Book Review: The Bees by Laline Paull (Audiobook narrated by Orlagh Cassidy)
Summary:
Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen. Yet Flora has talents that are not typical of her kin. And while mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is reassigned to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. Then she finds her way into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous. Enemies roam everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. But Flora cannot help but break the most sacred law of all, and her instinct to serve is overshadowed by a desire, as overwhelming as it is forbidden.
Review:
I like books that mix scientific accuracy with a touch of personification of animals, or in this case, insects. I was expecting it to be weird, because it’s about insects, but oh boy was this book weird.
For some reason, I find the title to be hilarious. I just kept walking around saying to myself, “the bees, The Bees, THE BEES.” You may think that sounds ridiculous (and it does, and I am, indeed, a ridiculous person) but this book really closely matches that experience.
I applaud the author all the research she clearly must have done. I think it only makes logical sense that she invented a religion for the bees to follow that revolves around worshiping the queen. The horrifying dystopianesque rigid structure of bee life also makes sense based on what we scientifically know about them. All of that said, it was still deeply odd to read. Priestesses and chanting and drones and evil invading wasps. It struck me as a cartoon that took itself very very seriously. I would have preferred if it perhaps took itself a bit less seriously. Like (I’m aging myself here) SimAnt.
In any case, the book does take itself very seriously, most likely due to the very real and serious fact that bees are dying out, and reasons for this are reflected in the story, as the colony faces many challenges to staying alive. While I was able to take some of these threats quite seriously, like flowers not blooming at the right time, others were written in such a ridiculous way that I just couldn’t. For example, a giant evil cell phone tower that makes the bees lose their way when they’re out flying. It’s practically personified as a giant evil ominous entity, and I found myself laughing when I knew actually this is really a problem for bees. The book is basically caught in this uncanny valley that both prevented me from being moved by it and from finding it completely humorous. It’s a book that I think needed to sway a bit more in one direction or the other.
I was still at least 4 star enjoying it though until the end. I found the end just so deeply depressing and unnecessarily so (the point was made, no need to go so extreme) that I was left frustrated. I think, having read the ending, that perhaps the author didn’t realize that she was at times veering into ludicrous humor, and she maybe intended the whole book to be a Very Serious Read, when it simply was not.
Overall, then, if you’re a reader who is able to take some ludicrousness seriously, you will most likely enjoy the book more and get more emotional depth out of it than I did.
Now, if only there was a SimBees…..
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3 out of 5 stars
Length: 340 pages – average but on the longer side
Source: Audible
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This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 
Haha, I loved SimAnt and that it didn’t take itself too seriously, but I also really loved this book. I thought it was awesome the way the author worked real facts about bees into her worldbuilding 🙂
Yes, I really respected her research. It may have been an odd read, but at least I learned something!
(To be fair….I learned a ton from SimAnt too 😉 )
My husband is a beekeeper and so you’d think that I would be all over this book, but there is nothing about it that appeals to me and your review has cemented my decision to not read it. I don’t care for anthromophizing of animals in adult fiction (never did like Watership Down, but I am a Wind in the Willows fan), and I enjoyed your description of this books as being sort of a cartoon that takes itself too seriously. Good review!
Thanks so much for the comment! I love getting insight from someone married to a beekeeper. The last time I read a book that anthromorphized animals and did a good job of it (and was adult fiction) was Fudoki by Kij Johnson (review). But it’s a rare adult book that does it well.