by Kelly Burton

Created on: May 04, 2009

"We don't want to tell you what happens in this book. It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it."

This is the first line of the blurb on the back of this book. It goes on to give minimal details of what the story is roughly about because "you need to know enough to buy it". Whilst trying to write this review, I was torn as to whether I should share the books secrets, because the last line of the blurb says "Once you have read it, you'll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds."

However, after reading the book, I feel that this clever attempt at luring the reader into buying the book should be exposed and I SHALL say what the general gist is about so if you aren't interested and want to discover the "magic" yourself, I suggest you skip this part and I'll let you know when you can read again!

Little Bee is a refugee who has landed in the UK after fleeing a war torn Nigeria. She has many horror stories to tell and is constantly thinking of how she can kill herself in any given situation if "the men come" for her. Sarah is a white middle class woman, married with a little boy, a good career and a nice home in Surrey. One day their lives collide in the worst possible way and from that day on, their lives and their fates become interlinked.

The story is told from both women's points of view. There are other characters men mainly in this story but they do not have a real say and this may be a clever way of showing that the men in the story are weak, bad or pure evil. The story starts with "Little Bee", at only sixteen, she has already seen so much atrocity that it shouldn't be allowed. I thoroughly enjoyed reading her perspective on things, after spending two years in a detention centre when she arrives in the UK; she spends her time learning the Queens English so that she might fit in when (or if) she escapes. Her take on life is uplifting, courageous, intelligent and heart warming. The author has successfully taken the point of view of a 16-year-old African girl, making her views and opinions simple but smarter than most adults. I loved the simplicity of the words that were written, but they were written with such wisdom that you know that this is not a simple girl.

As well as this, Little Bee's descriptions are just so beautiful that I wanted to memorise them. For instance:

"It was the month of May and there was warm sunshine dripping through the holes between the clouds,

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