Bee Season

Well, it took one semester and three snow days to finish the book, but I did it and I loved most of it.  Loved the language - loved the characters - disturbed by the morally dubious scenes in such and innocent looking book - disturbed by the conclusion. 

In one of my favorite parts, Ellie is trying to hear God speak to her through words and letters - specifically their sound - in a Jewish mysticism tradition.  It reminded me of scripture study. 

"She realizes she has been waiting for a thunderbolt, a booming presence to shake her to her marrow.  She hasn't been thinking in terms of a whisper.  She hasn't been considering the voices of the letters themselves, the soft voices she has known so long that she takes them for granted.  The book whose door she has been pounding her fists against has been open this whole time, waiting to usher her in.  She falls asleep secure in the knowledge that she is ready to take the next step." Page 220