The Bees
The Bees, by Laline Paull
Blurb:Enter a whole new world, in this thrilling debut novel set entirely within a beehive.Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen.Firstly, what a gorgeous, eye catching cover, although I also liked the original cover!Now for the review... This book is amazing! It took me a few chapters to get into it, but it turned out to be an engaging, unique, slightly-weird but beautiful book. It had corruption, murder, rebellion and battles, basically anything you could want! I can honestly say I've never read anything like it and I think that's why I liked it so much.This book is very fast paces and a lot happens, so much so that at times it is a bit confusing and hard to envision what's going on. I occasionally had to skim back through chapters I'd read the night before to remind myself of everything that had gone on. Personally, I found that a little distracting and almost wished less was happening, but on the other hand I enjoyed all the twist and turns. The only thing I will say is that I didn't feel that the Prologue and Epilogue were necessary; they added nothing to the story in my opinion.It's hard to talk about characterisation in this book, because it was odd, though well done. I felt for Flora and thought it was amazing how the author humanised her and yet at no point did I forget the fact that she was a bee. She was a strong, rebellious, understandable character and she grows and develops steadily throughout the book. The one thing I did pick up on though, was that the spider mentions something about her heritage, but it's never further explained. I also ended up liking Linden, though I kept wishing he'd be more involved and help Flora - ever the romantic! - but it didn't happen!I also liked the end, although it was sad, and I especially enjoyed how the author integrated real bee 'culture' into the story and characters. I've read a couple of reviews that say this book is a badly done metaphor for humanity, but I tend to take books at face value and enjoyed the book for itself, rather than trying to find any metaphors or deeper meaning.
Blurb:Enter a whole new world, in this thrilling debut novel set entirely within a beehive.Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen.Firstly, what a gorgeous, eye catching cover, although I also liked the original cover!Now for the review... This book is amazing! It took me a few chapters to get into it, but it turned out to be an engaging, unique, slightly-weird but beautiful book. It had corruption, murder, rebellion and battles, basically anything you could want! I can honestly say I've never read anything like it and I think that's why I liked it so much.This book is very fast paces and a lot happens, so much so that at times it is a bit confusing and hard to envision what's going on. I occasionally had to skim back through chapters I'd read the night before to remind myself of everything that had gone on. Personally, I found that a little distracting and almost wished less was happening, but on the other hand I enjoyed all the twist and turns. The only thing I will say is that I didn't feel that the Prologue and Epilogue were necessary; they added nothing to the story in my opinion.It's hard to talk about characterisation in this book, because it was odd, though well done. I felt for Flora and thought it was amazing how the author humanised her and yet at no point did I forget the fact that she was a bee. She was a strong, rebellious, understandable character and she grows and develops steadily throughout the book. The one thing I did pick up on though, was that the spider mentions something about her heritage, but it's never further explained. I also ended up liking Linden, though I kept wishing he'd be more involved and help Flora - ever the romantic! - but it didn't happen!I also liked the end, although it was sad, and I especially enjoyed how the author integrated real bee 'culture' into the story and characters. I've read a couple of reviews that say this book is a badly done metaphor for humanity, but I tend to take books at face value and enjoyed the book for itself, rather than trying to find any metaphors or deeper meaning.
No comments have been added yet.
