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A review by bookswithmaddi
Here Is the Beehive by Sarah Crossan
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!