The Death of Bees

The Death of Bees by Lisa O'Donnell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Do not read this books if:

You hate bad language and have a weak stomach.
You love long, windy and beautiful prose.
You are looking for something happy and fluff.
You can't stand cruel acts against others, especially minors.
You need confirmation that life and beautiful, or
you believe that all human are capable of love.

If you belong to one of the above groups, you possibly shouldn't read a book that begins with two girls burying their parents in the back yard, should you? I think you should stop and walk away now. But, if you are an adventurous and open-minded type, and a serious reader who enjoy all sorts of delivering ideas and language, then this books would be a treat for you. Before you dive it, I'll have to alert you, every possible crime and unimaginable cruelty under the sky was committed by someone or to someone in this book.

I think I might have an affinity to child narrators, since I've loved and praised so many (except Room). Yet here's another wonderful book narrated by a child, the 15-year-old Marnie. Marnie has a sister, Nelly, who's 12. Both smart, precocious and understand life much better than you and I do. When both parents died under some unpreventable circumstances, the girls decided to bury them in the back yard, since their parents were not the loving/caring kind, the girls absolutely hated the foster system, and Marnie was not yet 16. They were hoping to hide the secret until Marnie turned 16 and be responsible of both herself and her sister, which she has been doing anyway.

The book is narrated by three voices: Marnie, Nelly and Lennie. Lennie is an older gay man who took the girls under his wings, hoping for some kind of redemption for a mistake he committed a while ago. Lennie's parts were written as if he was talking to his partner, whom he lost a while ago. Marnie's narratives were brutal, down-to-the-point, and lack of polish with a bit of humor. It took me a while to get used to, but then I fell for her hard and couldn't get her out of my mind. She was practically a baby but had to endure so much but acting tough, since there was no one to look after her.

"Our phone died. Just like that. We can't call the local constabulary and we can't call an ambulance. Have you ever heard of such a thing? A calamity and no mistake."

"I just don't get why anyone would want to ink their name or their secrets on the surface of their skin, why can't they just keep them inside like I do?....I'm never getting a tattoo. My secrets are etched safely on the inside and I intend to keep them there."

The book was a page-turner for me. I think the author did quite a good job in keeping the plot interesting and engaging. The characters were great. Each of them was deep and etched vividly in my mind no matter how unimportant they were in the story. I deliberately slowed down reading near the end just to enjoy Marnie and Nelly's voices a bit more. This author was successful in building a great plot as well as developing his characters, which I've only seen in a few authors. The ending was also quite satisfactory.



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Just One Day YA Review

Just One Day by Gayle Forman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Can one fall in love in just one day? When we were young, we believed we could...so did Allyson in this book.

"We are born in one day. We die in one day. We can change in one day. And we can fall in love in one day. Anything can happen in just one day."

Allyson was young, 18, a goody-two-shoes who followed her parents' every advice and was on her road to become a pre-med student. A trip to Europe, or more specifically, a day in Paris, changed everything...Did she see the truth on that day, or a big fat lie?

Allyson was a normal and average American girl who was not particular pretty nor witty. She was awkward in social situations, even, but she was a good thinker, and she did a lot of self-introspection throughout the course of the story. She made stupid mistakes and quick decisions that caused the Mom in me to wince with horror. She made friends, but also lost them. It was heartbreaking to observe Allyson to come of age in the hard way through every error and consequences of her decisions. This story begins when she made a decision to visit Paris for a day with a guy she barely knows, while she was in Europe for her high school graduation trip. The day changed everything in her life.

My bookish friend, Kathleen...once mentioned that she could not resist any YA novels that quote Shakespeare or mention his works. This book will definitely attract her attention. The Dutch boy in the book, Willem, and Allyson met when he was performing as Sebastian in Twelfth Night. Shakespeare's plays and works are subsequently mentioned in the second half of the book, and more intensively. They also sparked my interest in a few plays and I plan to read the original works a bit later. Part of the story also took place in Europe, yet the author described the places quite accurately, (view spoiler)[especially in the second trip. (hide spoiler)] For those of you who has never read Shakespeare, or has never been to Europe, you'll definitely add a few more things to your bucket list after reading this book.

This is another wonderful book from Gayle Forman, the author of two other books: If I Stay and Where She Went. Just like her the format of her previous two books, Just One Day is written in the girl's perspective, and the upcoming sequel will be in the boy's voice.

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