Little Bee by Chris Cleeve

My best friend, Gigi, and I had gone to Olde Mystick Village and Downtown Mystic this past summer during one of our usual spur-of-the-moment-girls-only day trips.  After deciding whether we wanted to eat lunch at Mystic Pizza or at a local seafood restaurant, we decided to go for the seafood.  Our waitress at the Oyster Bar informed us that the price of all of their seafood had risen due to the oil spill in the Gulf, and would we still be interested in ordering fish.  It was a pretty lame copout since I knew my lobster had more than likely been caught in Maine or off the coast of Massachussetts and not in the warm waters of the Gulf, but we were there for the seafood.  So we sucked it up, succumbed to the price gouging, and ordered lobster rolls and homemade potato chips which we ate while sitting on the outdoor patio, watching the ships sail past us on the river. 

After lunch, we walked about a block up the street to a quaint, little, quintessential New England type bookshop - the type where customers look like tanned Yale alumni and are wearing flip flops, madras shorts, and pastel-colored polo shirts with their Chanel eyeglasses propped atop their perfectly expensive haircuts and Gucci handbags dangling from their arms housing little dogs with equally expensive haircuts.  I immediately hit the front bookshelf to see what the store's bestsellers were, and Little Bee happened to be sitting there among a plethora of other interesting titles that had been on my "To Read" list.  I had a difficult time choosing which books I wanted to purchase for an upcoming trip to Myrtle Beach, but I happily picked two books and went on my merry way to the next downtown shop.

 Little Bee did not make the cut that day.

(In fact, it almost didn't make the cut again during a recent trip to Borders where I was relentlessly harrassed for a good seven minutes to purchase one of their rewards cards by a pompous, self-assured sales woman with a bad attitude and bad breath to match.  I really wanted to drop the books and leave.  But that's for another post. . . )

The synopsis on the back of the book gives little information about this story.  In fact it states, "We don't want to tell you WHAT HAPPENS in this book.  It is a truly SPECIAL STORY and we don't want to spoil it.  NEVERTHELESS, you need to know enough to buy it, so we will just say this:
This is the story of two women. . ." (and then it goes on to give a scant, two-sentence, general description).  Like the sucker I am, I got caught and trapped just like the lobster I had for lunch that summer day in Mystic.  The bold-type, all caps lured me into the mystery surrounding this story's plot.  This is indeed a story about two women. It is about the horrendous circumstances of their first meeting and the tragic circumstances of their second meeting a few years later.  It is also about the tremendous, life-changing decisions they have to make, decisions with which no human being should ever have to be confronted.

Some books really make you question your own personality, your own strengths and weaknesses; and this is one of those books.  What would I have done if I had been in Sarah's or Little Bee's situation?  I don't know.  And fortunately I will probably never have to make the types of decisions these two women have faced.  Obstacles and challenges are thrown at me every day, and I have crossed some difficult bridges and plan to do so throughout the rest of my life as my own circumstances change.  I don't know what tomorrow looks like for me.  But after reading about these two women, I can appreciate the fact that today, my decisions are as simple as where to go for lunch with my best friend, do I want the over-priced fish platter or the chicken sandwich, and which book should I buy for my vacation. 

Overall, I really liked this book.  The ending felt a little rushed and the story included some events that I didn't find absolutely necessary for the plot, but Little Bee definitely gave me a greater appreciation for what I have and really made me think about other people's difficulties and choices.