Book Review #5 for Spring Reading

Since spring break has been a week full of weather more like November, I've had plenty of good reading times throughout my day and evening.  We didn't go on vacation this year due to my oldest daughter having her wisdom teeth removal scheduled for this past week, and I wanted to get a head start on my spring cleaning.  And I did.....except for the windows because it rained almost every day!  So....I decided to do a "stay-cation" and spend time reading.  This is the 5th book I've completed from the Spring Thing Reading List.  I have just added another book to my list because I happened to see it at the towne library and couldn't resist.(listed on my sidebar)  I expect to be finished with that book by Monday.  For now...here is the book review on the following novel:

Genre:  realistic fiction

Setting:  Nigeria (a country in Africa) and England

Summary from back of book: "This is the story of 2 women.  Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice, the kind of choice we hope you never have to face.  Two years later, they meet again----the story starts there.....  once you have read it, you'll want to tell your friends about it.  When you do, please don't tell them what happens.  The magic is in how the story unfolds." 

From the Reading Group Guide in back of book:  "Little Bee, a young Nigerian refugee, has just been released from the British immigration detention center where she has been held under horrific conditions for the past two years, after narrowly escaping a traumatic fate in her homeland of Nigeria.  Alone in a foreign country, without a family member, friend, or pound to call her own, she seeks out the only English person she knows.  Sarah is a posh young mother and magazine editor with whom Little Bee shares a dark and tumultuous past. 

They first met on a beach in Nigeria, where Sarah was vacationing with her husband, Andrew, in an effort to save their marriage after an affair, and their brief encounter has haunted each woman for two years.  Now together, they face a disturbing past and an uncertain future with the help of Sarah's four-year-old son, Charlie, who refuses to take off his Batman costume.  A sense of humor and an unflinching moral compass allow each woman, and the reader, to believe that even in the face of unspeakable odds, humanity can prevail."

My thoughts:

This book, at first, was hard for me to get into.  My daughter read it last month and said how amazing it is and to stick with it.  And I am so glad I did! This book will make you think.  It will make you cry.  It will make you laugh.  You will have a gamut of emotions running through your heart and mind.

Will you identify more with Little Bee or with Sarah?

.Every other chapter is either Little Bee's narration or Sarah's.  I liked that actually.There are not a lot of characters in this book In fact, not counting the Nigerian soldiers and other refugees, or Little Bee's sister, there are really just 5 main characters.  How will you feel about Andrew?? (Hint:  i did NOT like him at all.....and Lawrence wasn't a great man either.....although there are glimpses of Lawrence that were ok....at some points....)

The book, for me, started becoming a "page turner" (meaning I couldn't put it down...I needed to keep turning to see what was going to happen) at Chapter 3.  If you plan on reading this book, and I highly recommend it.....stick with the first 2 chapters.  It is well worth it.

Little Bee will blow you away.  What a brave young girl.  

Find out what the beach scene is all about...this is truly the most moving scene in the book...and again, the beach scene at the end of book....very moving...the ending is a puzzle....what do you think happened??

This book is based on actual circumstances that our Nigerian friends have gone through.....it is astonishing...and appalling..... and I am betting most of us don't remember, or never knew about,  the events that took place in the years 2002-2005 or thereabouts in that little country of Africa.

It is a special story.  And there are a couple of very special quotes that really spoke to me.....I could relate to parts of them:

"Sad words are just another beauty.  A sad story means, this storyteller is alive!" (pg 9)

"We must see all scars as beauty.  Okay?  This will be our secret.  Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying.  A scar means, I survived." (pg 9)....and ask your self while reading this novel:  which characters have physical scars?  Emotional scars?  Do you have any scars you have come to embrace?

Rated:  on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best, I rate this book a 10.

Appropriate for ages 16 and older.


My next review will be Laura Lippman's novel I'd Know You Anywhere c. 2010 or One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp