Let's Bust a Recap : The Secret Life of Bees

Next up in the I-Read-This-Book-Solely-to-Watch-the-Movie Tour is Sue Monk Kidd's 2001 debut novel The Secret Life of Bees. My sister Lyndsey read this several years ago and highly recommended it so when I happened upon it in a Little Free Library a couple years ago, I snagged it to add to my never-ending unread shelf. I didn't even realize that there was a wildly popular film adaptation until I happened upon it at one of my local Friends of the Library bookstores a couple months ago. I went ahead and snagged that too but didn't plan on getting to the book or the movie before the end of this year. 

But then my mom came over looking for a book to borrow for a trip. And I was all, "Oh hey, I just got the movie adaptation of The Secret Life of Bees, but I have to read the book first so you should read it and then I'll read it and then we'll watch the movie together." So that's exactly what we did. I even pulled my BFF Christina into the scheme and she read it and watched it with us too. 

First of all, my sister Lyndsey was right: The Secret Life of Bees is an excellent book. Set in South Carolina in 1964, we follow our fourteen year old protagonist Lily Owens on a journey to find her mother. Her entire young life has been shaped by her mother's devastating death when she was just four years old, and after the black woman who has raised her gets in trouble with the town's racist jackweeds when she tries to sign up to vote, Lily and Rosaleen find themselves on a pilgrimage to Tiburon, South Carolina where they end up at the Boatwright sisters' honey farm. 

I fell in love with Lily and Rosaleen. And I fell in love with August, June, and May Boatwright. I fell in love with the Daughters of Mary. And with Zach too. Sue Monk Kidd has a true gift. Her 1964 setting in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement perfectly informed the story she was telling without being heavy-handed. Lily's tender coming-of-age throughout the novel was superbly wrought as well. I felt for every single character fleshed out on the page, and I ached for the injustice of it all. Of motherlessness. Of ignorance. Of abandonment. Of rejection. The Secret Life of Bees is such a beautiful book.

And the 2008 film adaptation was equally beautiful. After we finished watching it, I announced that whoever was in charge of bringing The Secret Life of Bees to life on the screen should be in charge of every book-to-film adaptation for the rest of time. While I wouldn't say it was as well-cast as Far From the Madding Crowd (Queen Latifah is not how I pictured August, and Jennifer Hudson was too sweet to play Rosaleen, although Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonedo killed it as June and May) the screenplay was the créme de la créme of film adaptations and you could see the love that every single person involved—including the actors—had for the book. This was a low-budget movie and all the leads took significant pay cuts to be involved. 

Beautiful book, beautiful film. If ever you were going to read a book and follow it up by watching the movie, this is the combo to do it for. This would be especially great for a book club. I had interesting discussions with both my mom and Christina after finishing the book and then again after finishing the movie to compare and contrast. The Secret Life of Bees isn't all rainbows and butterflies; there is some very hard content including suicide, domestic abuse, and extremely ugly racism, but if you can stomach it, I'd highly recommend it. 

What's your favorite book/movie adaptation combo? As in, you loved the book and thought the adaptation did it justice?

Let's Bust a Recap : Far From the Madding Crowd

Halfway through October already? Say it ain't so. I can't believe we only have two and a half months left in 2024. It's high time we moved to a Tuesday/Thursday posting schedule because I am so behind on recaps. The chances of me ending this year caught up around here are slim to none, but we'll give it the old college try like always. This week, I want to talk about book to film adaptations because 2024 has unintentionally become my personal Read the Book Before I Watch the Movie Year, and you know what? I don't hate it and I also don't see this trend ending any time soon. I already have at least two books slated for next year that fall into this category and it's just fun. It envelops two of my favorite hobbies. If y'all think my home library is out of control, don't even get me started on our DVD collection. My siblings call me the family archivist because I like my physical media, okay? I won't apologize for it. 

But where were we? About to start a recap? Let's get back to that.

Today's subject is the 1874 Thomas Hardy classic Far From the Madding Crowd. And why do I have three copies pictured? Because I definitely suckered my sister-in-law into reading this with me and when she brought her copy home from the library, my mother totally stole it and joined in which resulted in me checking out another copy for Caroline to read. And in case you, like me, need to know every single detail about every single thing: my copy is the red one in the middle, my mom read the Macmillan Collector's edition on the top, and my sister read the shabby green copy on the bottom.

Far From the Madding Crowd is the third Thomas Hardy novel I've read. My first introduction to his work was back in 2017 when I read Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Which I loved. I followed that up by reading The Return of the Native in 2018. Which was a total slog. So I took a break from Hardy even though I had three more of his novels sitting on my shelf. But at the beginning of the summer, I picked up the 2015 film adaptation from my Friends of the Library for a measly fifty cents and immediately convinced my sister to buddy-read it with me so we could watch the movie together. And it fell somewhere in between. I definitely enjoyed it more than The Return of the Native but it can't touch Hardy's masterpiece, Tess of the D'Urbervilles. 

In Far From the Madding Crowd, we meet Bathsheba Everdeen who is a stone-cold fox. She ends up inheriting a large farm from her uncle and determines to become a successful, independent lady-farmer—obviously a rarity in 19th century rural England—but the crux of the plot centers around the three very different men who fall in love with her and attempt to woo her. Gabriel Oak, a hard on his luck shepherd who after a devastating reversal of fortune finds himself in Bathsheba's employ; William Boldwood, a prosperous, middle-aged farmer whose estate borders Bathsheba's; and Frank Troy, a dashing sergeant stationed in nearby Weatherbury. Will Bathsheba relinquish her cherished independence and get married? And if so, who wins her heart? You'll have to read it to find that out. Hardy fills out his novel with a host of colorful characters including all the salt-of-the-earth men who work Bathsheba's farm. These guys were my mom's favorite part of the book. They were hilarious and she was very disappointed that the malt house scene was not included in the film. 

And speaking of the film, we watched it this past weekend and we all agreed that it was very well done. I think it goes without saying that the book is always better, but you could tell that a lot of care was taken when adapting it for the screen, and the actors chosen acted the crap out of it. We were all on the edge of our seats the whole movie, including my mother-in-law who did not read the book. While it felt a little rushed and Carey Mulligan did not fit my mental picture of Bathsheba Everdeen, overall the movie was excellent. Mulligan, Schoenaerts, Sheen, and Sturridge did a phenomenal job of bringing the four principal characters to life. Even despite Mulligan not looking like the Bathsheba I pictured, the casting for this film was perfection.  

If you're only going to read one Thomas Hardy in your life, I'd direct you to Tess of the D'Urbervilles. But Far From the Madding Crowd was a good time and slightly lighter than the absolute tragedy that is Tess's life. If you like a good classic, I'd recommend it, and for a wonderful period piece, definitely check out the 2015 adaptation starring Carey Mulligan. 

Do you read the classics? Who's your favorite 19th century author? 

A Word for Wednesday

"How come if your favorite color is blue, you painted your house so pink?"

She laughed. "That was May's doing. She was with me the day I went to the paint store to pick out the color. I had a nice tan color in mind, but May latched on to this sample called Caribbean Pink. She said it made her feel like dancing a Spanish flamenco. I thought, 'Well, this is the tackiest color I've ever seen, and we'll have half the town talking about us, but if it can lift May's heart like that, I guess she ought to live inside it.'"

"All this time I just figured you liked pink," I said.

She laughed again. "You know, some things don't matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart–now, that matters. The whole problem with people is–"

"They don't know what matters and what doesn't," I said, filling in her sentence and feeling proud of myself for doing so.

"I was gonna say, The problem is they know what matters, but they don't choose it. You know how hard that is, Lily? I love May, but it was still so hard to choose Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters."

~from The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd~

Let's Bust a Recap : The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk

For some reason I thought for sure I had already recapped this, but I definitely didn't and that's a shame because this was a great little biography. So we're recapping it now!

Back on the very last day of May, my little sister's F-22 class graduated at Langley, and naturally my entire family showed out to witness it. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Sarah is the coolest person in our family and in all of creation for that matter (ask any of us, we'll all say the same thing). So here come the Osbornes from all over the country and you know your girl had a stack of books with her for the trip, but did I think to bring one single book that would be appropriate for me to read aloud to my niece and nephews? I surely did not. Did that stop us from reading a book together? Do you know me at all? Fortunately for all of us, my sister had this little Scholastic biography of the Wright brothers at her house, so we immediately set out to learn all about the birth of aviation which was totally on brand for the weekend anyway. 

Donald J. Sobol is better known for his Encylopedia Brown series, but he also wrote a number of non-fiction books on topics ranging from the US Civil War to investing. This little gem was published in 1961 and details the Wright brothers' endeavors to invent, build, and fly the world's first successful airplane. They succeeded on December 17, 1903 when they made the first controlled, sustained flight of an engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. 

Orville and Wilbur were two out of Milton and Susan Wright's seven children and it was their work in their Dayton, Ohio bicycle shop that led to their determination to build an engine-powered flying machine. Neither of them received high school diplomas, but they are the fathers of flight. It was truly amazing reading about their process, and since Cody and I were able to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial a couple years ago, it was easy for me to envision the events being described in the book. Sobol did an admirable job of distilling a lot of technical information into a book that kids (and a grown-up like me who is not a math-lover) can enjoy and learn from. My niece and nephews were as interested in the content as I was and when we weren't able to quite finish the book at my sister's house, I was able to get it from our local library and we finished it shortly after getting back home. 

I wish the Wright brothers could see how far we've come since their wobbly 1-man, 852-feet, 59-second flight back in 1903. Could they ever have imagined in their wildest dreams the badass jet my sister flies now? (Pardon my language, but there's just no other word that will do. It's a Raptor, for crying out loud!) Do you think they would believe that just 66 short years later we put a man on the moon? Or that every single day, people all over the world board giant airplanes to get places like it's just another day? Human ingenuity is truly a marvel, and it's so inspiring to read about the best and brightest among us. Orville and Wilbur Wright's achievements in aviation undeniably changed the world, and I'm glad I got to read this book with my niece and nephews. I hope they realize through stories like this one that they really can do anything they set their minds to. 

What stories inspire you?

Let's Bust a Recap : Sisterchicks in Gondolas

It's been a few years since I last picked up a Sisterchicks book. I've read almost every novel Robin Jones Gunn has written with the exception of the final three Sisterchicks books, so I put Sisterchicks in Gondolas in the TBR Jar without much hope that I'd actually draw it in the course of the year what with the hundreds of other titles jammed in there. I've been slowly (or not so slowly, hello July 2023!)  making my way through Robin's earlier work again—I've read her books a million times—so I could still get my 2024 fix. Just imagine my delight when this title popped out of the Jar in June. 

(Oh and I may as well take this moment to mention that she has a brand new book coming out in just a few weeks which I preordered back in March so I've been looking forward to that too.)

Anyway, I read Sisterchicks in Gondolas in June and was planning to recap it immediately but you all have this book to thank for my major blog stall. Don't hold it against Robin. It's not her fault. I got it into my head that I'd like to tag on a photo or two of my own Venetian gondola ride to this recap but when I went to plug in my external hard drive, I couldn't get anything off it. (A problem I still have not solved, by the way, so if you're reading this: say a prayer for me. And if you went to Europe with me in 2008, SEND PICS.) 

But can we get to the actual recap? Okay, yes. 

Sisterchicks in Gondolas, published in 2006, is the sixth installment of the eight standalone Sisterchicks books by Robin Jones Gunn. In it, sisters-in-law Jenna and Sue take on Venice after being invited to be the cooks for a small missionary retreat group. They are both coming out of a difficult period of life and neither realize how impactful this trip will be for their emotional and spiritual health. But showing up in Venice means learning anew how to watch for God's goodness and mercy in their lives. From their rooftop sleeping arrangement under the stars, to mattress-surfing down the stairs in their gorgeous palazzo, to haggling in broken Italian, to finding the absolute best gelato—Sisterchicks in Gondolas was a delight. No surprise there. It actually wasn't my favorite of the series—in fact, it was my least favorite so far—but I loved it nonetheless. Robin Jones Gunn has written over one hundred books now, and the fact that she has never once missed with me in the 60+ books I have read so far is such a gift. (If you're curious about the discrepancy between how many books she's written vs. how many I've read: I haven't picked up any of her non-fiction.)

And ughhhhh! I wish there was a picture of me and my college girlfriends on our gondola ride right here, but alas, I'm a disaster with technology. I need my brother (who is currently in Australia!) to come to my house and help me. 

What author never misses for you?

Let's Bust a Recap : Romeo and Juliet

"For never was a story of more woe

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

Shakespeare two weeks in a row?! Yes indeedy, we are getting caught up around here. As I mentioned back in February when I finally recapped The Tempest, I totally skipped blogging the Bard last year and do I really even need to recap Romeo and Juliet anyway? 

This won't be a full-on recap like most of my Shakespeare posts. Romeo and Juliet is undoubtedly old Shakie's most famous play of all time and if you don't know the most basic plot, then I cry for the education system. 

Montagues and Capulets, feuding families, star-cross'd lovers, suicide, reconciliation. 

I first read this play in Ms. Sterling's freshman English honors course in high school which means I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed fourteen year old. Older than Juliet, I might point out. 

She assigned parts and as a class we read the entire play out loud and discussed it ad nauseam. I loved that class. I think every high schooler should read Romeo and Juliet. 

When I set out to read everything Shakespeare ever wrote, I decided I would definitely re-read Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar in the course of my endeavor and 2023 ended up being the year I revisited R&J. 

Like I said, I won't rewrite the entire play, but if you're one of the ones I'm crying for: Romeo Montague falls in love Juliet Capulet...but their families hate each other. They secretly get married, but through a series of unfortunate events, end up killing themselves, at which point their families realize the devastation of their petty feud and reconcile. 

A few things I want to harp on after re-reading the play last year: Romeo is hardcore in l-o-v-e with fair Rosaline and is bemoaning his unrequited condition literally two seconds before he sees Juliet and falls head over heels for her instead.

What a catch.

Juliet, as previously mentioned, is THIRTEEN. Like, I get that this is some 16th century nonsense, but bruh. Sis has barely hit puberty. I can't with this. Like, is this even a tragic "love story" or is this just a tragic case of total parental neglect?? I'm just saying is all.

What I really want to talk about is the fever dream of a film adaptation I watched a few weeks ago starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes that hit our theaters hot back in 1996. I thought for sure I had seen this movie in high school shortly after reading the play, but upon revisiting it I'm not so sure. I think I would have remembered it, but maybe I completely blocked it because wow. 

Wow, wow, wow.

It seems to me that this is the definitive film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, at least of my generation, and I kid you not that the vibe was exactly the stuff of my real-life nightmares. This is an award-winning film, y'all. It's like some 90s, south Miami, gang crap—but all in the original Shakespearean English—and the only thing going for it was the incredibly believable chemistry between the absolutely adorable Claire and Leo. I guess I should have expected nothing less from something that was directed, produced, and co-written by Baz Luhrmann but it's going to take me a while to get over it. 

This is really all I have to say about Romeo and Juliet. In point of fact, you need to read it for yourself, or better yet, see it on stage. Despite my poking fun at it, it's a true masterpiece. 

Let's Bust a Recap : Timon of Athens

After pretty much skipping July and August here on ye olde blog, am I jumping back into it with a Shakespearean recap?! You bet your sweet petunias I am, and this will be an easy one because Timon of Athens was a short, straightforward play so let's just knock this one out and hopefully get back in a rhythm around here. 

We open on a lavish banquet and some artists talking about gifts they will be giving to our titular Timon. Timon is like, the most generous guy in all of Athens and we quickly learn that he will spare no expense to show all his friends how much they mean to him. He's doling out jewelry and horses and gold left and right and everyone is singing his praises. 

Except for his steward, Flavius, who is stressing out major, and a cynical philosopher named Apemantus who acts like it is his full time job to be a professional party pooper. 

Well, naturally, all Timon's creditors decide it's time to collect and his bills all come due at once. Which is bad news because he is beyond broke and there is no way out of the hole he has dug himself. He quickly turns on Flavius, berating him for not handling things better and letting him know what a mess he was in.

To which Flavius is all, "My guy, you have got to be kidding me, there is no talking to you."

And then Timon is like, "Okay, no worries, I'll just ask my dear friends to help me out, they'll do anything for me."

(We can all see right where this is going, right?)

Timon's servants approach his friends, asking them to loan Timon some money. First up: Lucullus.

Lucullus is all excited to see one of Timon's servants rolling up because he's expecting a gift which would typically be par for the course. But when he realizes Timon is hitting him up for something, he tries to bribe the servant to say he never actually talked to Lucullus. The servant, who actually loves Timon, tells Lucullus what he can do with his money and leaves. 

Next up: Lucius (which, yes, is a very similar name to Lucullus, whyyyy?)

Lucius is talking to some random guys about how great Timon is and they're all, "Oh yeah, I heard he's pretty hard up for money right now." Lucius: "Surely not Timon." Random guys: "Oh for sure, and his other friends have straight up refused to help him out." Lucius: "They are wrong for that, I would never turn my back on Timon." At which exact moment, one of Timon's servants ask Lucius for help and Lucius—in front of the guys he was just telling he would lend Timon money in a heartbeat—looks straight in the servant's face and says, "Oh I wish I could but I was actually just about to ask Timon for a loan myself and please tell him I would if I could but I can't so I won't." 

The nerve.

Now we're gonna go try Sempronius. This one's my favorite. 

When Timon's servant approaches Sempronius, Sempronius is all, "Why's he asking me? He should have tried his other friends who are richer than me. They definitely owe him big time and they've got the means to help him out." To which the servant is like, "We asked and they all rejected us." To which Sempronius looks right back at them and says, "What? Timon came to me last? If he had come to me first I definitely would have helped him but since he doesn't think better of me than to come to me first, I won't be bothered with him at all." 

Are you kidding me?

So the servants come back to Timon and inform him that his so-called "friends" are all low-down, good-for-nothings. Timon rages at this and then tells Flavius to go invite all these guys back to his house for another banquet. To which Flavius is like, "Uhhh, do you not understand what's going on? You're B-R-O-K-E." But Timon's like, "Don't worry about the expense, just get those losers over here."

And these guys, after all flippantly dismissing Timon's pleas for help, have the audacity to roll back up to his crib for another party thinking everything's all fine and probably they're going to come in to some more gifts because what? This was all a joke? 

In the meantime, one of Timon's friends, a general named Alcibiades, is meeting with the Senate who is banishing him from Athens. He's obviously a bit upset about this and after some back and forth, vows to take his revenge on Athens.

But back to Timon's party.

His "friends" all show up, ready for a good time. Timon brings out covered dishes for everyone and when they are all ready to dig in, has them uncovered to show bowls of lukewarm water and nothing else. To which his "friends" are all, "What the heck, man?" And Timon is like, "I hope you all rot in hell!" throws the water in their faces, and storms out.

Flavius and the other servants, who are the only level-headed, decent people in this entire play, then have a meeting and agree to split everything they have between them equally and go in peace while Flavius vows to find Timon whatever it takes and loyally care for him no matter what.

Timon, meanwhile, has set up camp in a cave outside Athens and is living on roots which, in digging up, he has discovered a literal gold mine. 

Like, he's sitting on a pile of actual gold.

But he hates all of humanity now and he's just out here, digging in the dirt, railing against the world. 

Alcibiades shows up with a couple of loose women and we get a colorful exchange wherein Timon tells Alcibiades to drop dead and tells the whores they're full of STDs. 

I kid you not.

When Alcibiades tells Timon of his plan to get revenge on all of Athens, Timon gives him a bunch of gold and tells him to level the city, and tells the women to go infect everyone with their venereal diseases. 

Good stuff.

So Alcibiades and his ladies leave with their gold and then Apemantus shows up and wants to know why Timon is trying to copy him and be the world's worst party pooper. So they just go back and forth for a while about how much they hate everything. 

Okay...?

Then a bunch of other randos come out looking for Timon and all this gold he's rumored to have and we get some more scathing commentary from Timon each time someone shows up.

But then Flavius finally finds him, and even though Timon at first continues his whole mad-at-the-world routine, he realizes Flavius is an honest-to-goodness good guy and gives him a bunch of the gold. 

Then the Senators who banished Alcibiades show up asking Timon to pretty please go talk Alcibiades out of wrecking Athens. To which Timon is like, "Go hang yourselves."

And then Timon just....dies in the wilderness. 

Alcibiades shows up ready to burn down Athens and the Senators literally beg him to only kill the people who deserve it. Then a soldier shows up saying he found Timon's grave and they read Timon's pathetic epitaph and Alcibiades agrees to only dole out justice to the people who deserve it: the end. 

So...there's that. Once you get into it, Timon of Athens is an easy play to read, but the ending is pretty lackluster. There's a lot of debate surrounding the authorship of this one. Some think Timon was Shakespeare's last play and that he never completed it. A lot of people think the Bard coauthored the play with Thomas Middleton. We'll probably never know for sure, but overall, Timon of Athens, despite the dull ending, ranks higher for me than some of Shakespeare's other work. It was a fun one, and I'd recommend it. 

I think we're down to just four comedies and four tragedies left! On deck for 2025: Two Gentlemen of Verona and Coriolanus.