Little Bee: A Novel

By Chris Cleave

Little Bee, a young Nigerian refugee, has just been released from the British immigration detention center where she has been held under horrific conditions for the past two years, after narrowly escaping a traumatic fate in her homeland of Nigeria. Alone in a foreign country, without a family member, friend, or pound to call her own, she seeks out the only English person she knows. Sarah is a posh young mother and magazine editor with whom Little Bee shares a dark and tumultuous past.

They first met on a beach in Nigeria, where Sarah was vacationing with her husband, Andrew, in an effort to save their marriage after an affair, and their brief encounter has haunted each woman for two years. Now together, they face a disturbing past and an uncertain future with the help of Sarah’s four-year-old son, Charlie, who refuses to take off his Batman costume. A sense of humor and an unflinching moral compass allow each woman, and the reader, to believe that even in the face of unspeakable odds, humanity can prevail.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Feb 10, 2009
• ISBN: 9781416593836

Chris Cleave

Chris Cleave is a New York Times #1 bestselling novelist whose books are published in forty countries. His debut novel INCENDIARY won the Somerset Maugham Award, among others. His second, the Costa-shortlisted THE OTHER HAND, was a global bestseller and sat in the New York Times Top Ten for over a year (under the US title, Little Bee). Both books were shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prizes. He lives in Kingston-upon-Thames with his wife and three children, and welcomes readers at facebook.com/ChrisCleaveBooks, www.chriscleave.com and twitter.com/chriscleave.

Book preview

Cover: Little Bee, by Chris Cleave

Praise for New York Times Bestseller Little Bee

*Shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Novel Award*

*New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice*

*Indie Next pick for February 2009*

*Santa Monica Citywide Reads selection 2010*

*Read St. Louis Contemporary Fiction selection for 2010*

*SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE*

"Little Bee will blow you away.… In restrained, diamond-hard prose, Cleave alternates between these two characters’ points of view as he pulls the threads of their dark—but often funny—story tight. What unfolds between them… is both surprising and inevitable, thoroughly satisfying if also heartrending."

—The Washington Post

[An] immensely readable and moving second novel… Cleave uses his emotionally charged narrative to challenge his readers’ conceptions of civility, of ethical choice. … The character and voice of Little Bee reveal Cleave at his finest. … An affecting story of human triumph.

—The New York Times Book Review

"One of the most vividly memorable and provocative characters in recent contemporary fiction. In Chris Cleave’s heartwarming and heartbreaking Little Bee… the tone veers quickly between humor and horror, a very dark, biting humor to be sure, but usually skating along a thin blade of irony, the kind to make you laugh with a little grimace. … The shift in perspective when we finally learn of Little Bee’s experience that fateful day on the beach is viscerally stunning and would be nearly impossible to bear had we not known of Little Bee’s strength and resilience. Cleave paces the story beautifully, lacing it with wit, compassion, and, even at the darkest moments, a searing ray of hope."

—The Boston Globe

Cleave has a Zola-esque ability to write big, and deeply. … Cleave makes the reader think about political issues and care about his characters.

—USA Today

"Every now and then, you come across a character in a book whose personality is so salient and whose story carries such devastating emotional force it’s as if she becomes a fixed part of your consciousness. So it is with the charmingly named title character in Chris Cleave’s brilliant and unforgettable Little Bee… sequined with lustrous turns of phrase, spanning two continents and driven by real-life global concerns. … What elevates this novel even further is Cleave’s forceful call for all of us, the floating masses of a globalized, socially isolating modern world, to look after one other."

—The Seattle Times

"Utterly enthralling page-turner… Novelist Cleave does a brilliant job of making both characters not only believable but memorable. … These compelling voices grip the reader’s heart and do not let go even after the book’s hyper-tense final page. Little Bee is a harrowing and heartening marvel of a novel."

—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"Cleave deftly moves the plot between a desolate stretch of Nigerian beach and the home in an upscale London suburb… [and he] invests poignancy and grace into the unspeakable atrocities that occur throughout the African continent in the name of oil exploration. … Heartbreaking one moment, quirky and charming the next, Little Bee will draw you in on the first page and linger in the mind long after the last chapter is closed."

—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Electric… Please don’t fear a dull, worthy novel with a message—this is a suspenseful tale of two women survivors.

—Chicago Tribune

"Little Bee is a loud shout of talent."

—Chicago Sun-Times

Stunning.

—People (Four Stars and a People Pick)

"The voice that speaks from the first page of Chris Cleave’s Little Bee is one you might never have heard—the voice of a smart, wary, heartsick immigrant scarred by the terrors of her past. … Read this urgent and wryly funny novel for its insights into simple humanity, the force that can disarm fear."

—O Magazine

"Book clubs in search of the next Kite Runner need look no further than this astonishing, flawless novel. … Cleave (Incendiary) effortlessly moves between alternating viewpoints with lucid, poignant prose and the occasional lighter note. A tension-filled dramatic ending and plenty of moral dilemmas add up to a satisfying, emotional read."

—Library Journal (starred review)

Cleave is a nerves-of-steel storyteller of stealthy power, and this is a novel as resplendent and menacing as life itself.

—Booklist (starred review)

A psychologically charged story of grief, globalization and an unlikely friendship… Cleave’s narrative pulses with portentous, nearly spectral energy.

—Kirkus Reviews

Beautifully staged… Cleave has a sharp cinematic eye.

—Publishers Weekly

"Little Bee is a smart, topical novel about notions of community and family and about various kinds of violence, including the violence engendered by neglect. It’s also about the insular versus the global. … Cleave’s book asks us to step outside our own tidy borders, let the world in and embrace our own and others’ humanity."

—The Kansas City Star

This is an amazing book—beautifully written with a unique insight into the mind of a genocide victim. … Deeply moving, sad, hopeful, painful and inspiring—this bittersweet book is worth your time.

—Boulder Daily Camera (Colorado)

The charge, then: buy this book. Resist opening it until you are ready to start reading, for once you begin you’ll find yourself unable to stop. … Prepare yourself for Cleave’s poignancy, his control, and the pathos he so effortlessly evinces. Expect astonishment, for this is a work inspiring in depth and style; a work that alters perceptions.

—Bookslut

"Little Bee will amaze and delight you, and break your heart. It’s one of the finest books I’ve read in years, from its lyrical opening lines to its surprising end. … If I were still a bookseller, I’d sell Little Bee with a money-back guarantee."

—Shelf Awareness.com

Cleave has created a true page-turner, one that leaves the reader asking for more even after the final pages have been read. This is a book not to be missed.

—Belleville Intelligencer (Ontario, Canada)

"Besides sharp, witty dialogue, an emotionally charged plot and the vivid characters’ ethical struggles, Little Bee delivers a timely challenge to reinvigorate our notions of civilised decency."

—The Independent (UK)

An ambitious and fearless gallop from the jungles of Africa via a shocking encounter on a Nigerian beach to the media offices of London and domesticity in leafy suburbia. … Cleave immerses the reader in the worlds of his characters with an unshakable confidence.

—The Guardian (UK)

Searingly eloquent.

—Daily Mail (UK)

It would be a disservice to give away the powerful conclusion of this absorbing and gutsy story, which deals convincingly with ethical and personal accountability.

—Oxford Times (UK)

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Little Bee, by Chris Cleave, Simon & Schuster

For Joseph

Britain is proud of its tradition of providing a safe haven for people fleeting [sic] persecution and conflict.

—from Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship (UK Home Office, 2005)

MOST DAYS I WISH I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl. Everyone would be pleased to see me coming. Maybe I would visit with you for the weekend and then suddenly, because I am fickle like that, I would visit with the man from the corner shop instead—but you would not be sad because you would be eating a cinnamon bun, or drinking a cold Coca-Cola from the can, and you would never think of me again. We would be happy, like lovers who met on holiday and forgot each other’s names.

A pound coin can go wherever it thinks it will be safest. It can cross deserts and oceans and leave the sound of gunfire and the bitter smell of burning thatch behind. When it feels warm and secure it will turn around and smile at you, the way my big sister Nkiruka used to smile at the men in our village in the short summer after she was a girl but before she was really a woman, and certainly before the evening my mother took her to a quiet place for a serious talk.

Of course a pound coin can be serious too. It can disguise itself as power, or property, and there is nothing more serious when you are a girl who has neither. You must try to catch the pound, and trap it in your pocket, so that it cannot reach a safe country unless it takes you with it. But a pound has all the tricks of a sorcerer. When pursued I have seen it shed its tail like a lizard so that you are left holding only pence. And when you finally go to seize it, the British pound can perform the greatest magic of all, and this is to transform itself into not one, but two, identical green American dollar bills. Your fingers will close on empty air, I am telling you.

How I would love to be a British pound. A pound is free to travel to safety, and we are free to watch it go. This is the human triumph. This is called, globalization. A girl like me gets stopped at immigration, but a pound can leap the turnstiles, and dodge the tackles of those big men with their uniform caps, and jump straight into a waiting airport taxi. Where to, sir? Western Civilization, my good man, and make it snappy.

See how nicely a British pound coin talks? It speaks with the voice of Queen Elizabeth the Second of England. Her face is stamped upon it, and sometimes when I look very closely I can see her lips moving. I hold her up to my ear. What is she saying? Put me down this minute, young lady, or I shall call my guards.

If the Queen spoke to you in such a voice, do you suppose it would be possible to disobey? I have read that the people around her—even kings and prime ministers—they find their bodies responding to her orders before their brains can even think why not. Let me tell you, it is not the crown and the scepter that have this effect. Me, I could pin a tiara on my short fuzzy hair, and I could hold up a scepter in one hand, like this, and police officers would still walk up to me in their big shoes and say, Love the ensemble, madam, now let’s have a quick look at your ID, shall we? No, it is not the Queen’s crown and scepter that rule in your land. It is her grammar and her voice. That is why it is desirable to speak the way she does. That way you can say to police officers, in a voice as clear as the Cullinan diamond, My goodness, how dare you?

I am only alive at all because I learned the Queen’s English. Maybe you are thinking, that isn’t so hard. After all, English is the official language of my country, Nigeria. Yes, but the trouble is that back home we speak it so much better than you. To talk the Queen’s English, I had to forget all the best tricks of my mother tongue. For example, the Queen could never say, There was plenty wahala, that girl done use her bottom power to engage my number one son and anyone could see she would end in the bad bush. Instead the Queen must say, My late daughter-in-law used her feminine charms to become engaged to my heir, and one might have foreseen that it wouldn’t end well. It is all a little sad, don’t you think? Learning the Queen’s English is like scrubbing off the bright red varnish from your toenails, the morning after a dance. It takes a long time and there is always a little bit left at the end, a stain of red along the growing edges to remind you of the good time you had. So, you can see that learning came slowly to me. On the other hand, I had plenty of time. I learned your language in an immigration detention center, in Essex, in the southeastern part of the United Kingdom. Two years, they locked me in there. Time was all I had.

But why did I go to all the trouble? It is because of what some of the older girls explained to me: to survive, you must look good or talk even better. The plain ones and the silent ones, it seems their paperwork is never in order. You say, they get repatriated. We say, sent home early. Like your country is a children’s party—something too wonderful to last forever. But the pretty ones and the talkative ones, we are allowed to stay. In this way your country becomes lively and more beautiful.

I will tell you what happened when they let me out of the immigration detention center. The detention officer put a voucher in my hand, a transport voucher, and he said I could telephone for a cab. I said, Thank you sir, may God move with grace in your life and bring joy into your heart and prosperity upon your loved ones. The officer pointed his eyes at the ceiling, like there was something very interesting up there, and he said, Jesus. Then he pointed his finger down the corridor and he said, There is the telephone.

So, I stood in the queue for the telephone. I was thinking, I went over the top with thanking that detention officer. The Queen would merely have said, Thank you, and left it like that. Actually, the Queen would have told the detention officer to call for the damn taxi himself, or she would have him shot and his head separated from his body and displayed on the railings in front of the Tower of London. I was realizing, right there, that it was one thing to learn the Queen’s English from books and newspapers in my detention cell, and quite another thing to actually speak the language with the English. I was angry with myself. I was thinking, You cannot afford to go around making mistakes like that, girl. If you talk like a savage who learned her English on the boat, the men are going to find you out and send you straight back home. That’s what I was thinking.

There were three girls in the queue in front of me. They let all us girls out on the same day. It was Friday. It was a bright sunny morning in May. The corridor was dirty but it smelled clean. That is a good trick. Bleach, is how they do that.

The detention officer sat behind his desk. He was not watching us girls. He was reading a newspaper. It was spread out on his desk. It was not one of the newspapers I learned to speak your language from—The Times or the Telegraph or The Guardian. No, this newspaper was not for people like you and me. There was a white girl in the newspaper photo and she was topless. You know what I mean when I say this, because it is your language we are speaking. But if I was telling this story to my big sister Nkiruka and the other girls from my village back home then I would have to stop, right here, and explain to them: topless does not mean, the lady in the newspaper did not have an upper body. It means, she was not wearing any garments on her upper body. You see the difference?

—Wait. Not even a brassiere?

—Not even a brassiere.

—Weh!

And then I would start my story again, but those girls back home, they would whisper between them. They would giggle behind their hands. Then, just as I was getting back to my story about the morning they let me out of the immigration detention center, those girls would interrupt me again. Nkiruka would say, Listen, okay? Listen. Just so we are clear. This girl in the newspaper photo. She was a prostitute, yes? A night fighter? Did she look down at the ground from shame?

—No, she did not look down at the ground from shame. She looked right in the camera and smiled.

—What, in the newspaper?

—Yes.

—Then is it not shameful in Great Britain, to show your bobbis in the newspaper?

—No. It is not shameful. The boys like it and there is no shame. Otherwise the topless girls would not smile like that, do you see?

—So do all the girls over there show them off like that? Walk around with their bobbis bouncing? In the church and in the shop and in the street?

—No, only in the newspapers.

—Why do they not all show their breasts, if the men like it and there is no shame?

—I do not know.

—You lived there more than two years, little miss been-to. How come you not know?

—It is like that over there. Much of my life in that country was lived in such confusion. Sometimes I think that even the British do not know the answers to such questions.

—Weh!

This is what it would be like, you see, if I had to stop and explain every little thing to the girls back home. I would have to explain linoleum and bleach and soft-core pornography and the shape-changing magic of the British one-pound coin, as if all of these everyday things were very wonderful mysteries. And very quickly my own story would get lost in this great ocean of wonders because it would seem as if your country was an enchanted federation of miracles and my own story within it was really very small and unmagical. But with you it is much easier because I can say to you, look, on the morning they released us, the duty officer at the immigration detention center was staring at a photo of a topless girl in the newspaper. And you understand the situation straightaway. That is the reason I spent two years learning the Queen’s English, so that you and I could speak like this without an interruption.

The detention officer, the one who was looking at the topless photo in the newspaper—he was a small man and his hair was pale, like the tinned mushroom soup they served us on Tuesdays. His wrists were thin and white like electrical cables covered in plastic. His uniform was bigger than he was. The shoulders of the jacket rose up in two bumps, one on each side of his head, as if he had little animals hiding in there. I thought of those creatures blinking in the light when he took off his jacket in the evening. I was thinking, Yes sir, if I was your wife I would keep my brassiere on, thank you.

And then I was thinking, Why are you staring at that girl in the newspaper, mister, and not us girls here in the queue for the telephone? What if we all ran away? But then I remembered, they were letting us out. This was hard to understand after so much time. Two years, I lived in that detention center. I was fourteen years of age when I came to your country but I did not have any papers to prove it and so they put me in the same detention center as the adults. The trouble was, there were men and women locked up together in that place. At night they kept the men in a different wing of the detention center. They caged them like wolves when the sun went down, but in the daytime the men walked among us, and ate the same food we did. I thought they still looked hungry. I thought they watched me with ravenous eyes. So when the older girls whispered to me, To survive you must look good or talk good, I decided that talking would be safer for me.

I made myself undesirable. I declined to wash, and I let my skin grow oily. Under my clothes I wound a wide strip of cotton around my chest, to make my breasts small and flat. When the charity boxes arrived, full of secondhand clothes and shoes, some of the other girls tried to make themselves pretty but I rummaged through the cartons to find clothes that hid my shape. I wore loose blue jeans and a man’s Hawaiian shirt and heavy black boots with the steel toe caps shining through the torn leather. I went to the detention nurse and I made her cut my hair very short with medical scissors. For the whole two years I did not smile or even look in any man’s face. I was terrified. Only at night, after they locked the men away, I went back to my detention cell and I unwound the cloth from my breasts and I breathed deeply. Then I took off my heavy boots and I drew my knees up to my chin. Once a week, I sat on the foam mattress of my bed and I painted my toenails. I found the little bottle of nail varnish at the bottom of a charity box. It still had the price ticket on it. If I ever discover the person who gave it then I will tell them, for the cost of one British pound and ninety-nine pence, they saved my life. Because this is what I did in that place, to remind myself I was alive underneath everything: under my steel toe caps I wore bright red nail varnish. Sometimes when I took my boots off I screwed up my eyes against the tears and I rocked back and fro, shivering from the cold.

My big sister Nkiruka, she became a woman in the growing season, under the African sun, and who can blame her if the great red heat of it made her giddy and flirtatious? Who could not lean back against the doorpost of their house and smile with quiet indulgence when they saw my mother sitting her down to say, Nkiruka, beloved one, you must not smile at the older boys like that?

Me, I was a woman under white fluorescent strip lights, in an underground room in an immigration detention center forty miles east of London. There were no seasons there. It was cold, cold, cold, and I did not have anyone to smile at. Those cold years are frozen inside me. The African girl they locked up in the immigration detention center, poor child, she never really escaped. In my soul she is still locked up in there, forever, under the fluorescent lights, curled up on the green linoleum floor with her knees tucked up under her chin. And this woman they released from the immigration detention center, this creature that I am, she is a new breed of human. There is nothing natural about me. I was born—no, I was reborn—in captivity. I learned my language from your newspapers, my clothes are your castoffs, and it is your pound that makes my pockets ache with its absence. Imagine a young woman cut out from a smiling Save the Children magazine advertisement, who dresses herself in threadbare pink clothes from the recycling bin in your local supermarket car park and speaks English like the leader column of The Times, if you please. I would cross the street to avoid me. Truly, this is the one thing that people from your country and people from my country agree on. They say, That refugee girl is not one of us. That girl does not belong. That girl is a halfling, a child of an unnatural mating, an unfamiliar face in the moon.

So, I am a refugee, and I get very lonely. Is it my fault if I do not look like an English girl and I do not talk like a Nigerian? Well, who says an English girl must have skin as pale as the clouds that float across her summers? Who says a Nigerian girl must speak in fallen English, as if English had collided with Ibo, high in the upper atmosphere, and rained down into her mouth in a shower that half-drowns her and leaves her choking up sweet tales about the bright African colors and the taste of fried plantain? Not like a storyteller, but like a victim rescued from the flood, coughing up the colonial water from her lungs?

Excuse me for learning your language properly. I am here to tell you a real story. I did not come to talk to you about the bright African colors. I am a born-again citizen of the developing world, and I will prove to you that the color of my life is gray. And if it should be that I secretly love fried plantain, then that must stay between us and I implore you to tell no one. Okay?

The morning they let us out of the detention center, they gave us all our possessions. I held mine in a see-through plastic bag. A Collins Gem Pocket English Dictionary, one pair of gray socks, one pair of gray briefs, and one United Kingdom Driver’s License that was not mine, and one water-stained business card that was not mine either. If you want to know, these things belonged to a white man called Andrew O’Rourke. I met him on a beach.

This small plastic bag is what I was holding in my hand when the detention officer told me to go and stand in the queue for the telephone. The first girl in the queue, she was tall and she was pretty. Her thing was beauty, not talking. I wondered which of us had made the best choice to survive. This girl, she had plucked her eyebrows out and then she had drawn them back on again with a pencil. This is what she had done to save her life. She was wearing a purple dress, an A-line dress with pink stars and moons in the pattern. She had a nice pink scarf wrapped around her hair, and purple flip-flops on her feet. I was thinking she must have been locked up a very long time in our detention center. One has to go through a very great number of the charity boxes, you will understand, to put together an outfit that is truly an ensemble.

On the girl’s brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

In a few breaths’ time I will speak some sad words to you. But you must hear them the same way we have agreed to see scars now. Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this storyteller is alive. The next thing you know, something fine will happen to her, something marvelous, and then she will turn around and smile.

The girl with the purple A-line dress and the scars on her legs, she was already talking into the telephone receiver. She was saying, Hello, taxi? Yu come pick me up, yeh? Good. Oh, where me come? Me come from Jamaica, darlin, you better believe that. Huh? What? Oh, where me come right now? Okay wait please.

She put her hand to cover the telephone receiver. She turned around to the second girl in the queue and she said, Listen darlin, what name is dis place, where we at right now? But the second girl just looked up at her and shrugged her shoulders. The second girl was thin and her skin was dark brown and her eyes were green like a jelly sweet when you suck the outside sugar off and hold it up against the moon. She was so pretty, I cannot even explain. She was wearing a yellow sari dress. She was holding a see-through plastic bag like mine, but there was nothing in it. At first I thought it was empty but then I thought, Why do you carry that bag, girl, if there is nothing in it? I could see her sari through it, so I decided she was holding a bag full of lemon yellow. That is everything she owned when they let us girls out.

I knew that second girl a bit. I was in the same room as her for two weeks one time, but I never talked with her. She did not speak one word of anyone’s English. That is why she just shrugged and held on tight to her bag of lemon yellow. So the girl on the phone, she pointed her eyes up at the ceiling, the same way the detention officer at his desk did.

Then the girl on the phone turned to the third girl in the queue and she said to her, Do yu know the name of dis place where we is at? But the third girl did not know either. She just stood there, and she was wearing a blue T-shirt and blue denim jeans and white Dunlop Green Flash trainers, and she just looked down at her own see-through bag, and her bag was full of letters and documents. There was so much paper in that bag, all crumpled and creased, she had to hold one hand under the bag to stop it all bursting out. Now, this third girl, I knew her a little bit too. She was not pretty and she was not a good talker either, but there is one more thing that can save you from being sent home early. This girl’s thing was, she had her story all written down and made official. There were rubber stamps at the end of her story that said in red ink this is TRUE. I remember she told me her story once and it went something like, the-men-came-and-they-

burned-my-village-

tied-my-girls-

raped-my-girls-

took-my-girls-

whipped-my-husband-

cut-my-breast-

I-ran-away-

through-the-bush-

found-a-ship-

crossed-the-sea-

and-then-they-put-me-in-here. Or some such story like that. I got confused with all the stories in that detention center. All the girls’ stories started out, the-men-came-and-they. And all of the stories finished, and-then-they-put-me-in-here. All the stories were sad, but you and I have made our agreement concerning sad words. With this girl—girl three in the queue—her story had made her so sad that she did not know the name of the place where she was at and she did not want to know. The girl was not even curious.

So the girl with the telephone receiver, she asked her again. What? she said. Yu no talk neither? How come yu not know the name dis place we at?

Then the third girl in the queue, she just pointed her eyes up at the ceiling, and so the girl with the telephone receiver pointed her own eyes up at the ceiling for a second time. I was thinking, Okay, now the detention officer has looked at the ceiling one time and girl three has looked at the ceiling one time and girl one has looked at the ceiling two times, so maybe there are some answers up on that ceiling after all. Maybe there is something very cheerful up there. Maybe there are stories written on the ceiling that go something like the-men-came-and-they-

brought-us-colorful-dresses-

fetched-wood-for-the-fire-

told-some-crazy-jokes-

drank-beer-with-us-

chased-us-till-we-giggled-

stopped-the-mosquitoes-from-biting-

told-us-the-trick-for-catching-the-British-one-pound-coin-

turned-the-moon-into-cheese-

Oh, and then they put me in here.

I looked at the ceiling, but it was only white paint and fluorescent light tubes up there.

The girl on the telephone, she finally looked at me. So I said to her, The name of this place is the Black Hill Immigration Removal Centre. The girl stared at me. Yu kiddin wid me, she said. What kine of a name is dat? So I pointed at the little metal plate that was screwed on the wall above the telephone. The girl looked at it and then she looked back to me and she said, Sorry darlin, I can not ridd it. So I read it out to her, and I pointed to the words one at a time. BLACK HILL IMMIGRATION REMOVAL CENTRE, HIGH EASTER, CHELMSFORD, ESSEX. Thank you precious, the first girl said, and she lifted up the telephone receiver.

She said into the receiver: All right now listen mister, the place I is right now is called Black Hill Immigration Removal. Then she said, No, please, wait. Then she looked sad and she put the telephone receiver back down on the telephone. I said, What is wrong? The first girl sighed and she said, Taxi man say he no pick up from dis place. Then he say, You people are scum. You know dis word?

I said no, because I did not know for sure, so I took my Collins Gem Pocket English Dictionary out of my see-through bag and I looked up the word. I said to the first girl, You are a film of impurities or vegetation that can form on the surface of a liquid. She looked at me and I looked at her and we giggled because we did not understand what to do with the information. This was always my trouble when I was learning to speak your language. Every word can defend itself. Just when you go to grab it, it can split into two separate meanings so the understanding closes on empty air. I admire you people. You are like sorcerers and you have made your language as safe as your money.

So me and the first girl in the telephone queue, we were giggling at each other, and I was holding my see-through bag and she was holding her see-through bag. There was one black eyebrow pencil and one pair of tweezers and three rings of dried pineapple in hers. The first girl saw me looking at her bag and she stopped giggling.

Reviews for Little Bee

[jasonbrownpdx · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

"We don’t want to tell you what happens in this book. It is a truly special story and we do not want to spoil it. Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it, so we will just say this:This is the story of two women. Their lives collide one fateful day,and one of them has to make a terrible choice, the kind of choice we hope you will never have to face. Two years later, they meet again — the story starts there…Once you have read it, you’ll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don’t tell them what happens The magic is in how the story unfolds."~~~~~~~~~~~~This is the text on the inside leaf of the dust cover for Chris Cleave’s book, Little Bee.Damn you publisher. damn you to hell. have a little faith in your reader base. i would have read this book anyway, the expectations set in the fold were misleading and cruel. you cant read a book like this under false pretenses. each time something happens, it is compared against the expectations set. and the book is left wanting, but not by its own merit, by your deceit.—-For everyone else out there, here is what it should read in the leaf fold of the dust cover:" Little bee, a refugee from Nigeria, knows only one man and one woman in London. Her story is sad as is the stories of the man and woman she knows. When she tells her story, you will listen. Not by force, but because the scar tissue from her tale is beautiful, if only you see it in the right light."If anyone tells you there is magic here, slap them, then keep reading.This is one of the saddest books I have ever read, but if you are prepared for this fact, you can certainly enjoy it. Little Bee is well written and grabs your attention from beginning to end. It is not magic.--xpost RawBlurb.com

[karenskullerud · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An English woman and a Nigerian woman meet and their lives are forever entertwined in a gripping tale that will haunt ever after you have read this book.

[sister_t · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really wanted to give this book two and a half stars. The story is fascinating and the writing very good - but I had difficulty being drawn into the story, mostly because of the two narrator style. The story is somewhat depressing, but I came to identify with the characters... even though it took till the last chapter to do so. I look forward to any future books by this author, I think he has great potential.

[dverdecia-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An emotional story of a Nigerian girl who gets caught up in the local politics of her country, seeks Asylum in the UK and makes true friends there. The author Chris Cleave, obviously has emotions tied in to the plight of people seeking asylum from very corrupt regimes in the east. He brings it out in this fictional tale of this girl called "Little Bee". This book is very political.

I liked this book because it introduced me to a world I am very far removed from. A world where a government cares more about themselves than their own people. A world where Human life truly has no value. Little Bee, a Nigerian girl lives in this world where the day to day goal is to survive, literally. She is the perfect example of the saying, "every day above ground is a good one". Without giving too many spoilers, here is a girl who escapes this world in part thanks to a pair of British Citizens, Sarah and Andrew, who make sacrifices of their own to better understand Little Bee's world. Sarah and Andrew are both British Journalists, who in very odd ways, give Little Bee goals to shoot for other than just survival. In the end, you as the reader will come to realize that those people seeking asylum into more Civilized countries have real life and death struggles. The story is a good one. I also got very attached to the characters. Chris Cleave had the ability to draw on my emotions over the characters...and this is a good thing, because it means he got me involved.

What I didn't like about the book was how Chris Cleave presented the story. I could very easily say that the first half of the book was written like a person who had Attention Deficit Disorder. I don't mind a story line being out of sequence, but when you start straying from topics within paragraphs themselves in order to increase word count or to add descriptions that are nice but not really relevant to the story, it just gets me frustrated. Many times I would end up screaming at the book saying, "Yeah, Yeah, let's get on with it!"

Then about mid way, the characters start to come together and the story gels a little better. The story is told from two perspectives. It is told in first perspective from Little Bee's point of view, and from Sarah's point of view. Both worlds start to come together by mid book. It was as if Chris Cleave started writing Little Bee at one point, put the story down for a while and then picked it up at a later point. The second half of the book shows more writing maturity than the first half.

There are many different things I also felt were unfinished. What happened to Lawrence? Lawrence had a big emotional take when he found out Little Bee's secret. Yet, there was no description of Sarah's emotional state over the same secret. It was almost as if Chris Cleave had to hurry up and finish the story. I could go on forever describing the inconsistencies I have seen in this book. Changes that could have been made to make the story fuller...richer.

Would I recommend this book? Sure. It's a good story. I just felt that it could have been told better. There was a lot of potential and I did get attached to the characters...very believable. For me, it just had too many frustrating moments where I felt the story was lagging behind. If you can get past the, "OK, I get it, let's move this along" attitude, you may find it a very enjoyable read.

[ralphlagana · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The writing is brilliant. Cleave has a superb ability to capture personalities and make each one stand on its own merits. What held me back from 5 stars on this book was that the big secret was anything but.

[readingfiend_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

LOVED this book. I read it at the beginning of the year - it's coming back to me in flashes but everything I think of is something I don't want to give away.

[lornay_9 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Little Bee is the second novel by British author Chris Cleave and it is nothing less than astounding. And this is coming from someone who rarely reads any fiction with a modern setting or a modern theme. This book will break your heart but it will also make you grin. That is a good trick, as Little Bee herself would say.Little Bee is a Nigerian girl of sixteen whose life suddenly intersects with that of Sarah, a woman's magazine editor from a London suburb. Sarah is a restless woman whose marriage is breaking down due to an affair which she initiated. All through the novel she describes herself as a sensible woman, but most of her decisions are impulsive, like the one that led her to book a beach holiday in Nigeria for herself and her husband during an oil war. They encounter Little Bee and Little Bee's sister as the girls are fleeing from thugs who have burned their village so that Western oil companies can exploit the oil beneath it. Little Bee survives this encounter, partially due to a sacrifice on Sarah's part. A year later, Little Bee stows away on a container ship to the U.K. and ends up in a immigration detention centre—essentially a privatized prison for illegal immigrants supported by the British government. Little Bee contacts Sarah and when they meet again, both of them have to confront what they have made and can make of their lives.When I describe the plot like this, it doesn't sound intriguing, but I don't want to give away anything. Trust me, there is a twist in every chapter. Little Bee is such a compelling character that for days I found myself looking at every African woman I saw on the TTC, wondering if this book was her story too. Cleave's writing is fluid, authentic and he can even inject humour into the most heartbreaking situations. The first chapter begins with Little Bee's meditation on a pound coin while she is still incarcerated in the immigration detention centre: “Most days I wish I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl. Everyone would be pleased to see me coming. Maybe I would visit with you for the weekend and then suddenly, because I am fickle like that, I would visit with the man from the corner shop instead – but you would not be sad because you would be eating a cinnamon bun, or drinking a cold Coca Cola from the can, and you would never think of me again. We would be happy, like lovers who met on holiday and forgot each other’s names.A pound coin can go wherever it thinks it will be safest. It can cross deserts and oceans and leave the sound of gunfire and the bitter smell of burning thatch behind. ...How I would love to be a British pound. A pound is free to travel to safety, and we are free to watch it go. This is the human triumph. This is called, globalisation. A girl like me gets stopped at immigration, but a pound can leap the turnstiles, and dodge the tackles of those big men with their uniform caps, and jump straight into a waiting airport taxi. Where to, sir? Western Civilisation, my good man, and make it snappy.”Chris Cleave based his novel on real stories that he heard while working in the cafeteria at an immigration detention centre in Oxfordshire. If for nothing else, read this book for its engrossing plot and its well crafted writing. But read it too to question your beliefs about immigration policy, oil policy and multiculturalism. Little Bee is a novel about the resilience of the human spirit in the face of “civilization”.

[quzy_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I just finished reading Little Bee by Chris Cleave and am a bit speechless about what to write. The publishers took a big risk with the promo’s for this book, they didn’t really tell the reader what it was all about- “We don’t want to tell you what happens in this book...nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it” and so they give you a little tidbit about it being “the storyof two women whose lives collide one fateful day”, but it is so much more than that. First we meet Little Bee and simply fall in love. She is so innocent, but quite insightful. “I wish I was a British pound coin instead of a African girl. Everyone would be pleased to see me coming” Little Bee is a 16 year old Nigerian refugee surviving in a UK immigration detention center. How she came to be in the immigration center is part of the story, as well as how she meets Sarah and Andrew O’Rourke, who were “on Holiday” in Nigeria, very naive to the violence that was raging in the area. Leading up to the tale of violence that links Sarah and Little Bee on a Nigerian beach, we meet a cast of characters from the detention center that will make you laugh and cry at the same time. And it opens your eyes just a bit because you begin to realize that even though this is a fictional book , that these detention centers really exist and so do some of the horrors you are reading about. The writing is captivating- and we are drawn into Little Bee’s world. We realize how Little Bee is not so different from Sarah. The book is written thru both Little Bee and Sarah’s voice and towards the end I began forgetting who was speaking to me. The story does not stop at the detention center, and as if their lives were bound by something untouchable on that fateful day Sarah & Little Bee meet again... I really enjoyed this book! The writing and characters will touch your heart!

[meredk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I devoured this book - can't remember when I've last read a book so quickly. Interesting, since I wouldn't necessarily call it a typical page-turner, but it definitely is structured to keep readers turning the pages. I thought the alternating voices of the two women worked well, although Little Bee's voice was stronger and more believable. I had some trouble understanding the motives of Sarah and Lawrence. But the book does a great job of making the reader feel the terror of being an illegal, and it's timely because of what's happening in Europe right now with all of the refugees from Syria, etc.

[Nicole Lane · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a heart wrenching story about refugees. During a period when the world is ransacked with civil wars it has become easy to forget that "those immigrants" are simply humans seeking refuge and safety for their families. This book reminds us of what we've long forgotten.

[stacia conway · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is still my favorite book to date. Cleave writes women exceptionally well. The story is full of all the emotions and I found it hard to put down. I recommend it to anyone I know that likes to read.

[Hannah RT · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed reading your book. I read enthusiastically and understood the story. ... If you have some great stories like this one, you can publish it on Novel Star, just submit your story to [e-mail] or [e-mail]

[Heather Carlson Johnson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Relationships between characters of different backgrounds. Stirring fiction. What are the stories around you?

[Sara Mason · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Am amazing read. I read it years ago and it's worth another go round, which I rarely ever do.

[JessicaBrown · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Every since I became a mothet I find that I am able to become more emotionally connected. This book made me smile, laugh and cry. Be prepared to read reality at its best and worse!

[Victoria Brooks · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book was traumatizing for me. I don’t know why anyone would want to read it. I don’t like being negative- just trying to protect you all.

[ChristineAnitaYelichRoberts · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Excellent writing and story telling. Just a horrible subject. I did not like the ending and wish I had never read it. I have to hold my tongue back whenever I see someone reading it. Life's tough enough, who needs this?

[Amy Jo Johnson · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Spoiler alert! Cleave doesn't actually finish the book. The rising action seems to be heading toward Sarah saving Little Bee by publishing the stories of other suffering Nigerian citizens. And rather than accomplishing that goal, she just gets arrested and the book is over. I feel like I just got plot juked.

[col2910_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Blurb............

Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and Costa Novel of the Year, this international bestseller has become a reading group classic.

We don't want to tell you too much about this book. It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it.

Nevertheless, you need to know something, so we will just say this:

This is the story of two women.
Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice.
Two years later, they meet again - the story starts there...

Once you have read it, you'll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens either. The magic is in how it unfolds.

The book sets out to be deliberately opaque and mysterious...........ooh read this, don't tell anyone what happens it's so special, tell others about it but don't spoil it for them, etc etc etc.

A fantastic, thought-provoking read that stays with you for weeks and months afterwards, invading your thoughts at unexpected moments?

Or an extremely clever marketing ploy?

Being a grumpy, miserable cynic and having read the book - I choose marketing ploy.

Well then what to write...........A meets B and C, who are married to each other, at location X. D who is A's sister is present at the meeting, which is soon joined by E and another group we'll call the F's. A disagreement occurs. Fast forward a while, A contacts C, now in location Y. This upsets C greatly, and has a calamitous effect on him, B and her close friend G and her child H. The rest of the book introduces other minor characters that I shall refer to as I, J, K and L. (I might have missed out an M and a N, but none of these are major players, so don't worry too much.) The climax of the book involves A, B and H, along with some O's at location X.

Had the blurb presented the book in a more traditional fashion, I'm no marketing guru, but I would guess a fraction of the copies actually sold would have been. One of the characters in the book, G actually espouses the same opinion. The topic under debate, doesn't typically interest people, until such time as the right wing tabloids want to beat the drum and whip up some populist fury.
I would probably have passed it over.

That said, it was enjoyable enough, but perhaps I needed to be wearing my magician's cloak to feel the magic.Well, I wasn't.

3 from 5, must dash or I'll be late for Quidditch practise.

I do have another Cleave book on my shelf, Incendiary, as yet unread. I'm unsure what ploy enticed me to buy the book, but I'll need to check the blurb on the back to refresh my memory. I'm also unsure if my purchase of Incendiary predates my purchase of The Other Hand, not that it matters too much.

Seduced by the marketing fiends, I bought this new a few years ago.

[vivienner_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An event on a Nigerian beach has inextricably linked Little Bee with Sarah and Andrew O'Rourke, an English couple. The story opens with the asylum seeker, Little Bee, being mistakenly released without papers after being incarcerated in an English detention centre for two years. She sets out in search of the couple she met on the beach. Alternating between Little Bee's account and Sarah's the whole story unfolds. While written with compassion, Cleave has injected it with a mildly melodramatic quality that reveals his fervour. However, without judgement of either side, he illustrates powerfully what a refugee might be running from, what they suffer in the attempt, and the potential consequences. Cleave's portrayal of Little Bee is excellent. She retains her Nigerian way of thinking (always considering how she would explain a particular scene to her friends at home) while simultaneously trying to adapt to English life. She is charming and astute beyond her sixteen years. Cleave's first-hand knowledge of the subject matter was earned during his time studying at Oxford when he worked in a detention centre."Life is precious, whatever its country of origin."

[nml_dc · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I clearly have a different definition of "human triumph" than whomever wrote the review that's quoted on the book cover.

[lissabeth21 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I feel I will be haunted by this tale and it's characters. It feels like an artsy-indie film that stops 3/4 of the way through the narrative, cause, hey that's real man. Not a single knot was tied. Every thread of thought it provoked was left like the thick tassel on a French drapery. I guess now I can choose my own ending.

[rmckeown_9 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My wife has been reminding me – on about a bi-weekly basis – that I needed to read Chris Cleave’s novel, Little Bee. My hand was forced when it was selected for my book club. I got to the novel only a few days before our meeting, and I had no trouble finishing it quickly. It is a heart-rending tale of a young girl orphaned by a corrupt government, which places oil production above any of its citizens. Cleave was born in London in 1973. He attended Balliol College. Little Bee is his second of four novels, and yes, those three are on the way. The writing was marvelous – except for a few pages of annoying dialect.

Little Bee lived in a village targeted by the government for clearing to open lands to oil drilling. She escaped the slaughter of her family by hiding in the jungle. As the novel opens, Bee has been released from a detention center in the UK after a bribe and a guard willing to look the other way. Bee speaks “the Queen’s English,” so she can maneuver more easily than the three others released with her, all of whom have heavy accents.

Cleave’s prose is magnificent throughout the novel. When the four women separate, Bee heads to an address on a driver’s license she found on the beach. The reader does not know the circumstances of this detail until much later. Bee has formed a relationship with Yevette in the detention center. Cleave writes, “Leaving Yevette, that was the hardest thing I had to do since I left my village. But if you are a refugee, when death comes you do not stay for one minute in the place it has visited. Many things arrive after death – sadness, questions, and policemen – and none of these can be answered when your papers are not in order. // Truly there is no flag for us floating people. We are millions, but we are not a nation. We cannot stay together. Maybe we get together in ones and twos, for a day or a month or even a year, but then the wind changes and carries the hope away. Death came and I left in fear. Now all I have is my shame and the memory of bright colors and the echo of Yevette’s laugh. Sometimes I feel as lonely as the Queen of England” (80).

Little Bee finds her way to the address on the license. She hides for a few days in bushes behind Sarah’s garden. Finally, Bee knocks on the door, and Sarah recognizes here from the beach in Nigeria. She lets her into the house, and tells Bee her husband Andrew has committed suicide, and he would be buried later that day. Bee instantly comforts Sarah’s son, Charlie, and they quickly develop a bond. Charlie does not understand the absence of his father, and he begins acting out in day care. Sarah and Bee come for Charlie, who was angry and hiding in a corner. Cleave writes, “I went into the corner with Charlie. I stood next to him and I turned my face into the corner, too. I did not look at him, I looked at the bricks and I did not say anything. I am good at looking at bricks and not saying anything. In the immigration detention center I did it for two years, and that is my record” (143). Bee always fears someone was coming to take her away. “I was thinking what I would do in that nursery room, if the men came suddenly. It was not an easy room, I am telling you. For example, there was nothing to cut yourself with. All the scissors were made of plastic and their ends were round and soft. If I suddenly needed to kill myself in that room, I did not know how I was going to do it” (143). Be is always looking over her shoulder, always fearing when a stranger makes eye contact.

This story has an open ending, and for that I am fortunate. Had the worst happened, it would have affected me deeply. If you have never encountered an undocumented person, read Little Bee by Chris Cleave and walk a mile in their shoes. 5 stars

--Jim, 5/27/17

[thoughtsofjoylibrary · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This dually narrated story is based on the lives of two females, one being a 16-year-old and another being a married woman with a 4-year-old son who believes he's Batman. These two women have nothing in common until one day they meet on a beach. Their lives are forever intertwined.

The greatest strength in this book was its ability to keep me turning the pages. I love when a book does that. Cleave did a great job in revealing the plot with interesting characters. However, there were several pieces to the book that I didn't feel fit the situation, and I didn't find a major distinction in the narrators. On a couple of occasions, I had to remind myself or figure out who was speaking. You would think the age difference alone would place a large enough gap in the language. Regardless, it was a compelling read and one that I'm glad I finally got to.

Originally posted on: Thoughts of Joy

[bnbookgirl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

READ THIS BOOK!

[moniquereads · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Overall Recommendation:

I would recommend this book to anyone that likes literary fiction and is not disturb by a story that is gloomy throughout. If you like your stories to take you away to a happier place, this is not for you. If you need your characters to go riding off into the sunset, keep moving. But if you are not bothered by the fact that things might not get better or might just even get worse for your characters, then this might be the book for you. Great writing, a unique plot, a to old for her age refugee girl, and no nice little bow endings.

Final Grade: A

[vivaval · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Unforgettable

[bnbooklady · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Little Bee is beautiful, awful, hopeful, devastating, and utterly unforgettable. Cleave juxtaposes gorgeous, almost poetic prose with a truly horrific story that is made bearable by moments of great humor and warmth, many of which are provided by Sarah’s son Charlie, a four-year-old who is convinced he is Batman.

Read Little Bee for the language and the variety of voices that are so incredible you’ll want to wrap yourself up with them and stay for days. Read it for Cleave’s ability to tell a story that is framed by politics but that is ultimately about people. Read it because it does all the things fiction is supposed to do and then some. From the striking cover to the very last word, Little Bee is intense, satisfying, and not to be missed. This is a story you will carry with you for the rest of your reading days.

Read my full review at The Book Lady's Blog.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"We must see all scars as beauty....................a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, 'I survived'."

The Other Hand opens within the walls of an immigration detention centre outside London where a 16-year-old girl from Nigeria, Little Bee, has spent the last two years learning the Queen's English in an effort to gain asylum in the UK, hoping to swap horrific past events in her homeland for a brighter future. When Little Bee's inadvertently finds herself, along with three other women, released from the centre she telephones the only man she knows in the country, Andrew O'Rourke, a journalist and columnist for a broadsheet newspaper. Little Bee met Andrew and his wife Sarah, also a journalist, whilst they were on a beach holiday in Nigeria. Andrew doesn't welcome the reminder and a few days later commits suicide.

Little Bee seemingly arrives on Andrew and Sarah's doorstep in leafy Kingston-upon-Thames on the day of Andrew's funeral. Something happened that shook this teenage girl and British couple to their very cores. As Little Bee and Sarah take it in turns to recount their story the facts of their chance meeting and the intervening two years are gradually revealed.

"It started on the day we first met Little Bee, on a lonely beach in Nigeria. The only souvenir I have of that first meeting is an absence where the middle finger of my left hand used to be. The amputation is quite clean. In place of my finger is a stump".

Most of the action has already happened when Little Bee and Sarah reunite. Through their recollections, an African past surfaces slowly in an English present. We learn that Andrew was clinically depressed, that Sarah, the editor of a women's magazine, 'Nixie', soon after their marriage becomes disenchanted and starts an affair with a married man, Lawrence, whilst their son Charlie will only wear a Batman costume and spends his days fighting imaginary baddies. However, it is the stark choices that were made on that Nigerian beach is the true driver of what follows.

Initially I felt that Sarah came across as being rather insipid, a dreamer, (the trip to Nigeria was her ill-conceived attempt to save the marriage) but it soon becomes apparent that at her core she is made of sterner stuff. Even if life in leafy England lacks the life-and-death struggles found in other parts of the world she is still a survivor. She has chosen to try to adapt and carve a niche for herself in her world whereas Little Bee has chosen to use her feet and abandon her's.

Some of the coincidences within this book may feel a little outlandish but Cleave doesn't try to be ironic nor does he cast judgement on the choices that either woman makes, instead he allows the reader to do that for themselves. Similarly the climax when it comes, isn't the result of an action by either of the two women but instead stem from two inadvertent decisions made by a four year old Batman.

The Other Hand deals with some pretty thorny issues, immigration, globalisation, political and sexual violence alongside personal accountability. I found it had a powerful if uncomfortable read, one that at the end of it made me sit up and think. Just what would I do?

"trouble is like the ocean. It covers two thirds of the world."

[librarycin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5 stars

Little Bee is from Nigeria and was fleeing for her life when she met Andrew and Sarah on a beach in her country. Some time later, Bee has arrived in England, but has been held for 2 years in a detention centre for immigrants. When she is released, she contacts Andrew, since he and Sarah are the only people she knows in England. When she makes it to their place, however, Sarah is dealing with other things.

My summary gives away more than the book jacket, though I still don’t think it gives away very much. The book alternates between Bee’s and Sarah’s points of view. I liked the book, but I have mixed feelings about the ending. I absolutely hated Sarah’s boyfriend and have no idea what she saw in him! There is a good author’s note at the end.