I loved this book right up until the end. I was okay with what happened, and I can draw my own conclusions, but I wanted the story to continue and not leave off right there. Then again, I've never been a fan of ambiguous or open-ended endings. That aside, the writing was spectacular; Cleave has a gift for characters' voices, and for pacing: the story unfolds exactly right, with the reader learning pieces of the story bit by bit over the course of the book.

This is also a bit different than many other books I've read, in that there was crossover/collision between the "Western world" and the "developing world." How to say this without being trite/cliche/obvious, but it does serve to illustrate the difference between the two: Sarah seems to be the only one who really grasps the reality of Little Bee's situation, whereas others (e.g. Lawrence), still puts himself first. As Little Bee puts it to Lawrence, "In my world death will come chasing. In your world it will start whispering in your ear to destroy yourself" (187).

Quotes:

So when I say that I am a refugee, you must understand that there is no refuge. (46)

Everything was happiness and singing when I was a little girl. There was plenty of time for it. We did not have hurry. We did not have electricity or fresh water or sadness either, because none of these had been connected to our village yet. (78)

I do not know why the mind chooses these small things to break itself on. (79)

I looked and looked. I never saw the faces of my family but when you have lost everyone, you never lose the habit of looking....Every face I see, I am looking for them in it. (84)

Your culture has become sophisticated, like a computer, or a drug that you take for a headache. You can use it, but you cannot explain how it works. (128)

I did not want to tell her what happened, but I had to now. I could not stop talking because now I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us. (131)

You travel here and you travel there, trying to get out from under the cloud, and nothing works, and then one day you realize you've been carrying the weather around with you. (168)

"If you understood how serious your situation is, I don't think you'd smile."
"If I could not smile, I think my situation would be even more serious." (186)