So here is my first review of 2015 and it's 'The Bees' by Laline Paull. I picked it up after seeing it in Wh Smiths for half price (normal price £8.99). For a person who's very fond of bees, I thought I might enjoy this.
My First Book Review of 2015.
So after spending all day reading it, I was disappointed at the cliched ending that Paull chose to resolve the book with. From the first page I knew what the end would be. Or I sort of knew a part of the end. From the beginning we are introduced to a worker bee, Flora 717. A bee that seems to grow as the story grows. I think that's what's the most important thing is from the beginning. A worker bee in a hive society.
The main problem with this book is it can be somewhat vulgur in language and description, the c word being mentioned once, and never another swear word being dropped. There's also a huge vocabulary of "bee language" and language relating to flowers throughout the novel. It was over complicated and the thing is, it could have as easily worked without this. This can somewhat alienate the reader, it certainly alienated me.
There lacks a story too. But, I know where Paull was trying to go with this story, a representative metaphor of our own state of society, the sectors of hierarchy and the queen bee. This all made logical sense. But I felt like if this was the image she was truly aiming for, in many ways she could have pushed this further. It didn't have to be a literal bee, it could have been a cluster of humans who's society worked figuratively as a hive. I may have enjoyed this more!
Some description was also off, the importance of dancing seemed strange? The way Flora knew things like towns etc. seemed odd and out of place. Perhaps this was my own lack of attention to focus.
There are, naturally some ppositivesand it would be negative to shun the book entirely. I did enjoy looking at how bees work collectively and the passing of time in the prologue and epilogue was a nice touch. I could feel some compassion towards Flora through some parts of the book, and the negatives aside this was an okay book.
Would I run to the nearest shop to buy it? It's a pass unfortunately.
Rating 3/10.
Next up: The Sleeper Awakes-H.G Wells.
Love,
TSITR
