Book #54: Little Bee

Title: Little Bee
Author: Chris Cleave

The cover of Little Bee beseeches the reader not to tell other readers what the book's about. I think he gives away that he's telling the story of two women who have a chance meeting and then eventually come back together two years later. The story takes place mainly in the later period, with flashbacks to their initial meeting. I guess I'll respect Cleave's wishes and not give away too much of the story, although it makes it hard to write a review of the book without doing so. I will say that he creates interesting female protagonists, one almost entirely likable, and one fairly repugnant, but working on it, that initially seem to function almost as stereotypes, but he does move beyond it at the end. I don't know if I had become sort of sensitized to gore and sexual themes during my month away from my regularly-scheduled reading, but I found some of the scenes in Little Bee a little bit hard to read, and it's hard to say how or why without giving away the plot, so I won't. Actually, I think Cleave would have done well not to place such a prohibition on discussion of the book, because I found it really, really interesting, and worth talking about, and also a book complicated by compelling strengths and weaknesses. Read it, then we can chat.