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Off the shelves: Little Bee

Little Bee

By Chris Cleave

Chris Cleave’s newest novel Little Bee is sure to have readers buzzing.

The abstract cover art and the author’s refusal to summarize the plot on the jacket flaps creates intrigue for the reader — and unlike most build-ups, Cleave delivers.

The pretext of Little Bee is mysterious — a British woman, Sarah O’Rourke, and a Nigerian girl, Little Bee, meet on an African beach. The horrific events that transpire there bind the two individuals together, even after they’ve physically separated.

Flash forward two years. Little Bee has traveled to England as an illegal immigrant and has spent two years in an immigration detention centre. Not knowing where else to turn and fearful of returning to Nigeria, Little Bee shows up on Sarah’s doorstep looking for shelter.

The reader is privy to Little Bee and Sarah’s complex past and the relationships that have influenced the kind of people they are. While the two seem very different on the surface, they share a common bond that runs deeper than geographic borders.

The novel touches upon the common themes of friendship and strength. Sarah’s four-year-old son, Charlie, is the epitome of innocence and naiveté. The boy insists on being called Batman, and refuses to wear anything but the costume of the caped-crusader.

While the metaphors made between Charlie’s imagination and the plot may seem childish — the villains are often simply called “goodies” or “baddies” — Cleave uses this as a way of reducing the story’s often complex history down to a level any reader can relate to.

Despite these innocent themes, Little Bee is certainly not for the faint of heart — some of the scenes described involving soldiers in Nigeria are quite graphic and there is a lot of heartbreak and loss in Little Bee and Sarah’s pasts.

What ultimately makes the novel so intriguing are the voices of the characters. Cleave transitions effortlessly between the point of view of Sarah and Little Bee, but also pays tribute to the secondary characters. This helps add depth to each character, and makes it so that even when one of them does something the reader may not like, at least you can understand why.

Although a series of awful things befall all the characters, Cleave still manages to make Little Bee one of the most hopeful books out there.

— Meagan Kashty

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