Little Bee: A Novel

by Chris Cleave

Anne Flosnik (Narrator)

Sarah Summers is enjoying a holiday on a Nigerian beach when a young girl named Little Bee crashes irrevocably into her life. All it takes is a brief and horrifying moment of crisis — a terrifying scene that no reader will forget. Afterwards, Sarah and Little Bee might expect never to see each other again. But Little Bee finds Sarah’s husband’s wallet in the sand, and smuggles herself on board a cargo vessel with his address in mind. She spends two years in detention in England before making her way to Sarah’s house, with what will prove to be devastating timing.

Chapter by chapter, alternating between Little Bee’s voice and Sarah’s, Chris Cleave wholly and caringly portrays two very different women trying to cope with events they’d never imagined. Little Bee is experiencing all the fullness and emptiness of the rich world for the first time, and her observations are hopeful, charming and piercing: “Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl,” she says: “Everyone would be pleased to see me coming.”

Sarah is more cynical and disheartened, a successful magazine editor trying to find meaning in the face of turmoil at home and work. As the story develops, however, we learn about what matters most to her, including her fierce, protective love for her funny little son (“From the Spring of 2007 until the end of that long summer when Little Bee came to live with us,” Sarah says, “my son removed his Batman costume only at bathtimes.”). Sarah is trying to find herself as much as Little Bee is — and, unexpectedly, each character discovers a ray of hope in the other.

What follows when Little Bee comes back into Sarah’s life is a powerful story of reconciliation and healing, but it is mixed in with a generous helping of satire about the daily difficulties of modern life. This is a novel about important issues, from refugee policy to the devastating effects of violence, but more than that, it does something only great fiction can: Little Bee teaches us what it is like to live through experiences most of us think of only as far off disasters in the news.

As ever, the author says it best: “It’s an uplifting, thrilling, universal human story, and I just worked to keep it simple. One brave African girl; one brave Western woman. What if one just turned up on the other’s doorstep one misty morning and asked, Can you help? And what if that help wasn’t just a one-way street?”

• ISBN10: 1400141710
• ISBN13: 9781400141715
• Publish Date: 28 April 2009 (first published 10 February 2009)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 24 December 2014
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Tantor Media, Inc
• Edition: Unabridged edition
• Format: Audiobook (CD)
• Duration: 11 hours
• Language: English

Reviews

[nannah]

Yikes.
Talk about white savior complex.

If you're picking up this book to read about Little Bee, the Nigerian refugee, then don't bother. It's not about her at all, but about the white British woman, Sarah. It's about her angst, her family drama, her need to become the said white savior, how Little Bee affects her life, and it's about her need to start off every bit of dialogue with "Oh Bee!" "Oh Laurence!" "Oh Charlie!".

Book content warnings:
suicide

I only continued reading this novel because a friend recommended it so highly, because as a survivor and a depressed person with suicidal thoughts, the beginning half of this book was very difficult to get through, as there was a suicide almost every single chapter. I'm not kidding. I mean, I'm glad the author said "It was depression that killed ___" instead of some ableist phrasing, but it's still not a fun ride when you fight these thoughts yourself.

OK. So I'm always wary of white dudes writing POVs of black girls/women, obviously, but this book came with so much hype. And let me down so hard. It has nothing to do with Little Bee or how she feels or how anything affects her. Everything is about the white people, how what happened on the beach (a very important plot point) affected them, etc. At one point Sarah says, "We need to talk about [what happened at the beach]," because she wants to know to ease her own heart and guilt. Because who cares about Little Bee or her probably ptsd and everything.

There's also a dash of sexism, heteronormativity, and explicit ableism (i.e. "'He was a twat, really, only you couldn't say that because he was blind. I suppose that's how he got so far. [. . .] He used to lean, like this, and his hand would sort of tremble. I think it was an act. He didn't tremble when he was reading Braille.'"

Even if I ignored everything above, the purple-ish writing quickly becomes stale, the white characters are unbearable to read, and the entire book feels like some sort of lecture.

[inlibrisveritas]

Okay so I picked this up because the summary on the back (^^) is ridiculous. I was re-arranging my literature shelves at the store and turned this one over to see what it was about, and I got that…I honestly didn’t even know how to handle it. Part of me was ready to stuff it back on the shelf and prepare myself to never sell it…because honestly who does that? But instead I decided to read a couple of pages. Well a couple of pages turned into a couple of chapters and before I knew it I was done with the book and I hadn’t even moved from my spot behind my counter.

So now I’ll try to endeavour reviewing this without telling you anything like the summary pleads me not to because I honestly do think the magic of this book is finding out everything for yourself. Going into a book blind can be scary but ultimately there are books out there worth the risk and this is one of them.

Little Bee focuses on an African refugee and her new life in London, and the story starts somewhere in the middle and unfolds in small bits and pieces as the chapters alternate between her story and the story of a woman who has become part of her world. I can’t say that I liked either character at first. However I came to understand Little Bee’s personality more and more, and even though she has an odd way of thinking I appreciated it and as the story progressed I understood it more. The other woman was a bit harder to stomach, but I did love seeing her develop into the person she wants to be. The circumstances in this book are far from perfect and there are a few scenes that put a lump in my throat.

I definitely think the writing style is to be commending in this, considering I’m going through one of my infamous slumps where even the best books can receive ire from me. The writing made it easy for me to just sink into the story and let it carry me.

So how is that for a vague review? If you enjoy books along the times of The Help, Art of Racing in the Rain, or The Secret Life of Bees then go check this one out! It has a voice of its own and found a permanent place on my shelves