Reviews with content warning for Abandonment - The Bee Sting

Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

8 reviews

mybestfriendisabook's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

4.25

my biggest read yet that i picked up on a whim. tense especially towards the end. fascinating how all the characters were intertwined. i need to know more about the ending! cons of reading a large book is that you’re so invested and that it will always stay with you. dark, messy and really sad, but witty at times. felt like a dark tense movie with the slow buildup.

real con is the character that didn’t use punctuation, that was challenging and dreadful to read 😩 felt like i could finally breathe when that was over.

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emilyandthewhippet's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book felt like a real slog. I started reading this in January for a book club in February. Despite continually trying to chip away at the audiobook, I didn't finish it until August.

There's nothing wrong with it per say. It's long but mostly it was that it's one of those contemporary Irish books that I seem to have read a lot over the last few years, where it's a lot of repressed trauma and angst, then they chuck in some

homophobia

, someone

being raped

and/or

underage sex/drugs/alcohol

and call it a masterpiece. This had all of the above and it didn't add anything. But equally, without it would there even be a book? It's that kind of subgenre I suppose. That about sums up my experience with it I suppose. There were parts where I was curious to find out what happened next but I really, really didn't enjoy and the ending was abrupt but both the lead up and the ending were obvious. I didn't like any of the characters but they did feel well fleshed out.

I don't know. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood to be reading this. Though I'm not sure I'd ever be. You'd think over eight months there'd be a point you'd finally get into it but I didn't find that with this book.

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amandaredinger's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

2.75

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mtferal's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It's a quintessentially Irish story about a family hurtling towards a collapse that could be avoided if they were simply honest with one another. I loved the way the characters were laid out from each others' perspectives, and how the shift in those perspectives filled in the gaps of each other's understandings and made each of their situations more relatable. At times it felt like Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections" if it was written by an author who wasn't such an asshole and clearly loved his characters.

To address some points from other reviews-- yes, it's long. I didn't feel it overstayed its welcome, or dragged on too long in any direction before switching to a different character or plot thread. There is indeed a 100+ page stretch with no punctuation, but there aren't any quotation marks on dialogue to begin with, and proper capitalization is maintained so I found it easy to follow. I thought this contributed to an overall dreamlike feeling that made that section particularly memorable, especially since it lays out much of the core trauma that drives the engine of the story.

I really can't recommend this one enough. It went down easier than a 600+ page book about Irish family trauma should. The ending is ambiguous but thought-provoking, and I bet a re-read would be rewarded with tons of details that foreshadow the author's true intent.

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signeskov's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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znvisser's review

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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.

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mmccombs's review

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challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

4.25

An ambitious, layered family drama that mostly hit the mark for me! Even though I felt it was a bit too long, I did love how the foundation for each character was so strong, making for a much more impactful ending. The second half of the book was like watching a train derail, chugging along faster and faster until the frenzied pace crashes to a halt. I thought the 2nd person narration at the end was kind of strange, but I liked that he experimented with voice to create distinctive characters. I do think it was maybe doing too much, so many different symbols (squirrels, bunkers, ghosts) and themes (different approaches/views of the future, being “seen,” isolation, etc.). Overall, this was a very rewarding read that I’m glad to see made the Booker shortlist.

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reads_eats_explores's review against another edition

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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.

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