Whilst I have admitted defeat this month and realise I am unlikely to finish my 2017 Reading Challenge, I’m still reading some of the books the various prompts have meant I’ve downloaded (waste not, want not and all that!). This one is in the category ‘A book from a non human perspective’. As you may guess from the title – this is from the perspective of a bee. Here’s the blurb.
“Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen.
Yet Flora has talents that are not typical of her kin. And while mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is reassigned to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. Then she finds her way into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous.
Enemies roam everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. But Flora cannot help but break the most sacred law of all, meaning her instinct to serve is overshadowed by a desire, as overwhelming as it is forbidden…
Laline Paull’s chilling yet ultimately triumphant novel creates a luminous world both alien and uncannily familiar. Thrilling and imaginative, ‘The Bees’ is the story of a heroine who changes her destiny and her world.”
Now, I have to confess for the first 20% of this book I struggled to imagine this as anything other than the set of The Bee Movie – which is a fairly rubbish cartoon film that my kids watched in the back of my car for months on end some years ago. I am completely sure that Laline Paull did not make wonderful descriptions for me to imagine that – but I really struggled to see it in any different way!
In fact I really struggled to get into this book (probably because it’s not really my type of genre – I’m not good at non human / sci fi type books or films for that matter) and because I’d admitted defeat on the challenge as a whole – so was having a bit of a teenage ‘what’s the point in reading it at all if I’m not going to finish the challenge’ grumpy, shoulder hunched kind of mard!
The descriptions are great – and I am sure the research into the inner workings of a bee hive and the life cycle of different types of bees was cleverly incorporated – but I just didn’t really get the point of it. I don’t particularly like bees, I had no affinity to Flora, and didn’t really care what happened to her or the hive – which I don’t think helped my love of the book – and the fact it took me so long to wade through it.
I think I need to remember that ‘critically acclaimed’ and ‘award winning ‘ don’t necessarily mean a book I will enjoy!!
Still – another category ticked off – and another author I won’t rush to read again – so not a total waste of time!!
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