Little Bee

Ever since I've gotten my life back, I've been sleeping and reading non-stop. Today I finished reading Little Bee, sitting outside and enjoying the warm June sunshine. Little Bee is one of the best books I've read in a long time. When I say "best book," I don't mean "best" in that it's a fun, happy, dainty read. It is anything but.

Whereas I love fun, happy, dainty romantic comedy movies, I almost exclusively enjoy reading serious novels or memoirs that give me a view into lives very different from my own, that often break my heart with how tragic life can be, but then puts my heart back together with how hopeful that same life can be. It's the juxtaposition of hope (is there anything more beautiful or more full of life than hope itself?) against tragedy that reminds me of just how beautiful life is, how grateful I should be for each day.

Little Bee is a complex book to describe. None of the characters are entirely likeable, although some have very admirable qualities. The book is alternatingly told by two voices: a 16 year old Nigerian refugee and a 30-something editor of a London fashion magazine who has recently lost her husband. Many of the events in the book are horrific and tragic. But it's all the more horrific and tragic because although they are fictional, things like that actually happen in this world we occupy.

What makes the book so good is the singular quality that my favorite writers possess: the ability to give fictional characters a voice so real, so genuine, that the character becomes a real person in my mind.