Nathan Giglierano

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The Secret Life of Bees

Secret Life of Bees The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, is a spirited novel about the life of a teenage girl. In this book, Lily Owens goes through a journey to learn more about her long dead mother. The story also discusses the racist nature of people in the 1960s.


The story begins when Lily Owens escapes from her abusive father with Rosaleen, a strong willed black woman standing in as Lily's mother. Many circumstances lead up to the escape, including the mistreatment and arrest of Rosaleen when she tries to register to vote. The two end up in Tiburon, because Lily has a hunch that in Tiburon she will somehow learn about her long lost mother. Lily and Rosaleen end up staying in a pink house with an eccentric trio of beekeepers. Lily's happy existence with the beekeepers is made sweeter when she courts a boy named Zachary Taylor. Eventually, Zachary is arrested after not telling police which one of his friends threw a bottle at a white man. The news about Zachary upsets one of the beekeeping sisters so much that she drowns herself in a river. Lily learns the truth about her mother from the remaining sisters, and is found by her abusive father. The book ends after Lily's father decides to let her stay with the sisters.


The Secret Life of Bees shows a sad time in history, when racism was rampant, and often hard to contest. Lily's search for the truth about her mother shows us that things aren't always the way we want them to be, and that we can find happiness in the strangest places.