The Death of Bees

The Death of Bees

By Lisa O’Donnell

4 / 5 stars

Reviewer: Nichole

Told from the points of view of the three main characters, this is an atypical book about two sisters in Glasgow, the dead bodies of their parents they buried in their garden, the elderly neighbor who decides to help them, and the massive web of lies and betrayal that fuse these three lives together forever.

Marnie and Nelly’s parents died.  But it’s okay, because they were horrible parents.  This is how you enter the book.

The girls wake up one morning and their father is dead.  The next day their mother hangs herself in their shed.  Fearful of authorities, they decide they have to handle everything on their own now, so they bury the bodies in the garden, plant flowers on top, and hope the neighbor’s nosy dog doesn’t dig them up and ruin everything.  This is a dark book, no question, but the absurdities like the dog digging up an arm and the rush to rebury it quickly makes this an odd, dark comedy.  You will cringe, you will ache, you will smile, but the bottom line is this book will make you feel strongly for the situations the characters are in.  And that, to me, is the making of a good story.

Marnie, Nelly and Lennie are all as different as can be, but deep down they are all lonely, damaged, and craving the love of a family unit that they are all lacking.  Marnie is harsh, brutal, shattered and falling quickly into the footsteps of her unloved mother while caring for her sister Nelly.  Nelly is a delicate prodigy, deeply in denial, awkward, and prefers to speak like she lives in a bygone era, which doesn’t make her popular among her peers.  Lennie is their elderly neighbor, a sad and lonely widower, ostracized by society for his homosexuality and a terrible mistake he made.  Together they take care of one another in ways their real families failed them, all while trying to dodge the drug dealers, truant officer, and long-lost grandfather threatening to unravel the mystery of the missing parents and tear the three of them apart.

This is a book fraught with tension, pain, and sometimes humor, but mostly it’s a journey where people you come to truly care about learn to sacrifice, do the right thing, and fight for what they believe in.  It’s bitter, in-your-face, and may challenge your notion of what makes someone good or bad, because there is bad in all of us.  Ultimately it’s about forgiveness, who deserves it and who does not.

Read this book when you have a few hours to sit down and devour it in its entirety.  It’s a fast read, not complicated, but you will remember these characters long after you finish the book.  And wish you knew them.