Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - The Bee Sting

Aaaaahhh...

That was intense. Totally engaging and fascinating. Too long but somehow also not too long, because every sentence seemed relevant and full.

Would have made a great 'choose your own adventure' (do they do those for grown-ups?) - it was so full of what-if moments.

This was also an interesting portrait of how someone might drift into the seemingly unrelatable world of

conspiracy theories/prepping

Also, Dickie and Willie? Come on. We've all been 12 years old once.

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misscaitie's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Barely finished it. 600 pages of misery

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tunderalma87's review against another edition

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challenging emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

I gave up at 75% and skimmed the rest. started great, then went downhill. all characters have cliché storylines, but Dickie's the worst, which is an insult to literature in 2024. I see what Murray wants to achieve, I just didn't care.

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fa_biene's review against another edition

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4.5

This is an almost-perfect-book.

Each part is narrated by a different character. Taken together, they offer a kaleidoscopic view of a dysfunctional family struggling amidst a recession. It's about wrong choices, missed opportunities, love and the unfair events that sometimes change a life.

Why not 5 stars, then?
However, it falls short of a perfect rating due to its concluding section, "The Age of Loneliness." While many reviewers praise the author, Murray, for skillfully tying together loose ends, I found this last part to be overly explanatory.
I appreciate how each character's perspective stands independently, revealing hidden truths and complexities, while also shedding new light on other characters' narratives. The final section, however, unravels much of this ambiguity, over-explaining the plot, relationships, and future, leaving it feeling too... neat.
Murray often uses ambiguity and his characters are masters of "strongly insinuating but never quite-telling". While lots of readers seem to complain about the open ending of the novel, I would have wished for Murray to leave some of those loose ends dangling in the wind.

Just one example for what I mean by "over-explanation":

The Bee Sting is introduced to us right from the beginning and keeps appearing throughout the book. Once I reached Imelda's part, I knew that it probably wasn't a bee sting and that it must've been a bruise, due to her father hitting her for the first time ever. However, I also wasn't entirely sure; I was never 100% certain. It's this ambiguity that made this scene (and the novel as a whole) so powerful. When Murray explained it all in the last bit, I wanted to SCREAM because it took away a lot of the scene's power.

Why still 4.5 stars, then?
Because this novel hits different. It's masterfully written without seeming overly constructed. The characters feel real, and their respective narratives got me thinking about life and the fact that at some point, we run out of time and our choices (good and bad, couragous and cowardly) cannot be undone.

Some of the best I've read in years.

Gosh. I'm still reeling.

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magicinwords23's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

“𝗧𝗼 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗮 𝗿𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘆 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗱 – 𝗮𝗻 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘂𝗯-𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗺 𝗼𝗯𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝘁𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗰𝘂𝗺𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴”

I was nervous going into this book because it was quite a chunk.

The story follows the Barnes family and is told from all four members' POVs. They all have their troubles and there is zero communication between them as to what these troubles are or how they are feeling about them.

Dickie’s struggling to come to terms with the family garage going under so instead of trying to save the business he spends his time in the woods building an apocalypse-proof bunker.

His wife Imelda is so angry about their change in circumstances and is selling off all her jewellery, expensive clothes, handbags and shoes to get some of the money back she squandered when times were good. Her POV was hard to read due to the lack of any punctuation. The author may have done this to show limited education or to show her mind works, a mile a minute, thoughts flying all over the place.

Cass, their teenage daughter, was top of her class at school but now is wasting her life hanging out in pubs, binge drinking and neglecting her upcoming exams. If only she would talk to her dad she would realise they have more in common than she thinks.

The youngest of the Barnes Family PJ, nearly a teenager, is planning to leave home to get away from all the fighting and stay with Ethan, a friend in Dublin he has been chatting to online. He craves Hu’s dad’s attention and will do anything for it, even help with building the bunker.

Life for this family is quickly plummeting and no one knows where it all went wrong. Is this the consequence of some bad decisions and will there be a happy ever after?

This story had a lot going on and there was so much to unpack. I was deeply engrossed in this story and the lives of all the characters. They were all dealing with the consequences of the downturn in the economy in their extreme way.

Lack of communication was a serious problem in this family and I feel all their worries could have been greatly reduced if they just talked to one another. We learn so much about them, their secrets, feelings and greatest worries and fears. You can see how the stress slowly takes its toll on them all causing some foolish decisions to be made.

I loved this book immensely and went through so many emotions while reading it. I think if I read this again, which I definitely will someday, I will pick up so much more than I did the first time like things I failed to realise, connections I didn’t make.

I don’t think I took a breath the whole last chapter and it seems it was the authors intention for us to use our imagination as to the final outcome.

Already this is in line to be one of my favourite books of 2024.

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signeskov's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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rubyhayes's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Bee Sting is a startling portrayal of a seemingly normal nuclear family. Imelda & Dickie are parents to Cass & PJ. The multi-perspective novel opens with the children’s accounts of the day-to-day home-life and relationships, each with their own struggles. Our introductions to Imelda and Dickie are shallow, only 2D versions of the vivid characters we eventually learn they are. I found myself longing to read more of their lives to understand exactly how they reached their present day, full of impending doom. The depth of these characters is merely the beginning of Paul Murray’s extraordinary storytelling capabilities, while being ambitious in scale, it has been executed masterfully. Through its various and changing forms, we follow the family into its descent. The chaos students use is motivated by love, along with shame as its catalyst. It is foremost a peripheral look into the gradual unravelling of sanity due to one man’s shame. This shame’s impact is explored at both the personal level and a greater cosmic/existential level. Each section builds on the previous, revealing their utter lack of knowledge of each other’s lives. The changes of perspective, explore deeply the unknowability of others behind their masks. The novel concerns itself with the impact of the past on the present and future, the haunting nature of this past the story is a remarkable show of talent, Paul Murray spellbindingly weaves together seemingly unlinked moments, presenting their connections only later with the attached repercussions.

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