The Secret Life of Bees

Alright y'all. I don't think I've ever done this. But other than Super Fudge, Raney, Redeeming Love, and a few other fiction books, this has to be one of my all time favorites now. I say that the Secret Life of Bees will tell you more about life than Oprah Winfrey's crazy life book ever could. Set in the south in the 50s, this book had me laughing, in suspense and feeling more love than any book I've read in years. It's that good. You have to read it. It will make you look at the world with more colorful eyes - really.

Here are some quotes that I loved - I think they sort of sum up thoughts on life (especially if you're from the south or ever loved someone you were told you shouldn't or can look back and see how innocent you were at an age - it takes you back to those times)

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If you think the country is quiet, you've never lived in it. Tree frogs alone make you wish for earplugs.

What she did ask was "When did you start saying 'shitbucket'?"
I'd never resorted to bad language, though I'd heard my share of it from T.Ray or else read it in the public restrooms. "I'm fourteen now. I guess I can say it if I want to." And I wanted to right that minute. "Shitbucket," I said. "Shitbucket, hellfire, damnation, and son of a mother bitch," said Rosaleen, laying into each word like it was sweet potatoes on her tongue.

Some people have a sixth sense, and some are duds at it. I believe I must have it, because the moment I stepped into the house I felt a trembling along my skin, a traveling current that moved up my spine, down my arms, pulsing out from my fingertips. I was practically radiating. The body knows things a long time before the mind catches up to them. I was wondering what my body knew that I didn't.

I laid my head on his shoulder and wondered how he could stand me. In one short morning I had exhibited insane laughter, hidden lust, pissy behavior, self-pity and hysterical crying. If I'd been trying to show him my worst sides, I could not have done a better job than this.

Field bees were the ones with good navigation skills and tireless hearts, going out to gather nectar and pollen. There was a group called mortician bees whose pitiful job it was to rake the dead bees out of the hive and keep everything on the clean side. Nurse bees, August said, had a gift for nurturing, and they fed all the baby bees. They were probably the self-sacrificing group, like the women at church socials who said, "No, you take the chicken breast. I'm just fine with the neck and gizzard, really."

The sting shot pain all the way to my elbow, causing me to marvel at how much punishment a miniscule creature can inflict. I'm prideful enough to say I didn't complain. After you get stung, you can't get unstung no matter how much you whine about it. I just dived back into the riptide of saving bees.

I said, "If I was a Negro girl---"
He placed his fingers across my lips so I tasted saltiness. "We can't think of changing our skin," he said. "Change the world--that's how we gotta think."

People, in general, would rather die than forgive. It's that hard. If God said in plain language, "I'm giving you a choice, forgive or die," a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin.

Next I gathered up the mouse bones that I'd kept in my pockets, realizing I didn't need to carry them around anymore. But I knew I couldn't throw them away either, so I tied them together with a red hair ribbon and set them on the shelf by the fan. I stared at them a minute, wondering how a person got attached to mouse bones. I decided soemtimes you just need to nurse something, that's all.