Bee Season - Myla Goldberg

I have been MIA for a little while, but it has been for a very good reason. Recently, we saw two little lines-on a pregnancy test! We have a little one on the way (our first)! Needless to say, our home has been filled with oodles of excitement recently, and my attention span is practically nil. Now that things are calming down somewhat, life is coming back to normal. Except for the multiple trips to the bathroom. And very tender breasts. And an amazingly strong sense of smell. And extreme fatigue...

On to the book review.Title: Bee Season
Author: Myla Goldberg
Year: 2000
Pages: 275pgs Rating: C-
Book From: Personal library (acquired from a colleague)

Eliza Naumann has always lived in the shadow of her multi-talented family. When she wins the school spelling bee, and quickly progresses to the nationals, she finally catches the attention of her father, her sees in her an untapped gift, as his Jewish scholar prodigee. What starts out as a story of a spelling bee whiz quickly descends to a hodgepodge of family dramas: a brother that foregoes his strong religous beliefs in Judaism (he was on the path to becoming a rabbi) to convert to Hare Krishna; a lawyer mom whose hidden secret is ultimately her undoing; and a scholar father who brings Eliza into the world of Kabbalism and Jewish mysticism.

Meh. Bee Season had a promising premise, but was ultimately boring and predictable. The numerous metaphors felt forced, and were overused. Despite the complexity of the multiple story lines, most of the characters were flat, particularly Miriam, the mother. There were only two parts I enjoyed about the novel: learning a bit more about Kabbalism, although I would definitely have to do further research to weed out fiction from fact; and the description of the "place" that Miriam was obsessed with (to say more would be giving away a large spoiler).