Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own and are not influenced by the author, publisher, or other related entity.
Synopsis:
Cover Love:
Very often, I lean towards books based on their covers. I may or may not read the synopsis before picking them up. Even if I do read the synopsis, the cover will play an important part in first grabbing my eye and can ultimately sway me one way or another as to whether I will give a book a try.
Breakdown Review:
The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia is a beautiful and intelligently written generational saga set in revolutionary Mexico. The writing is fantastic with description that I can only explain as gently comprehensive. The book just flows in a way that feels comforting, despite the tense moments in the narrative.
The book primarily follows Simonopio, an orphaned boy found as an infant with a physical deformity and a swarm of bees. He is a different sort of child, with a bit of supernatural aire around him. He can hear and speak to the bees, he follows them through the fields and seems to know things before they happen. The townspeople stare and are afraid of this child, said by some to be touched by the devil, but he is cared for and loved as a son by Beatriz and Francisco Morales. Francisco is a wealthy landowner in revolutionary Mexico, concerned with the changes in land policies and the increasing intrusion of the agrarians. He wants desperately to protect his land. Simonopio wants desperately to protect the family. He will use everything he can, and everything his bees help him to provide, to ensure that his adoptive family is successful and safe.
The layout of the book is different, but very well constructed. Chapters are headed with titles that roll directly into the main text or in a way that compliments the actions of the chapter in a more tangential way. It's hard to explain, but it's very different. The narrative bounces back and forth between an omniscient narrator and one who begins as a mysterious person involved in the familial plot of the story. (I believe in a complete lack of spoilers, so I'm leaving the identity out.) The mysterious narrator gets revealed piece by piece in the narrative. Although not completely necessary to the story, this method was seriously intriguing and added to my interest in the plot.
I loved the characters she created so very much. They were incredibly full-bodied and just felt so tangible. I fell in love with Simonopio and with Francisco Morales. Segovia's characters are incredibly well woven and their lives just pulled so hard at my heartstrings. Even characters I hated were still characters that she filled with such great description and personality that they felt incredibly real.
The entire story was engaging and I kept consuming the pages late into the night. It is a long read, but it doesn't feel that way once you become involved in the saga. I felt fully invested in the family and could understand their worries, their longings, their heartbreaks. This book very much approached perfection for me.
My sole complaint is my most common...the ending. It didn't fall right with me. I still enjoyed it and I still understood it. Things felt comprehensive, but at the same time lacking. I needed more information. (This is again difficult to explain without leading to spoilers.) My heart felt unfulfilled. The emotional intent of the author came through clearly, but there wasn't enough detail there to make me feel as if the conclusion had been fully explored and fleshed out. That caused me to feel very slightly disappointed, but I still felt very moved by the experience of reading the novel and don't for a moment regret the time I spent with this fantastic family.
I can't think of anything I've ever read that can be compared to The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia. It was an incredibly beautiful read with a small fantastical twist. It is an incredibly engrossing story full of pain and heartbreak. It is sad and moving, but full of love. Words cannot completely describe the way I felt about this book.
Emotional Response: The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia is a beautiful and intelligently written generational saga set in revolutionary Mexico. The writing is fantastic with description that I can only explain as gently comprehensive. The book just flows in a way that feels comforting, despite the tense moments in the narrative.
The book primarily follows Simonopio, an orphaned boy found as an infant with a physical deformity and a swarm of bees. He is a different sort of child, with a bit of supernatural aire around him. He can hear and speak to the bees, he follows them through the fields and seems to know things before they happen. The townspeople stare and are afraid of this child, said by some to be touched by the devil, but he is cared for and loved as a son by Beatriz and Francisco Morales. Francisco is a wealthy landowner in revolutionary Mexico, concerned with the changes in land policies and the increasing intrusion of the agrarians. He wants desperately to protect his land. Simonopio wants desperately to protect the family. He will use everything he can, and everything his bees help him to provide, to ensure that his adoptive family is successful and safe.
The layout of the book is different, but very well constructed. Chapters are headed with titles that roll directly into the main text or in a way that compliments the actions of the chapter in a more tangential way. It's hard to explain, but it's very different. The narrative bounces back and forth between an omniscient narrator and one who begins as a mysterious person involved in the familial plot of the story. (I believe in a complete lack of spoilers, so I'm leaving the identity out.) The mysterious narrator gets revealed piece by piece in the narrative. Although not completely necessary to the story, this method was seriously intriguing and added to my interest in the plot.
I loved the characters she created so very much. They were incredibly full-bodied and just felt so tangible. I fell in love with Simonopio and with Francisco Morales. Segovia's characters are incredibly well woven and their lives just pulled so hard at my heartstrings. Even characters I hated were still characters that she filled with such great description and personality that they felt incredibly real.
The entire story was engaging and I kept consuming the pages late into the night. It is a long read, but it doesn't feel that way once you become involved in the saga. I felt fully invested in the family and could understand their worries, their longings, their heartbreaks. This book very much approached perfection for me.
My sole complaint is my most common...the ending. It didn't fall right with me. I still enjoyed it and I still understood it. Things felt comprehensive, but at the same time lacking. I needed more information. (This is again difficult to explain without leading to spoilers.) My heart felt unfulfilled. The emotional intent of the author came through clearly, but there wasn't enough detail there to make me feel as if the conclusion had been fully explored and fleshed out. That caused me to feel very slightly disappointed, but I still felt very moved by the experience of reading the novel and don't for a moment regret the time I spent with this fantastic family.
I can't think of anything I've ever read that can be compared to The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia. It was an incredibly beautiful read with a small fantastical twist. It is an incredibly engrossing story full of pain and heartbreak. It is sad and moving, but full of love. Words cannot completely describe the way I felt about this book.
Rating:
The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia was hauntingly beautiful and emotionally heart-wrenching. It shows such great talent in the author and presents a story that feels so amazingly real and tangible. It is historical fiction at its finest and shows amazing ingenuity and uniqueness in its construction and execution. Very much worth the read. I will be looking into further works by Segovia for certain.
Just lovely! Thanks
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