Random Thoughts, Notes, & Incidents

Wow. That was really something. I just finished Bee Season by Myla Goldberg. I love when a novel literally knocks the wind out of you. When you get to the end of the last page, and realize you haven't taken a breath since three pages back.

Bee Season starts out innocently enough. The story of one misfit young girl who unexpectedly wins her school's spelling bee and inadvertently changes the lives of her misfit brother and their mildly eccentric parents. But as the book sucks you in, more layers are added. Each character searching for enlightenment and spiritualism, or anything to fill their empty lives and souls, in some very interesting places.

More interesting is the ways in which some of these family members actually find a way to make peace with the universe, and in the process manage to blur the lines between sanity and craziness, and between what is or is not acceptable or expected.

There are no absolute answers in Bee Season, but there are some mighty fine questions.