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philippakmoore's review against another edition
4.0
A compelling, original novel told in an unusual way - in verse which is not quite prose, not quite poetry, not quite stream-of-consciousness. But it worked!
The premise intrigued me from the start - Ana is a (married) lawyer who starts an affair with one of her (also married) clients, Connor. This goes on for about three years, full of all the tension and toxicity you'd expect an affair of that length to contain. But then Connor dies suddenly, and Ana has to find a way to grieve him and also keep their secret. As you would expect, it's not a simple task and everything begins to, shall we say, unravel.
I couldn't describe it as a love story, in the slightest. The relationship is toxic and obsessive - and that plays out in Ana's attempts to negotiate her grief in the aftermath too. There are so many people whose lives hang in the balance - not just Ana and Connor's spouses, but their young children too. It's quite the tangled web, and makes for bleak reading at times. If there was ever a novel to put you off adultery, this might be it!
Immersive and gripping, Here Is The Beehive is a reminder of the destructive powers of lust and deceit, and the necessity of facing uncomfortable truths about ourselves and the people we love. Sometimes the hardest grief to bear is the loss of ourselves, who we once were or thought we were, and what could have been.
With thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.
The premise intrigued me from the start - Ana is a (married) lawyer who starts an affair with one of her (also married) clients, Connor. This goes on for about three years, full of all the tension and toxicity you'd expect an affair of that length to contain. But then Connor dies suddenly, and Ana has to find a way to grieve him and also keep their secret. As you would expect, it's not a simple task and everything begins to, shall we say, unravel.
I couldn't describe it as a love story, in the slightest. The relationship is toxic and obsessive - and that plays out in Ana's attempts to negotiate her grief in the aftermath too. There are so many people whose lives hang in the balance - not just Ana and Connor's spouses, but their young children too. It's quite the tangled web, and makes for bleak reading at times. If there was ever a novel to put you off adultery, this might be it!
Immersive and gripping, Here Is The Beehive is a reminder of the destructive powers of lust and deceit, and the necessity of facing uncomfortable truths about ourselves and the people we love. Sometimes the hardest grief to bear is the loss of ourselves, who we once were or thought we were, and what could have been.
With thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.
bookswithmaddi's review against another edition
4.0
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
“Here is the Beehive” follows Ana who has been having an affair with Connor for the past three years. Suddenly she finds herself alone, feeling erased with the absence of anything that proves their love ever existed. After years of secrets, lies and overlapping marriages Ana must face her grief, obsession and loss.
I went into this book hesitantly, it is not something I would normally read but something about the concept really intrigued me and I’m so glad I requested it. This book absolutely blew me away. I hope to read it again soon because I think it just calls to be reread. The prose is absolutely stunning and transformative. I was nearly crying by the end. I wasn’t sure at first that it being written in verse was the right choice but it no doubt, absolutely was. The short forms of free verse tear you back and forth between timelines squeezing out information bit by bit.
While I found the beginning a bit slow and confusing, once I was one part in I couldn’t put it down. The slow reveals cause questions to keep churning in your head, begging to be answered. Crossan has a unique talent for leading the reader to believe they know the character, that they can picture them and make reasonable assumptions about them, and then she absolutely turns your world upside down with one simple sentence. The limited words just really did something for me. It felt like she was always holding back and yet it was so incredibly raw. Everything about this book was emotional and real, it is hard for authors to put so much feeling onto paper and I think Crossan did it perfectly.
The reason I am only giving it four stars instead of five is for the areas which definitely needed more clarity. The problem books face a lot of times when they are written in a non traditional format is sometimes the message just isn’t translated as well as it could’ve been had it been written in paragraphs. There were a couple spots in this book that I got stuck on where I either couldn’t figure out where in the timeline we were, or what exactly was going on. These parts were few and far between but did interrupt the rhythm and pulled me out of the story. My only other critique is for the beginning. It was a bit tough to get into and very jarring to be thrown so heavily into the story without much context and with such little explanation. In my opinion I think slightly more could’ve been added to certain parts such as the beginning and possibly more explanation on the character Mark, who seems to be important but it’s unclear how he knows about Ana and Conner and what role he played in their relationship. It would have been very interesting to have heard more about him in one of the flashback segments.
Overall, I think this book was excellent. I can not wait to read more from Sarah Crossan and I highly recommend you pick up “Here Comes the Beehive” when it comes out!
“Here is the Beehive” follows Ana who has been having an affair with Connor for the past three years. Suddenly she finds herself alone, feeling erased with the absence of anything that proves their love ever existed. After years of secrets, lies and overlapping marriages Ana must face her grief, obsession and loss.
I went into this book hesitantly, it is not something I would normally read but something about the concept really intrigued me and I’m so glad I requested it. This book absolutely blew me away. I hope to read it again soon because I think it just calls to be reread. The prose is absolutely stunning and transformative. I was nearly crying by the end. I wasn’t sure at first that it being written in verse was the right choice but it no doubt, absolutely was. The short forms of free verse tear you back and forth between timelines squeezing out information bit by bit.
While I found the beginning a bit slow and confusing, once I was one part in I couldn’t put it down. The slow reveals cause questions to keep churning in your head, begging to be answered. Crossan has a unique talent for leading the reader to believe they know the character, that they can picture them and make reasonable assumptions about them, and then she absolutely turns your world upside down with one simple sentence. The limited words just really did something for me. It felt like she was always holding back and yet it was so incredibly raw. Everything about this book was emotional and real, it is hard for authors to put so much feeling onto paper and I think Crossan did it perfectly.
The reason I am only giving it four stars instead of five is for the areas which definitely needed more clarity. The problem books face a lot of times when they are written in a non traditional format is sometimes the message just isn’t translated as well as it could’ve been had it been written in paragraphs. There were a couple spots in this book that I got stuck on where I either couldn’t figure out where in the timeline we were, or what exactly was going on. These parts were few and far between but did interrupt the rhythm and pulled me out of the story. My only other critique is for the beginning. It was a bit tough to get into and very jarring to be thrown so heavily into the story without much context and with such little explanation. In my opinion I think slightly more could’ve been added to certain parts such as the beginning and possibly more explanation on the character Mark, who seems to be important but it’s unclear how he knows about Ana and Conner and what role he played in their relationship. It would have been very interesting to have heard more about him in one of the flashback segments.
Overall, I think this book was excellent. I can not wait to read more from Sarah Crossan and I highly recommend you pick up “Here Comes the Beehive” when it comes out!
novelvisits's review against another edition
3.0
Note: I received a copy of this book from Little, Brown and Company (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest thoughts
Here is the Beehive by Sarah Crossan is a book that I’m still struggling to figure out how I really feel about three weeks after finishing it. This is the story of an affair and the woman who can’t seem to let go even after her lover has died. Ana is an estate attorney and also happens to be the executor of her dead lover’s will, putting her in contact with his wife and children. Throughout the book Ana looks back on their turbulent relationship, as she also tries to make inroads with his wife, who knows nothing.
While I liked hearing about an affair from the inside, with its struggles, secrets and shame, the story itself was very disjointed. It jumped around a lot and sometimes I’d need to do a double take to figure out where we were in time. I think this was a combination of the writing and awkward formatting on the ARC. Both took a bit away from the story, but I liked that it moved fast and I think what Crossan was trying to do in presenting a “widow” who wasn’t the widow was both thought provoking and sad. I’m glad I read it!
Original Source: https://novelvisits.com/november-2020-book-reviews-print-audiobooks/
Here is the Beehive by Sarah Crossan is a book that I’m still struggling to figure out how I really feel about three weeks after finishing it. This is the story of an affair and the woman who can’t seem to let go even after her lover has died. Ana is an estate attorney and also happens to be the executor of her dead lover’s will, putting her in contact with his wife and children. Throughout the book Ana looks back on their turbulent relationship, as she also tries to make inroads with his wife, who knows nothing.
While I liked hearing about an affair from the inside, with its struggles, secrets and shame, the story itself was very disjointed. It jumped around a lot and sometimes I’d need to do a double take to figure out where we were in time. I think this was a combination of the writing and awkward formatting on the ARC. Both took a bit away from the story, but I liked that it moved fast and I think what Crossan was trying to do in presenting a “widow” who wasn’t the widow was both thought provoking and sad. I’m glad I read it!
Original Source: https://novelvisits.com/november-2020-book-reviews-print-audiobooks/
christiek's review against another edition
2.0
Beautifully written, but I struggled to feel any empathy for Ana. I didn't see her grappling with her situation, instead she just bounces between bad spots.
oddsocks's review against another edition
Didn’t like the way it was written as it was hard to understand what was going on
pewterwolf's review against another edition
3.0
RTC (keep flipping between 2 stars and 3. 2.5ish? Will round up to 3 stars for now, but I might lower to 2 stars at a later date).
While I love Crossan’s prose and her reading in this audiobook (thank you NetGalley UK/Bloomsbury), I have issues with both the story & the editing of the audiobook. Basically, I didn’t have that emotional punch other readers have - in fact, I constantly question if I was meant to be sympathetic to Ana & her grief because she was just a horrible person. And Connor is just... the words "pathetic" and "weak" come to mind.
Review Taken from The Pewter Wolf Reads
***Audiobook given by UK publisher, Bloomsbury, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review/reaction***
Ana is sitting in her lawyer’s office when she gets a phone call from Rebecca, saying her husband has died. But when Ana hear’s the name of Rebecca’s husband - Connor, it throws her into a spiral. Rebecca’s husband is the man Ana’s been having an affair with for the past three years.
Now Ana’s finds herself alone, trapped inside her secret grief and her life, her marriage, her relationships with her family and friends, are unravelling. How can she grieve for the man she loved, the end of her secret relationship, if the world knew nothing about it?
Before I go further, I want to point out two things out. The first is that this is written in free verse (in the same style as Sarah’s previous novel, [b:One|25366338|One|Sarah Crossan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1431681924l/25366338._SY75_.jpg|43127666], which is fabulous and I highly recommend, so it’s not going to be a linear as other novels (and I was intrigued on how free-verse will translate onto audiobook). The second is I asked to review this audiobook was the cover. Doesn’t look like lovely?
Now, Sarah’s writing is wonderful. It lives up to One. And Sarah narrates the audiobook, which gives an extra layer. She knows the rhythm and beats, and this comes across.
And yet… There are things that just don’t work.
Maybe it would have been better if I have read this, but from some of the reviews I’ve read, maybe not. The book has duel timeline - Ana grieving for Connor’s death and how it’s affect her/everyone around her, then her and Connor meeting of the affair throughout the year - and yet there is no real transitions between the two. It’s quite jarring at times.
But the main thing I have issue with is the characters, mainly Ana and Connor. I’m sorry, but I felt no sympathy towards them. In fact, I came away from this quite angry with them both. I understand that we come into the story at the end of the affair and in Ana’s grief, but I found Ana truly unlikeable: self-centred, selfish, horrid to people around her (her husband, her friends, her mother, her sister, her children). Connor was exactly the same, but he felt more pathetic and weak-willed, wanting his cake and eating it, wanting Ana but not willing to leave Rebecca. This affair is toxic and quite harmful to themselves and people around them, and Ana’s grief turns almost obsessive as she compares herself to the mythical Rebecca before meeting her and trying to become her friend (I see you, [a:Daphne du Maurier|2001717|Daphne du Maurier|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1422444467p2/2001717.jpg]).
While Sarah’s writing and reading is beautiful, the characters and what this story wanted to do just didn’t work for me. For someone else, this will hit that sweet-spot perfectly, but not for me, I’m afraid. I’ll be sticking with One.
While I love Crossan’s prose and her reading in this audiobook (thank you NetGalley UK/Bloomsbury), I have issues with both the story & the editing of the audiobook. Basically, I didn’t have that emotional punch other readers have - in fact, I constantly question if I was meant to be sympathetic to Ana & her grief because she was just a horrible person. And Connor is just... the words "pathetic" and "weak" come to mind.
Review Taken from The Pewter Wolf Reads
***Audiobook given by UK publisher, Bloomsbury, via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review/reaction***
Ana is sitting in her lawyer’s office when she gets a phone call from Rebecca, saying her husband has died. But when Ana hear’s the name of Rebecca’s husband - Connor, it throws her into a spiral. Rebecca’s husband is the man Ana’s been having an affair with for the past three years.
Now Ana’s finds herself alone, trapped inside her secret grief and her life, her marriage, her relationships with her family and friends, are unravelling. How can she grieve for the man she loved, the end of her secret relationship, if the world knew nothing about it?
Before I go further, I want to point out two things out. The first is that this is written in free verse (in the same style as Sarah’s previous novel, [b:One|25366338|One|Sarah Crossan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1431681924l/25366338._SY75_.jpg|43127666], which is fabulous and I highly recommend, so it’s not going to be a linear as other novels (and I was intrigued on how free-verse will translate onto audiobook). The second is I asked to review this audiobook was the cover. Doesn’t look like lovely?
Now, Sarah’s writing is wonderful. It lives up to One. And Sarah narrates the audiobook, which gives an extra layer. She knows the rhythm and beats, and this comes across.
And yet… There are things that just don’t work.
Maybe it would have been better if I have read this, but from some of the reviews I’ve read, maybe not. The book has duel timeline - Ana grieving for Connor’s death and how it’s affect her/everyone around her, then her and Connor meeting of the affair throughout the year - and yet there is no real transitions between the two. It’s quite jarring at times.
But the main thing I have issue with is the characters, mainly Ana and Connor. I’m sorry, but I felt no sympathy towards them. In fact, I came away from this quite angry with them both. I understand that we come into the story at the end of the affair and in Ana’s grief, but I found Ana truly unlikeable: self-centred, selfish, horrid to people around her (her husband, her friends, her mother, her sister, her children). Connor was exactly the same, but he felt more pathetic and weak-willed, wanting his cake and eating it, wanting Ana but not willing to leave Rebecca. This affair is toxic and quite harmful to themselves and people around them, and Ana’s grief turns almost obsessive as she compares herself to the mythical Rebecca before meeting her and trying to become her friend (I see you, [a:Daphne du Maurier|2001717|Daphne du Maurier|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1422444467p2/2001717.jpg]).
While Sarah’s writing and reading is beautiful, the characters and what this story wanted to do just didn’t work for me. For someone else, this will hit that sweet-spot perfectly, but not for me, I’m afraid. I’ll be sticking with One.
isabelleperry's review
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
belle_abeille's review against another edition
emotional
sad
fast-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
4.0