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andrea_lachance's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
A study on the inevitability of a family spiraling out at an increasingly fast pace, as the world falls apart around them.
I'll be thinking about this book for a long time. Murray not only uses the structure of his novel to show to physically quicken the pace and increase the feeling of inevitability and dread, but also uses motifs and shifting pov to unpack one of his central themes; perception vs. reality, and the lies we tell ourselves and others. Embodied by the false title "The Bee Sting" and the false framing of the novel in its summary. The bee sting never even happened, and the real point the question the summary poses "If you wanted to change the story, how far back would you have to go?" is rendered absurd and pointless."You look back at the past and you can't tell where exactly you went wrong... is it everything?... your whole innocuous life, has it all been leading up to this moment? ad if it has, what does that make you?" (601)
The book begins by posing a question - what would possess a man to kill his family, and why? "what kind of man would do such a thing". And unfortunately, the last line is the answer."It is for love. You are doing this for love."
I think Murray brilliantly ties disparate stories and ties theme elegantly together as the novel reaches a break-neck conclusion. It feels like everything is falling right into place as the characters reach an inflection point of being ripped apart. Everything comes together. The black dogs, the red and grey squirrels, Rose's prophecy, Dickie's shame, Imelda's desire to start again, the flood at the end of the world, the bunker that should be a safe haven. And the first line of the novel returns with chilling foreshadowing.
Murray also focuses on climate change throughout the novel and how it seemed to indicate a coming apocalypse. Cass is concerned with the climate, their town has a catastrophic flood after a dry season,Dickie's lover Willie is a climate activist, Dickie is doomsday prepping. And then at the very end of the novel, a deluge of rain that seems apocalyptic and prophetic is the cause of the inevitable tragedy of the Barnes family brought back together.
God, Murray just brings all these wonderful little callbacks at the end, and it's mind-blowing. I will be reading more of Paul Murray's work, because wow. There's so much to unpack in this book.
Yes, I was a little worn out by around page 500, complaining to my friends that this book didn't deserve to be shortlisted for the booker prize. But by page 600 I realized I was dead wrong.Some people won't be able to get over the lack of punctuation and dialogue tags. Maybe they've never read Sally Rooney or Cormac McCarthy. Maybe they don't understand that there is a reason these stylistic choices have been made (reflecting the character's mental state i.e. Imelda's racing thoughts, Dickie's internalization of the things he should say but doesn't, creating ambiguity between what is said and unsaid). Something about how people can't read a book that intentionally removes punctuation and choose to create strawman, bad faith arguments just reallllly gets to me
I'll be thinking about this book for a long time. Murray not only uses the structure of his novel to show to physically quicken the pace and increase the feeling of inevitability and dread, but also uses motifs and shifting pov to unpack one of his central themes; perception vs. reality, and the lies we tell ourselves and others. Embodied by the false title "The Bee Sting" and the false framing of the novel in its summary. The bee sting never even happened, and the real point the question the summary poses "If you wanted to change the story, how far back would you have to go?" is rendered absurd and pointless.
The book begins by posing a question - what would possess a man to kill his family, and why? "what kind of man would do such a thing". And unfortunately, the last line is the answer.
I think Murray brilliantly ties disparate stories and ties theme elegantly together as the novel reaches a break-neck conclusion. It feels like everything is falling right into place as the characters reach an inflection point of being ripped apart. Everything comes together. The black dogs, the red and grey squirrels, Rose's prophecy, Dickie's shame, Imelda's desire to start again, the flood at the end of the world, the bunker that should be a safe haven. And the first line of the novel returns with chilling foreshadowing.
Murray also focuses on climate change throughout the novel and how it seemed to indicate a coming apocalypse. Cass is concerned with the climate, their town has a catastrophic flood after a dry season,
God, Murray just brings all these wonderful little callbacks at the end, and it's mind-blowing. I will be reading more of Paul Murray's work, because wow. There's so much to unpack in this book.
Yes, I was a little worn out by around page 500, complaining to my friends that this book didn't deserve to be shortlisted for the booker prize. But by page 600 I realized I was dead wrong.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia and Rape
Moderate: Alcoholism and Gun violence
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Gore
znvisser's review
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
You know those romcoms where you can't help but shout: 'just communicate with each other!!'? Well, this is the family drama version of that. The Bee Sting follows four family members into each of their owns destruction. Despite starting out with a lot of teenage girl drama, this captured me immediately. For one because I’ve once been a teenage girl with a friend like Elaine - so I immediately hated her guts (in my case tho, I was 5 years younger and there was no crush involved); but secondly, it's the writing that drew me in, and while I usually get annoyed easily by authors skipping quotation marks it took me a while to even notice it here (although it was almost too challenging in the Imelda chapters that just threw all (!) punctuation overboard). I loved looking into the heads of these messy, self-absorbed family members who each had their own problems they kept strictly to themselves. This book is full of messaging and coincidences and parallels, and even though at some point it almost loses track of its characters being too busy with very explicit climate change warnings, it finds its way back to the Barnes family, pushing them towards each other again. These characters are haunted by the past and the flashbacks from Imelda and Dickie are an integral part of their story, if only because it provided insight into how this train wreck of a family was doomed already a generation before them. Because gosh, they were doomed, but if they would have actually talked to each other every once in a while none of them did have to be so terribly lonely throughout it all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Rape, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Grief, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Drug use, Gore, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Alcohol
Minor: Cancer, Gun violence, and War
reads_eats_explores's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
The Bee Sting opens with a tale of woe, “a man had killed his family” in another town, and “rumours swirled about affairs, addiction, hidden files on his computer.” Are these prophecies of what awaits the Barnes family, our multilayered protagonists?
The Barnes, oh, how can one small family have so many adversities to face? They live in an unnamed small Irish town and are struggling on so many levels; godawful for them but great for the storytelling.
In the wake of a recession, the Volkswagen dealership run by Dickie Barnes has seen sales plummet while also facing a surge in complaints about repair work. Does Dickie know more than he's letting on? In an effort to stick his head in the sand as far as the dubious business at the garage goes, he retreats into himself and the woodlands behind their house, where he attempts to create a ‘safe zone’ where they'll be safe when not if the shit hits the fan.
A disgruntled client’s son threatens to beat Dickie’s boy, PJ, with a hammer. PJ sinks deeper into loneliness and online gaming forums, where he gets befriended by a profile that reeks of malevolence.
PJ's sister, Cass, flounders with her capricious best friend, peer pressure, leaving cert stress and the demon drink.
Their mother, Imelda, bears the brunt of the neighbours’ schadenfreude. She stops her beloved online shopping (her one true joy) and worries that she has somehow caused this rake load of trouble through a family curse.
Told through these multiple points of view in chapters narrated by each character, we get the modern day tale with plenty of historical flashbacks thrown in.
These flashbacks mostly reveal the poverty and old passions that shade Dickie and Imelda’s rather uneasy marriage.
All the characters are well developed and paint their own grim picture, but for me, Imelda’s sections are the stand out highlights. They are structured in the stream-of-consciousness style that really draws you in, from her early years of violence and poverty down “piggery lane” to her current predicament.
In this tragicomic behemoth read, Murray shows a great talent for blending humour and pathos. Yes, we trudge from bad to worse, with Murray tirelessly concocting fresh anguish for the Barneses, but there's a good dose of quintessentially Irish humour along the way. 4.5⭐
Many thanks to Penguin Books Ireland for an advance copy. As always, this is an honest review.
The Barnes, oh, how can one small family have so many adversities to face? They live in an unnamed small Irish town and are struggling on so many levels; godawful for them but great for the storytelling.
In the wake of a recession, the Volkswagen dealership run by Dickie Barnes has seen sales plummet while also facing a surge in complaints about repair work. Does Dickie know more than he's letting on? In an effort to stick his head in the sand as far as the dubious business at the garage goes, he retreats into himself and the woodlands behind their house, where he attempts to create a ‘safe zone’ where they'll be safe when not if the shit hits the fan.
A disgruntled client’s son threatens to beat Dickie’s boy, PJ, with a hammer. PJ sinks deeper into loneliness and online gaming forums, where he gets befriended by a profile that reeks of malevolence.
PJ's sister, Cass, flounders with her capricious best friend, peer pressure, leaving cert stress and the demon drink.
Their mother, Imelda, bears the brunt of the neighbours’ schadenfreude. She stops her beloved online shopping (her one true joy) and worries that she has somehow caused this rake load of trouble through a family curse.
Told through these multiple points of view in chapters narrated by each character, we get the modern day tale with plenty of historical flashbacks thrown in.
These flashbacks mostly reveal the poverty and old passions that shade Dickie and Imelda’s rather uneasy marriage.
All the characters are well developed and paint their own grim picture, but for me, Imelda’s sections are the stand out highlights. They are structured in the stream-of-consciousness style that really draws you in, from her early years of violence and poverty down “piggery lane” to her current predicament.
In this tragicomic behemoth read, Murray shows a great talent for blending humour and pathos. Yes, we trudge from bad to worse, with Murray tirelessly concocting fresh anguish for the Barneses, but there's a good dose of quintessentially Irish humour along the way. 4.5⭐
Many thanks to Penguin Books Ireland for an advance copy. As always, this is an honest review.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Biphobia, Bullying, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Medical content, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Stalking, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
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