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3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Chris Cleave writes the story of one young Nigerian woman's struggles with the UK immigration policies. The story was entertaining, but I didn't always find the characters to be true. However, it's worth reading to experience the immigration nightmare alone.
Although the character of Little Bee was intriguing, the story as a whole didn't hold together for me, and most of the other characters were flat.
Phenomenal. Absolutely loved the writing style, particularly with Little Bees portions of the story. Poetic, depressing, yet somehow funny at times as well. Wish there was a more definite ending but felt my heart swell with the part with Charlie taking off his Batman costume and running with the other children. Loved it.
I ended up really liking this book. I took until the middle to really get into it.
I found it boring. There was not a lot of plot, just some characters reminiscing and telling thir stories. I debated giving it a 2 but ultimately settled on 1.
Since this a novel that is meant to be read broadly as a condemnation of Great Britain's policy toward and treatment of people fleeing unstable and dangerous home countries, the story has many pat unbelievable situations. But it is easy to excuse that for the message that too many people are treated badly in detention and deported to countries that are unsafe. What is the answer for the swarm of little bees as Lawrence asked? that is where diplomacy comes in. we need leaders who are competent and compassionate and we aren't getting what we need.
The blurb on the cover is annoying, telling us the story is so special that we mustn't talk about it to our friends. That made me avoid the book until my book club chose it and I gave in. But it's actually good. A painful and compelling story, with clever writing.
A decent book, but there is way too much hype surrounding it. I see absolutely no reason to not discuss the plot with people who haven't read it yet.