Take a photo of a barcode or cover
niallgoulding1 's review for:
The Bee Sting
by Paul Murray
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I enjoyed this book a lot. Long but not "dense" and so can read it pretty quickly.
I see a lot of people had issues with the lack of punctuation in the mother's chapters. I'm not usually a fan of stream-of-consciousness writing but found this to be a pretty readable version of it. There are no full stops but it's capitalised as normal so easy enough to know where sentences begin and end. That was probably easier for me when my first language is English and I'm from Ireland so the phrasing is familiar. Mileage may vary
Characters are understandable. Not necessarily likeable but as you see inside their heads and get acquainted with their pasts, their actions make sense.
The more you engage with the themes and metaphors the more you'll enjoy. There's a lot to think about here in terms of the dangers of silence and lies, even when they are coming from a place of love. Draws interesting parallels with the climate crisis and the challenges posed by denial / selfish solutions / fatalism.
Some heavy stuff happens. From the blurb, cover and early chapters you might expect this to be a comedic family drama. But it really isn't. It goes to some very dark places.
Somewhat ambiguous ending. You can decipher how you want but the author leads you far enough that there is a pretty clear "canon" outcome. In the moment, I must admit a slight WTF feeling when it ended. But in the following days and after thinking about it, I was happy with the ending. Similar to the Sopranos ending, I felt compelled to immediately spend hours listening to interviews with the author, booktube videos etc discussing it. That must count for something.
I see a lot of people had issues with the lack of punctuation in the mother's chapters. I'm not usually a fan of stream-of-consciousness writing but found this to be a pretty readable version of it. There are no full stops but it's capitalised as normal so easy enough to know where sentences begin and end. That was probably easier for me when my first language is English and I'm from Ireland so the phrasing is familiar. Mileage may vary
Characters are understandable. Not necessarily likeable but as you see inside their heads and get acquainted with their pasts, their actions make sense.
The more you engage with the themes and metaphors the more you'll enjoy. There's a lot to think about here in terms of the dangers of silence and lies, even when they are coming from a place of love. Draws interesting parallels with the climate crisis and the challenges posed by denial / selfish solutions / fatalism.
Some heavy stuff happens. From the blurb, cover and early chapters you might expect this to be a comedic family drama. But it really isn't. It goes to some very dark places.
Somewhat ambiguous ending. You can decipher how you want but the author leads you far enough that there is a pretty clear "canon" outcome. In the moment, I must admit a slight WTF feeling when it ended. But in the following days and after thinking about it, I was happy with the ending. Similar to the Sopranos ending, I felt compelled to immediately spend hours listening to interviews with the author, booktube videos etc discussing it. That must count for something.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Drug use, Infidelity, Rape, Sexual violence, Violence
Minor: Alcoholism