Book Three Review

This trimester, I focused on historical fiction and I read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd and Firehorse by Diane Lee Wilson. The Secret Life of Bees is the story of a young girl with a tragic story. Lily has grown up with only an abusive father and a kind, but rough, African-American stand-in mother, Rosaleen. Lily has been forced to live with the terrible knowledge that it is her own fault her life is like this. She accidently killed her mother with a gun as her parents were arguing when she was a toddler. Lily has tormented herself with this her entire life. “Once in a while, though, some caring soul would say, ‘Just put it out of your head, Lily. It was an accident. You didn’t mean to do it.’”(Lily, The Secret Life of Bees p.3) Sick of her life, Lily decides to run away to town her mother once visited. There she meets the Boatwright sisters who take her and Rosaleen in. This novel is told in first person by Lily and describes her struggle against herself.

Firehorse is centered on a teenage girl named Rachel. When her family moves to 19^th century Boston from a small, rural, farm town, Rachel loses her beloved horse, Peaches. Rachel has to learn to find herself in a society that doesn’t appreciate women who have opinions. Rachel’s dream is to be with horses; when her father rips her away, she is crushed. Luckily for Rachel, one the fire horses is injured and needs help. Rachel begs her brother to bring her home, so she can care for her. She was the hero of the city, the Governor’s Girl, the best fire horse ever known. As Rachel becomes slowly accustomed to big city life, her father is busy plotting, err, planning for his future fame.  However, the busy Boston life doesn’t wait for either of them and the end could be near for the city. Huge fires have been rapidly spreading lately and to make matters worse, all of the horses in town are falling ill of a mysterious disease. At this rate, there may not be any horses left to pull the great fire engines to the rescue.

Both of these inspiring novels have several similarities. Each of the books has a first person point of view that allows the reader to understand the main character’s inner struggle. In both cases, the reader is drawn emotionally into the story by this internal struggle. Another thing that theses novels share is that there is a lesson about shoving people down. In The Secret Life of Bees, the group is African Americans gaining the right to vote, while in Firehorse the group is simply women in general. In both books the reader is left with an impression that when people are pushed down, they fight all the harder because of it. “I’m not waiting for permission…If I waited for your permission…to do anything at all with my life…I’d end up as one of your horrid little butterflies.”(Rachel, Firehorse p.310) This quote really sums up how Rachel has changed by the end of the book. I also really liked how it referenced the on-going metaphor of the trapped butterflies kept by Rachel’s father. At the end of the novel, she isn’t trapped like the butterflies under glass.

A couple of differences were notable in the novels, regardless of the shared genre. Because the novels were each set in such different time periods and places, they each used a very distinct tone. The Secret Life of Bees had a southern style slang used throughout the book whereas Firehorse had an old-fashioned, more ladylike language. The speed of these novels was also different. In Firehorse, events progressed quickly with only a few necessary flashbacks, but in The Secret Life of Bees events moved at a more constant pace and it had a slow beginning. On the surface neither of these books are even similar, but when you dig down deeper you find that they actually are.  Personally, I enjoyed Firehorse more than The Secret Life of Bees because I could connect to Rachel better than I could to Lily. Rachel’s problems, likes, and dislikes were more similar to mine. Overall, I would give The Secret Life of Bees 3 of 5 stars and Firehorse 4.5 of 5 stars.



 



Sue Monk Kidd



Diane Lee Wilson

Book Trailer

When Lily Met Dave

In The Secret Life of Bees, Lily Owens is the main protagonist. Lily’s life is far from perfect; a young girl living in South Carolina with her abusive father. Her father owned a large peach farm and the only thing he cared about was his dog. She has little self-esteem and her only comfort is imagining what her life would have been like had her mother lived. Instead she has been forced to grow up with the tormenting knowledge that she accidently shot and killed her own mother when she was a baby. Her only friend was her stand-in mother, Rosaleen, who helped to care for her.  In A Child Called It, Dave has similar problems with self-esteem and an abusive parent. Both finally revolt against their abusive past. Lily runs away after breaking Rosaleen out of the hospital/jail. She decides to go the Tiburon, South Carolina after finding a picture of her mother’s that was taken there. She hopes to find friends and more about her mother’s past. Dave finally got himself removed from his mother and into the foster care system. Lily made it to Tiburon to find that the picture came from the three Boatwright sisters, August, June, and May. The sister took in Lily and Rosaleen and care for them. The Boatwright sisters run a beekeeping business. While they are staying there Lily learns that her mother stayed there right before she died. August and Lily finally talk about her mother and lily life finally begin to turn around for the better. Both of these characters had to overcome their abusive childhoods to become what they were meant to be.

Truthful...Or Not?

In my mind, a book needs to be completely truthful to be classified as non-fiction. Otherwise it would need to be considered realistic fiction. I think that the authors of these “half-truths” should have a disclaimer in the back explaining how their own lives inspired the books. I also think that a publisher should not accept a book as non-fiction if they wouldn’t accept it as fiction. I don’t really understand why they would want to do this anyways, or how they feel this would make more or less money. I don’t think that we need precise lines between genres because it would allow for more creativity on the part of the author. However, I do feel that books needs to at least be generally classified to help the reader know what type of novel it is. It would be really annoying to pick up a book and think it was going to be historical fiction only to find out it is non-fiction. Authors shouldn’t try to classify their books as something they are not just because they think that they would sell more. The point of writing should be to create a work of art that gives something to the reader, whether that is hope, excitement, etc., not to become rich. If an author used his/her “truthful” book to get money, and then it turned out that it was all a lie, I don’t think that is right. It does matter because people donated money because of that story, not because they wanted the author to get rich and famous.

Commercial Fiction vs. Literary Fiction

I don’t believe that commercial fiction has any less value than literary fiction. I definitely feel that schools should include commercial fiction in English curriculum. The students would like these kinds of fiction better because they are easier to understand and easier to relate to. One thing I know about students is that one thing they don’t like about what we read in school is the type of writing. Often the books are written in Old English, which is difficult to comprehend. I agree with Melissa Thomas when she says that fastasy fiction “has at least two traits in common with the lasting work of other genres: humor and humanness”. Most of the time this is what is taught in the classroom anyways; this would just be a new twist on it.  Popular works can be just as great as literary fiction, maybe even better. I don’t understand why people think that just because a book is popular, it’s not as good. More people are reading it, not less! I agree with Leavitt  when she says “A good book is a good book…”. I don’t care how someone categorizes a book or how many people are reading it; it is still just a book to me. People need to realize this fact.  No one person can decide if a book is good or not, every individual needs to read the book themselves to know whether they should consider it good. It’s a personal opinion type of question so no one else can answer for you. We should want children to read books because it allows them to increase their own creativity. Also, it is an important part of learning. You almost always have to read something to learn anything. I believe that people should think about literary fiction and popular fiction equally. Everyone should read what they like and not try to say which type of books are best; decide for yourself and only yourself!

The Help: Book to Movie

I think that making the Help into a movie could be rather challenging. There are many subplots that complement each other in the book, but would take up too much time on the screen. One of the subplots I feel could be cut out would be Stuart, Skeeter’s boyfriend. While he adds a good element to the story, he is not essential, nor the most interesting. Another thing that could be cut would be Yule May and her twin boys. In the book, Yule May was sent to jail for stealing after Miss Hilly wouldn’t give her a loan so her boys could go to college. This spurred other maids to come and tell their stories to Skeeter, but I think that it would be easy enough to say that they just changed their minds. A third event that could be removed would be Hilly’s last scene with Skeeter when she threatens her and tries to tell Skeeter’s mother what has been happening. For the movie to convey the same point as the book I believe that it would be necessary to include Constantine’s story with her daughter. It would do great as a flashback by Skeeter’s mother. Another scene I feel important to include is when Minny tells Miss Celia about the chocolate pie. This showed just how much she came to trust her. A third thing I believe essential to the plot is the Benefit. This scene showed the coldness the town felt towards Celia and Skeeter because of Hilly. The Help would be challenging to adapt to the big screen, but completely worth it!