I wanted to like Little Bee. The reviews for it are exceptional. Book List starred it, Amazon named it among their “February Best of the Month” picks, O Magazine fondly mentions it. I mean come on, Library Journal labels it “the next Kite Runner” for goodness sakes! I couldn’t wait to be swept away. And I was… for the first couple of chapters. Little Bee’s character came on very strong and distinct. I felt like I could pick her out of a crowd and guess what she was thinking. But I gradually star More...

I would have ranked this higher, were it not for the ridiculous hype on the jacket and the annoying Editor's letter at the front; all of which tell me that is book will change my life, that it's a masterpiece. This book stands on its own without needing it.

I also pretty fundamentally disagreed with the assertion that "it's hilarious - although the scene on the African beach is horrific".

This is not a 'hilarious' book - it is one of the most challenging reads I have had this year. It tells the de More...

Have you ever met someone you idolized? (An artist or singer, maybe. Someone super talented or brilliant or famous.) But then when you met them in person you found out they were lame? What a rip-off!

That’s sort of how I feel about this book.

It's the story of two women and how their lives converge. Little Bee is a 16-year-old Nigerian refugee who has seen her entire village and family brutally murdered. Sarah is a 30-something suburbanite juggling career and family. The two women met once on a be More...

Chris Cleave's ability to float effortlessly between two distinct ethnic voices (Little Bee, a refugee from Nigeria, and Sarah, a young widow in England) as their stories spin out and around and through one another was nearly mystical.

Years before this book opens, the lives of Sarah and Little Bee violently collided on a beach in Nigeria, and when sheer determination and courage bring them back together again every secret of their hearts is unfolded before our eyes.

I found myself reading and rer More...

I had hoped this would be a really incredible gut-wrencher, heartbreaker of a book, but I feel like it didn't really live up to the potential it had. Like it was a little scattered and unfocused, so instead of showing us exactly what we should see, we are instead shown the things that lie around the thing that we should see, and we have to put the picture of the thing together on our own.

If this book had just been about the relationship of two women who share a horrible event in their history, More...

As other reviewers already noted, I think I would have enjoyed this book much more were it not for the smugness of the book's own cover jacket and editor's note. A book that is truly a masterpiece doesn't need quite so much unnecessary self-praise to sell itself. It built the story up too much.

I also would disagree with the back cover's claim that the book is "often hilarious." This book is anything but hilarious. While there are indeed moments of light reprieve through Little Bee's witty observ More...

After reading Incendiary a while back I have been eagerly awaiting the publication of this book. It did not disappoint me. I started reading on Saturday morning and from page one I was totally hooked. I found it really difficult to put down, even when cooking. So many books around in my local book shop are "Summer Reads" so this was a refreshing change.

It's the story of Little Bee, a teenage refugee from Nigeria, and Sarah O'Rourke a British magazine editor. Horror makes their worlds collide and More...

This is a book you should buy and not borrow from the library. Just to reward the author for such an amazing and exhilarating experience. Its as much like watching a film as it reading a book because the writing is so extraordinarily good (and clever). And this review is so dry because the author wants nothing of his book revealed. "The magic is in the way the story unfolds," he's said, and yes, it is.

And I am sooo going to enjoy hand-selling people this book in my shop. I will have so many hap More...

I'm sort of bouncing back and forth between 2 and 3. I need time to think about it.

***

I've decided to give it 2 1/2, because it was pretty good - and that's how I'm rating it. Not in the sense that "I liked it" as much as in the sense that "It was pretty good".

Overall, I liked the chapters that were narrated by Little Bee better than the chapters narrated by Sarah. Little Bee seemed more real - her chapters had humor and pathos - were touching and heart-breaking and funny.

I liked when she descri More...

This isn't something I would normally pick up. In the past, I've stuck pretty close to my safe genres; fantasy, historical fiction, suspense/horror. I don't usually pick up the popular "it" books, or they "issues" books, so to speak. But I've been trying to branch out, and aside from that, I was sort of "forced" to read this one. But I'm glad for that! As it turned out, I actually enjoyed it.

I had never heard of this book before I was told I was being forced to read it, and I had no idea it was More...

Early on Little Bee says, "Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, the storyteller is alive."

Little Bee is a very sad story, but she has such beauty that her story is well worth reading.

Isn't it funny when novels from their origin countries are marketed in the ol' U. S. of A. under a different title because it will 'sell better'. I can just imagine the pain the author must feel when they find that the title that represents their book seems as if it's just not good enough for the American public. I can think of a few such occasions where such a thing has happened:

*Northern Lights, by Philip Pullman = The Golden Compass.


*Harry Potter and Philosopher's Stone, by J.K. Rowling = Har More...

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book as the back cover blurb is particularly vague. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a book that dealt with some really significant issues, such as refugees, in such an approachable and readable way.

The central characters were interesting and well written and despite the heavy themes, the book was quite humorous at times. I liked that the connections between characters were complex - not just simple stereotypes of 'supportive best friend' 'emotionally More...

I generally pass on books written by a man in the voice of a woman. And a white man writing in a black woman's voice? No, thanks. But this book gives nothing away up front, and I was hooked before I could worry much about the writer's intentions.

The chapters alternate between Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee, and Sarah, an English suburban mom. They are drawn together under extraordinary circumstances, and I found myself regularly surprised by the turn of events. I didn't know how things were goin More...

Chris Cleave is nothing if not ambitious. In 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 Nigerian refugee. As you might imagine, Cleave doesn't deal with these issues in a pat way, nor does he allow his readers to do so. And although parts of this book are very, very difficult to read -- More...

This book WILL:

1)Make you laugh hysterically.
2)Disturb you mightily.
3)Make you think A LOT.
4)Make you examine your conscience,(provided you actually have one to examine). Especially with regard to immigration issues and the tendency of wealthier nations to throw money at every problem in the hopes of making it go away.

This book MAY:

1)Horrify you.
2)Make you angry.
3)Shock you.
4)Make you cry.

The basic story involves the relationship that develops between Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee girl, and Sa More...

Damn, thought I'd reviewed this when I read it. You're going to hear a lot of hype; I picked it up based on hype out of England. It's not as great as all that, and the ambitious marketer who changed the title from the more thematically astute "The Other Hand" to the cloying "Little Bee" (and penned the flap-copy about not wanting to ruin the story) owes the author a more cautious introduction to the more jaundiced audience who might, regrettably, set it aside. Then again, the author deserves a b More...

I'm still not really sure what I think of this book. The story is gripping and as I was reading it I felt that it had a lot of potential. However, by the last page I was still waiting for this potential to be fulfilled.
I found the characters rather hard to empathise with, which is perhaps the reason that I wasn't as moved by the story as I thought I should be. Overall, I think this book dealt with the issue of refuges in modern-day England effectively and sensitively, but that's as far as it goe More...

Cleave wrote this book to expose conditions in British detention centers, and he got me with the detention scenes, made me feel the indignation for change he was going for. I read so much of Cleave in Andrew's character, so much so that I pictured him as Andrew, the journalist overwhelmed with wanting to tell this story. Even though the detention center is such a small facet of the book, it works. Cleave can write and when he wants impact, he gives us impact.

I enjoyed Little Bee. The scenes from More...

Little Bee chronicles the story of a sixteen-year old Nigerian girl whose life is disrupted by Nigerian oil wars. The narration flips back and forth between Little Bee and Sarah, a white woman who becomes an integral part of her life.

Sometimes when I finish a book I'm grateful that I read it because it touches my heart. This is one of those books. The story serves as a reminder of the cruelty and unfairness of war, but also how it is possible to rise above it.

The only negative about this book w More...

A slice of literary brilliance sprinkled with what I can only think of as literary cow pies.

I can't figure out why Chris Cleave created so many beautifully written passages and then with the same keystrokes inserted such a horribly rendered and completely unnecessary character as Laurence into his story. I felt this juxtaposition of brilliantly imagined and horribly depicted (and or completely unbelievable) wove its way through the entire novel. I wonder if some of what I thought was ridiculous More...

I would probably, as one other reviewer noted, go 3 1/2 stars, as well...

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 and Sarah (and, most often, and most especially, Sarah's boy Charlie, aka Batman) -- whimsy wrestled with pathos, and the reader loses....

but then there will be a scene of clear-eyed, unadorned horror, and I'd fi More...

i cant say anything about the plot of this book because the dust jacket pleads with me not to and i am nothing if not obedient. (but you can read plot points in all the other reviews by rebels) i will say i loved it enough to order in and set aside his earlier book, which had never called out to me before. and this is my favorite cover ... ever.

I loved the first half of the book, but had a hard time getting through the second half. Little Bee, a Nigerian girl who escaped her country after a series of horrific killings, ends up in England. The story follows Little Bee from her time in Nigeria to her difficult transition to England; as well as a British couple, whose lives become deeply entwined with Little Bee. A lot of the effectiveness of the book comes from the plot twists, so I'll leave the plot description at that.

In my opinion, t More...

The first three pages of this book deserve 5 stars. Absolutely. Little Bee is an excellent narrator and they were positively engaging/hilarious/touching/curiosity-inducing.

After that, the story gets pretty heavy. That's not a problem, but it struck me as a uncomfortably incongruous with the cutesy publisher's note on the front book jacket flap. It's got a coy little tone with some stylized all-caps, teasing about spoiling for the story for us, the readers, who are about to go on a magnificent ad More...

I am not a marketer. I am not a publisher. But I am a consumer, an avid reader, and (I would venture to hope) an intelligent person. As such I can say with no reservations whatsoever that to proclaim that a book is so astonishingly good that they are incapable of giving anything away to a potential reader is a dangerous game to play. And I don't think that they've won this round.

This book is quite good. It's not brilliant. It doesn't deserve the mega hype, nor the publishers' desperate pleas to More...

This is a book that compelled me to keep reading and had me thinking about it when I wasn't reading it. So that is why I gave it 3 stars -- books that can do that are worth it.

My main issue is that the characters seemed to be not real, but metaphors for problems in society and I feel like the end message was that the problems facing refugees and aslyees are bigger than the average citizen and it isn't worth it to get involved -- we cannot change the country dynamics and the bureacracy challenge More...

Amazing. This was an uncomfortable book to read, with an important story to tell. Despite that, there was a marvelous narrative flow that just pulled me right through the worst of the scenes and made me love Little Bee and Sarah and Charlie. Men, though--- you gotta hate them all. I was told once in a Lit course that if there is so much gender bias that you love the women and hate the men without exception, then the agenda is not to be trusted. Although this is a Message Narrative, I really do t More...

I have an almost uncanny ability to bring the absolute wrong books on vacation. Particularly if it’s a trip to a tropical destination, or a trip to a developing country (for example, reading “Fingersmith” in Costa Rica, “Corelli’s Mandolin” in Italy, “The Lost Child” in Czech Republic, etc). I brought this book because a good friend recommended it a few years ago, and the back-of-the-book synopsis intentionally reveals very little about the story. In fact, if there is a Mad Men-esque publishing More...