Book Review: Little Bee

Little Bee by Chris Cleave
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Little Bee is the story of two women. Sarah is a married mother who works for a magazine and lives in the British suburbs. Little Bee is a Nigerian refugee seeking asylum in the UK. Their lives first cross paths in an unexpected way that slowly unfolds in flashbacks throughout the present day story of the two women meeting again two years after that first fateful encounter. The author alternates between Sarah's voice and Little Bee's voice chapter by chapter and does a superb job of making each voice authentic and unique. I kept forgetting that the author is a man because he did such a great job of writing these two female characters.

This story is heartbreakingly beautiful but there is some humor interspersed as well. Little Bee's character has some very funny observations about life in a First World country that had me laughing out loud.

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