I'm not too proud to note that I often pick up books based on their award status. I'm very Kantian in general, and I think that majority often makes sense. At least when it comes to books. Anyway- I recently purchased "Little Bee" by Chris Cleave, and post-purchase I began to hear that it was the book around town. You know- it is sort of what "Eat. Pray. Love." was a couple years ago. Oh gosh- when I say that- I realize that I could have avoided the same fate I found with EPL- the realization that I just spent 450 pages on a totally overrated chick book.
Anyway- here are my thoughts on Little Bee.
- The first couple hundred pages I felt very interested in the book as I was learning quite a bit about Nigeria as well as the life of immigrants who are simply jailed in England because the government doesn't know what else to do with them.
- The book seemed to have layers and the character of Little Bee seemed like a strong one.
- Then we meet Sarah and Andrew and I start to feel a bit like "Hmmm...what am I reading again?" when I learn that Sarah works for a stupid magazine called "Nixie".
- Finally- there is this scene between Little Bee and Sarah's lover, Lawrence, who shows up after Andrew (the husband) has killed himself- and it becomes altogether too dramatic and in all the wrong places...
And, well, I think I might stop reading it. Which I rarely do. That's how I feel about Little Bee. And regarding EPL- perhaps I'll see that movie- but only because Julia is in it- and she alone is worth watching.
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dear eloise,
ReplyDeleteyour readers were so refreshed by reading this candid book review. i think you saved us 450 pages (or whatever the book length of little bee + what of epl we didn't read). and we didn't know julia was in epl.
some of us recently got a kindle and are eager to read just about anything we can on it... though this will now be one book we can move beyond without a second thought. well... the nigeria part did sound really good.
love
your devoted fans