I love writers who can capture the essence of a feeling in words, bringing out the importance of a moment in one sentence. Sue Monk Kidd, the author of The Secret Life of Bees, has this gift along with the gift of storytelling. She is able to weave beautiful pictures and characters in the mind of the reader.
I have a small notebook where I write down quotes, scriptures and small pieces of writing that I love. It is called a commonplace book, a common place for the words that mean something to me. I wrote some snippets of Ms. Kidd's book down, one that makes me remember, one that makes me laugh and one that makes me close my eyes and think:
-"I worried so much about how I looked and whether I was doing things right, I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being one."
-"She'd stopped going to The House of Prayer Full Gospel Holiness Church years ago because it started at ten in the morning and didn't end till three in the afternoon, which was enough religion to kill a full-grown person, she'd said."
-"The door closed. So quiet it amounted to nothing but a snap of air, and that was the strangeness of it, how a small sound like that could fall across the whole world."
The Secret Life of Bees is a beautifully told story with unique characters that rise from the page and feel like friends. I recommend it!
What are you reading?
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