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kjmathias90 's review for:

Little Bee by Chris Cleave
2.0

I have no idea what to think of this book. Part of me loved it. I thought the characters were compelling and flawed enough to be believable. The story moved well, and I burned through it faster than I even realized. I wanted to know what was going to happen. I wanted some kind of resolution.

But then it ended badly. After all the build up of "We're going to make it so you're a legal citizen!" Boom. Deported. It takes three pages for the story to turn around into one that ends sadly (I think it's meant to be bittersweet, but I just thought it was depressing). Nothing is really finished. Nothing is ever resolved.

I understand that this is how it is for refugees and immigrants in real life. That you can be free and making plans one day and deported and lost the next. However, I look to fiction as an escape from sad realities, rather than a reminder.

I wanted to love this book. And for a while there, I did. But I feel like Chris Cleave took me out on a date, showed me a wonderful time, and then left me to pay the bill.

All in all, it was a good, well-written book. I'm happy I had the experience of reading it and learning from it, but I wouldn't read it again.