Comments on: Review: The Bees, Laline Paull

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Sat, 03 May 2014 22:24:04 +0000

Just read it and I loved it. Through her writing I got a sense of the intoxication of ‘the hive mind. She managed to make living in a bee hive, foraging for nectar and pollen and a world where the predominant sense is smell, something to envy of bees. I always had a sense of the tension between ‘the social contract’ expected of all social animals in order to ensure survival and the importance of the individual and their ‘mutations’ to allow the group to adapt in order to survive changing conditions. If any of you are acquainted with Star Trek Voyager, it reminded me of a more benign story about the Bork. And Flora 717 as a character was completely engaging. She was kind at times, ruthless at others, obedient to the hive and then subversive at others, all the while loving the hive and the queen and telling herself that everything she did was for the good of the hive and the queen, or nearly everything.
The names Paull gave to the other bees, the stages of hive life and other insects and animals encountered were fantastic and helped to conjure up rich visual images in my mind as I read. I rarely got the sense that I couldn’t visualise the story, that it was simply words in the page with no form. I believe there was only one time where I had difficulty summoning images in response to the storyline and I had to put the book down and do a bit of cursory research on bees to draw a connection.
All up I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for an adventure story with a twist. A great imaginative read.

By: Beth F

Beth F — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 11:20:10 +0000

I reviewed this for an audiobook magazine and was really drawn in to the story. Flora and the life in the hive as imagined by Paull were so compelling that the over-the-top anthropomorphizing didn’t particularly bother me.

By: Literary Feline

Literary Feline — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 16:38:34 +0000

How fascinating! I am still not sure what to think of this book, but it sounds like the author did a good job of bringing her story to life.

By: Jackie (Farm Lane Books)

Jackie (Farm Lane Books) — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 08:14:13 +0000

I’ve recently been to a talk about bees and become really interested in them. I often enjoy books with an animal protagonist so it sounds as though this might be for me….although I might get annoyed about them behaving in an unrealistic manner. Dustpans and brushes?!! Thanks for bringing this book to my attention!