does etc...

Discussion Questions

1. What do you think about T. Ray's parenting? Do you think that Lily deserves better?
2. Describe the small town of Sylvan, South Carolina.
3. How do you think Lily's life would be different if her mother was still alive?
4. What do you think about the book so far as a whole?
5. Would you recommend this book to anyone?
6. If so, to whom would you recommend it?
7. Do you think that Lily was right in lying to be able to work on the honey farm?
8. Describe the characters of August, May, and June.
9. What happened to April?
10. If you were Lily running away, would you want T. Ray to come looking for you?

1.  I think that T. Ray's parenting is cruel and unusual. HE abuses her not only physically (walking on gritts) but also psychologically (when she does something bad he tells her lies like that her mother left her and T. Ray)

2. It's a sleepy town in Alabama where Lily grew up. It is usually hot in the summer, and also very humid. It has a school, Nochurchs, and a peach stand where Lily spends entire afternoons waiting.

3. If Lily's mother was still alive, her life would be exponentially better. First of all, she would have someone to protect her from T. Ray's cruel punishments and his harsh rules. Secondly, she would be able to have a female role model in her life that would look after her and be able to comfort her when she needs it. 

4. I think of this book in a positive light. I think the book is going to focus a lot on Lily and her journey of running away from her father.

5. Yes, I would recommend this book to other people, it has a good story and well-developed characters. 

6. I would recommend this book to people who enjoyed To Kill A Mockingbird since it deals with a young(ish) girl growing up in the southern United States. Both books also deal with racism against blacks during the 20th century. Although this book does contain some mature language and subject matter, it does not distract from the plot that much.

7. Yes. I think that Lily should be able to to anything in her power to be able to get away from her wreck of a father, including lying to strangers about her past.

8. They are 3 black sisters who work at a honey farm. They are willing to take on Lily and Rosaleen to work for them.

9. April was May's sister who died when she was very young. June has since become very emotional

10. No, since I would not want to tolerate the abuse for 1 more nanosecond.

All Abuzz About Bees!

All Abuzz About Bees!

The worker bees are all female and they do all the work for the hive. Workers perform the following tasks inside the hive as a House Bee: Cleaning, feeding the baby bees, feeding and taking care of the queen, packing pollen and nectar into cells, capping cells, building and repairing honeycombs, fanning to cool the hive and guarding the hive.

Section 1 Pages 1-75

Let me start off by saying that I am very much enjoying this book. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd has humour, emotion, and depth, especially in the characters.

Lily is the main character in this story. She is a 14-year old girl who lives with her father in South Carolina during the mid-1960's. Her father, T-Ray is just a complete toolbag. He treats her like crap, making up cruel and unusual punishments, like making her kneel across the kitchen on RAW GRITS.

In case you were wondering, these are raw grits:

Imagine kneeling across 30 feet of those every time you didn't eat your veggies. T-Ray is almost too evil to be real. He openly hates books, which are one of the few things that Lily actually enjoys, he is against Lily getting a proper education, not to mention the physical and psychological abuse through which he put Lily and her mother. I am utterly shocked at the character of T-Ray.

One of the major themes in this novel is race and racism. Throughout the novel, we hear about real life events that are happening in the novel. For example, the novel makes reference to the signing of the Civil Rights Act by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2nd, 1964. We also quickly hear about Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, and other events highlighted during the Civil Rights Movement.

Finally, if I could use 1 word to describe the tone of this book; it would be desperate.  How Lily is just so desperate to be like other girls, or to know what really happened to her mother, or even how desperate she is to get away from her father. Later on in the section, she is so desperate for a place to live, she lies to June, May and August about the real reason she is on the road.

Daniel
May 11th, 2014