like bees to honey - caroline smailes

Like Bees To Honey

I really didn’t like this book. I was rushing through it, trying to finish it so that I could move onto a book that I might actually enjoy.

Nina and her teenage son Christopher have returned to Nina’s home in Malta to see her aging parents and try to settle some unresolved issues. But Malta is a kind of waiting room for ghosts, which Christopher enables Nina to communicate with.

Right from the beginning, I didn’t like Nina, the main character. I didn’t like the voice used for her. I didn’t like the style of writing.

I found far too much about it annoying – the way that every single time she used a Maltese word or phrase, she translated it below the sentence, even if it had just been used in the sentence above. It felt like a massive waste of space. And it was the same with all of the noises. Every single time she walked somewhere, she was wearing pink flip flops, and there would be half a page used up just to say:

Fl – ip
Fl – op
Fl – ip
Fl – op
Fl – ip
Fl – op

“OK, I get it, she’s wearing flip-flops!!”

It’s not right to become enraged with the book you’re reading, is it? But I was determined to finish it.

There was one voice that I enjoyed reading and whose story moved me, and that was Tilly, one of the ghosts. Tilly’s section was over all too soon.

And the fact that Jesus is always trying to get drunk, wears red toenail varnish and wants to talk about Come Dine With Me is amusing – but don’t let that sway you. 90% of the book is a drag!

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