This is really good. I wish the author's note had been published at the front of this novel instead of at the end. I kept thinking all the way through the book that it had to be based on experiences of real people, but since I'm not much of a historian, it would have been good to have this litt...
I loved this book. I didn't expect to. I "had" to read it for my book club at my work, at a Catholic school. I started off as someone educated in the Marian tradition thinking don't let Protestants lecture me on Mary. Well, how wrong was I? I now know more about the Persephone/Demeter Greek myth,...
This mother-daughter travel memoir takes place before the publication of Sue Monk Kidd's popular Secret Life of Bees, however it was not published until after the publication of the novel. Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter, Ann, weave their travels to Turkey, Greece, and France with their personal ...
I usually just drop my stars and run, but after realizing this is one of the lowest-rated books I've ever seen on Goodreads, I feel like I have to justify myself in liking it as much as I did.This novel is beautifully written. And sometimes, if a novel is written really, really well, I find mysel...
I found Sue Monk Kidd’s books The Mermaid Chair and The Secret Life of Bees mesmerizing and poetic. They were the type of books that you don’t want to put down, but you don’t want to end, especially, The Secret Life of Bees. It was for this reason; I thought I would love all of SMK’s books. Ho...
To see her now, you would not know she’s depressed. I watch her photograph trays of golden and magenta spices—sumak, kekik, kimyon—and marvel at how her melancholy comes and goes. Back in Athens, her sobs landed like soft, muffled explosions against the closed door of the hotel bathroom, while I ...
They do not live a riotous sex life themselves. A hive suggests cloister more than bordello. —The Queen Must Die: And Other Affairs of Bees and Men Chapter Seven I jumped every time I heard a siren. It might have been an ambulance off in the distance or a police chase on television—it didn’t matt...
I thought by writing down my feelings, I would seize control over them, perhaps even curb what Reverend Hall called “the paroxysms of carnality.” For what it’s worth, charting one’s passion in a small daybook kept hidden in a hatbox inside a wardrobe does not subdue passion in the least. 20 Febru...