From the Bookshelf of Pick-a-Shelf…
Find A Copy At
Group Discussions About This Book
No group discussions for this book yet.
What Members Thought
Really 3.5 stars
Readers who enjoy hero adventures may want to give Laline Paull’s “The Bees� a try. Though I wouldn’t recommend it to a child or adolescent because of some of the adult-type content, Flora, the heroine, reminded me of a Disney character who comes to the rescue again and again and again. She begins as a lowly sanitation worker with the unusual ability of being able to talk. She is also larger and stronger than other worker bees. She becomes a forager who can travel farther and gat ...more
Readers who enjoy hero adventures may want to give Laline Paull’s “The Bees� a try. Though I wouldn’t recommend it to a child or adolescent because of some of the adult-type content, Flora, the heroine, reminded me of a Disney character who comes to the rescue again and again and again. She begins as a lowly sanitation worker with the unusual ability of being able to talk. She is also larger and stronger than other worker bees. She becomes a forager who can travel farther and gat ...more
I loved this fantasy grounded in the life cycle of a hive of bees. I learned so much! Of course it's not all possible (like, talking in words as well as communicating with dance and scents) but it was simple enough to check the facts. It's a little like Brave New World in that everyone has their assigned place and role in an ordered system and our heroine is the one who rebels to go beyond that. But I thought this was a better story.
...more
Tip for publishers: If you can afford a proofreader for the print publication, you can afford to have someone monitor the audiobook recording to make sure words are pronounced correctly (especially any one word that's going to be said 750 times, like "antennae"). Seriously.
Otherwise, I liked this book well enough, though it's incredibly violent—bee society is ruthless!—and I wasn't enamored of the protagonist. ...more
Otherwise, I liked this book well enough, though it's incredibly violent—bee society is ruthless!—and I wasn't enamored of the protagonist. ...more
4 stars
Jul 18, 2014
Amy
marked it as to-read
Jan 31, 2015
Amber
marked it as to-read
Apr 14, 2015
Krissy Augustine-Cox
marked it as to-read
May 16, 2015
Lyn (Readinghearts)
marked it as to-read-mine
Mar 18, 2017
Faith
marked it as to-read
Dec 19, 2018
Diva3021
marked it as to-read
Jul 16, 2019
Wendy Eley
marked it as to-read
Apr 28, 2022
Amy J.
marked it as to-read
Jun 05, 2023
Madge
marked it as to-read
