Sweet Read

This is the story of a young girl's quest to uncover unknown elements to her dead mother's past. Her journey is one of self-discovery as well. I found the writing style rich and enticing. I read through each chapter with increased interest and delight, only to find myself slowing down in the last couple of chapters, not wanting the book to end! That's a sure sign of a sweet read! It's an absolutely delightful book that I highly recommend!

very disappointing................

Okay, everyone at work RAVED about this book and how great it was (even a couple of guys) so I decided I HAD to read this during my summer vacation.

Let me tell you one thing about this book: it does NOT live up to the hype. Book clubs and others are really talking about this book and many people told me they just couldn't put it down. I did not have that problem.

Sure, the idea is an interesting one: white girl runs away with a black woman in the south, right around the time of the Civil Rights Act. It was very predictable and dry. Yes, I learned some interesting things about bees, but this is one book that, after reading it, I felt like I'd wasted my time. I kept waiting for something BIG to happen. The book is 302 pages long, so around page 282, I decided that it probably wouldn't happen and it didn't.

Very predictable, like I said. Give me a James Patterson novel or something from Mary Higgins Clark. At least their stuff keeps me guessing until the very end.

Between Two and Three

It was a toss up as to whether or not I should rate this book with two stars or three. In previous reviews I've given stars for the quality of the writing in the absence of a solid story. This time I had to give the lesser rating because of implausible events in the story. While the writing was good, easy to follow, and at times engaging, this book was simply a female version of the Huck Finn story. If it had not been for the (white) book group that invited me to discuss this book with them to get my impression of it and to see if it matched theirs (it did not), I would never have finished it. I was able to point out inaccuracies and stereotypes that they had overlooked. However, after my input each vowed to re-read the book with different lenses.

I want most to say, ENOUGH ALL READY! Smart white child travels with a dumb black companion. It's Huck Finn all over again and I've had enough.

The character of Lily; as much as I wanted to get closer to her and sympathize with her plight, the more I read the more I really began to resent her. There was no reason for her not to tell the truth. The author stretched that storyline too long.

Without giving too much of the plot away, there was so much about this novel that was simply not believable from an African-American perspective based upon the events of the time. The author should not have glossed that over, which I feel she did. No writer of the Jewish Holocaust gloss over that history and neither should white America when writing about the tragedies that occurred here in this country as a result of our prejudice history. It was a turbulent time in America and the young man in the book would have been lynched, period. If the author is not comfortable in telling the truth about the pains of America's racial history--exactly what happened to a black man if he so much as looked at a white woman during that time then perhaps she should not write these types of stories. I found myself extremely disturbed by the way the author handled that issue. She glossed it and it should never be glossed. Rosaleen's relationship with the black women in the house was simply not believable. There would have been much rejoicing by her to have finally forged a sisterhood. I know this was Lily's story and not Rosaleen's story, but in order for this novel to warrant merit it needs to be accurate from everyone's perspective and it was not. Therefore, the only praise the novel can earn is that the author is a talented writer. However, this was not a carefully crafted novel--as one reviewer puts it. It was an irresponsibly written one. Writers have an obligation to tell the truth even if it's uncomfortable for others to read.