Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015.
Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2015.
An excellent book unlike any other. The life of bees is examined and fictionalised as never before. These bees are not anthropomorphised or overly sentimentalised into cute cartoon characters; the action and communication is kept as realistic as possible whilst still providing a novel with depth of emotion and excellent characterisation. Propelled by a set of strange coincidences and lucky accidents of time and place, the lowly worker bee, Flora, works her way through the whole hive; the nursery, the morgue, even the Queen’s chamber; and learns a few more secrets than she should. Her story is incredible, fast, gripping, delightfully easy to read and full of great ideas. This book is great for the teen market but really anyone could enjoy it and indeed should, for it is quite something.
January 2015 Debut of the Month.
One of our Books of the Year 2014.
| Primary Genre | Dystopian and utopian fiction |
| Other Genres: | |
| Recommendations: |
'The Handmaid's Tale' meets 'The Hunger Games' in this brilliantly imagined debut. Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen. Yet Flora has talents that are not typical of her kin. And while mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is reassigned to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. Then she finds her way into the Queen's inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous. Enemies roam everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. But Flora cannot help but break the most sacred law of all, and her instinct to serve is overshadowed by a desire, as overwhelming as it is forbidden...Laline Paull's chilling yet ultimately triumphant novel creates a luminous world both alien and uncannily familiar.
The Bees features in the following genres: Dystopian and utopian fiction, Books with reviews by our Reader Review Panel, Debut Books of the Month, Debuts, eBooks of the Month, Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Book Club Recommendations, Family Drama, Speculative fiction, Fiction, Recommendations, General Fiction
The Bees is available in Paperback, Hardback, Ebook (Epub)
The Bees was written by Laline Paull and published by 4th Estate an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
The Bees has 346 pages
Yes it is part of Collins Modern Classics series
£8.99
