Book club book: 'Little Bee' by Chris Cleave

Little Bee, Chris Cleave (3.5)

‘Little Bee’ is the type of book one can’t discuss too much for fear of giving away major plot details that are best learned by the reader. The group had a long discussion about the various characters and plot points.  What I can say is that Little Bee is the protagonist who is a Nigerian teenager.  We start with her in an immigrant detention center in England.  She is released with no papers and needs to find somewhere to go. She has a business card of a man she met on a beach in Nigeria.  We have no idea how they know each other, but the story is revealed in a forward and backward telling.  It’s quite extraordinary and involves what appears to be a moral choice. While we all agreed that Little Bee is an interesting character, most of us found the rest of the characters quite unlikable. We even had a healthy argument on who was the most despicable! There were also some issues with plot believability towards the end of the book (back to the despicability – ‘would a mother really do that??’ was asked on several occasions). While we didn’t love the book for those various reasons, we did have to admit that it generated a good discussion.  One almost had the feeling that Mr. Cleave specifically wrote this book for book clubs (someone who wanted to attract Oprah’s attention?), given it’s controversial nature and the fact that the kindle version ended at 80% and the last 20% was devoted to questions of the author and book club type ‘thought’ questions. It’s an interesting read, not a long read, but be sure you know someone else who has read it, as you will want to discuss it with someone!