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.