false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1236969700m/4448191.jpg 4078927 7 Sarah Summers is enjoying a holiday on a Nigerian beach when a young girl named Little Bee crashes irrevocably into her life. All it takes is a brief and horrifying moment of crisis — a terrifying scene that no reader will forget. Afterwards, Sarah and Little Bee might expect never to see each other again. But Little Bee finds Sarah’s husband’s wallet in the sand, and smuggles herself on board a cargo vessel with his address in mind. She spends two years in detention in England before making her way to Sarah’s house, with what will prove to be devastating timing. Chapter by chapter, alternating between Little Bee’s voice and Sarah’s, Chris Cleave wholly and caringly portrays two very different women trying to cope with events they’d never imagined. Little Bee is experiencing all the fullness and emptiness of the rich world for the first time, and her observations are hopeful, charming and piercing: “Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl,” she says: “Everyone would be pleased to see me coming.” Sarah is more cynical and disheartened, a successful magazine editor trying to find meaning in the face of turmoil at home and work. As the story develops, however, we learn about what matters most to her, including her fierce, protective love for her funny little son (“From the Spring of 2007 until the end of that long summer when Little Bee came to live with us,” Sarah says, “my son removed his Batman costume only at bathtimes.”). Sarah is trying to find herself as much as Little Bee is — and, unexpectedly, each character discovers a ray of hope in the other. What follows when Little Bee comes back into Sarah’s life is a powerful story of reconciliation and healing, but it is mixed in with a generous helping of satire about the daily difficulties of modern life. This is a novel about important issues, from refugee policy to the devastating effects of violence, but more than that, it does something only great fiction can: Little Bee teaches us what it is like to live through experiences most of us think of only as far off disasters in the news. As ever, the author says it best: “It’s an uplifting, thrilling, universal human story, and I just worked to keep it simple. One brave African girl; one brave Western woman. What if one just turned up on the other’s doorstep one misty morning and asked, Can you help? And what if that help wasn’t just a one-way street?” 4126074 10 2 2009 Little Bee total:1944|5:493|4:842|3:453|2:122|1:34| 1944 7470 3873 695 4 4 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 26 19:35:08 -0700 2008 Sun Oct 26 19:44:45 -0700 2008
there were these moments where the heightened melodrama of the plot veered into the bathetic, where I found myself distanced from emotion and almost uncomfortably aware of the author behind the voices of Little Bee ...more...]]> 4 15 false false Tue Feb 10 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 09 06:41:41 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 11 06:43:10 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 2 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 16 20:51:32 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 16 21:23:44 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 4 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Mar 06 08:32:05 -0800 2009 Thu Mar 19 06:19:45 -0700 2009
After that, the story gets pretty heavy. That's not a problem, but it struck me as a uncomfortably incongruous wi...more...]]> 5 4 false false Sun Feb 08 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 08 07:28:34 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 08 10:55:57 -0800 2009
Years before this book opens, the lives of Sarah and ...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 07 18:34:30 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 07 18:43:40 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 3 false false Mon Mar 02 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 26 17:34:29 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 02 16:23:36 -0800 2009

"We don't want to tell you too much about this book. It is truly special story and we don't want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue May 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 27 07:32:09 -0700 2009 Thu May 28 15:56:22 -0700 2009 Little Bee, he not only takes on the issues of immigration, globalization, imperialism, and personal responsibility, but does so in the voices of two unforgettable women, one a solidly middle-class English fashion magazine editor, the other a 16-year-old ...more...]]> 0 1 false false Sat Jan 31 18:21:12 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 31 18:23:11 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 2 false false Wed Jan 14 19:12:47 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 14 19:13:02 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1 1 false false Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 21 11:38:01 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 08 18:04:18 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 2 false false Wed Feb 18 07:02:47 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 17 06:58:53 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 18 07:02:47 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 4 false false Thu Feb 26 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 18 20:57:50 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 26 23:13:32 -0800 2009
The chapters alternate between Little B...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Dec 30 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 31 09:11:38 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 31 09:14:05 -0800 2008 ...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Nov 22 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 19 09:56:09 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 23 12:04:56 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Feb 13 05:23:01 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 13 05:24:20 -0800 2009 more...]]> 0 1 false false Mon Mar 02 10:34:01 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 02 10:34:39 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Tue Sep 22 08:02:37 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 22 08:04:44 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Mon Jul 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 12:23:41 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 12:25:16 -0700 2009
Little Bee is a Nigerian refugee when Sarah, a white woman from England, ...more...]]> 1 0 false false Mon May 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 10:56:48 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 06 11:12:46 -0700 2009 Once more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=4448191