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Little Bee

Chris Cleave

Discussion: Books Set in Africa

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Books Set in Africa

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last updated Feb 06, 2025 09:27PM

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What Members Thought

Jan 01, 2014 Wes F rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An intense, gripping, well-told two-perspective story involving a British family & a young Nigerian girl who goes by the name "Little Bee." Great voices, diction, dialects, philosophical thoughts--arising from the rape & pillage of Nigerian oil warlords and the lives they've up-ended/ruined. Can anyone save them from their desperate straits--will anyone be brave or courageous enough to save some, or one, of them, and to suffer the consequences? What will it cost? This story unravels at a nice, w ...more

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Mar 14, 2013 Sunflower rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-read-2013, e-books

For me this book asked the same question that the Lotto ad does-namely, "What would you do?". The issue came up for all of the main characters with the exception of Batman, which is reasonable, given his age, and his fairly black-and-white stance on decision making. (I get that, I used to have a child who wore a Superhero costume all the time).
I liked Little Bee, a very smart woman who had to grow up quickly and who brought her country's baggage with her to England, and Sarah - who had strange ...more

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Sep 05, 2010 Carolyn rated it did not like it

I am really surprised that this book has been getting so much attention, and good reviews. Half way through the book, I thought it was really going to go somewhere, but in the end the novel fell short of my expectations. One of the main characters (the English woman), Sarah, seemed so naive and really, just stupid, when it came down to it, about her safety and the safety of her beloved son. Things in this book seemed incredibly far-fetched. I enjoyed the character of Little Bee, but even she see ...more

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