Little Bee

Little Bee
Chris Cleave
266 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Source: PaperBackSwap.com
★★☆☆☆

You can read the Goodreads summary here.

Like many before me, I really wanted to like Little Bee.  It's been one heck of a hyped up book, at least by its own publisher.  The back of the book tells me that it won't tell me what the story is about because it's just so amazing I have to read it myself.  Indeed, a couple chapters in, I thought I would love this book.  Unfortunately, something terrible happened.

I found myself putting the book down and not wanting to pick it up because I felt like I was in high school again.  It felt like... required reading.  *sob*  I could imagine all kinds of discussions this book could spur in high schools across the country: cultural differences, immigration policy, personal morals, the theme of "letting go."  Not that there's anything wrong with that, because in that sense I think this novel would be excellent for a book club.  But it wasn't what I, personally, was looking for.

Don't get me wrong, this book was not terrible.  My two star rating means "it was okay" and it was okay.  The characters were rich (I loved Charlie to bits) and the plot was certainly unique, but it just didn't wow me like the back cover claimed it would and it's left me wondering how that advertising campaign worked out for them.

If you're looking for a novel that will make you think, you can find this on my PaperBackSwap shelf.