Recommended Reading

One of the books my mom bought me for my birthday was called Little Bee by Chris Cleave. I love surprise book gifts like that; my mom's a big "Give me a list of what you want!" type of person when it comes to holidays, but really all I ever want is for someone to pick out books they think I'll like. We'd been admiring the cover one day at Barnes and Noble, and I think she bought it as much for her and she did for me. Which is just fine by me! I do that sort of thing all the time.
I was a little familiar with Chris Cleave before starting Little Bee, because I once took an English capstone dedicated to the effect/portrayal of 9/11 on literature. It was one of my dumber ideas...I don't know where in my anxiety-riddled brain I thought it would be cool to meet twice weekly and hear about one of the greatest catastrophes to ever happen in the U.S. To this day, if I see the words "September 11th" on a book jacket, I immediately put the book down (not kidding). I remember Chris Cleave's book, Incendiary, being very good, but still very disturbing.
I thought perhaps this one would be different, which is understandable given the copy on the back cover:

"We don't want to tell you what happens in this book.
It is truly a special story and we don't want to spoil it.
Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it, so we will just say this:
This is the story of two women. Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice, the kind of choice we hope you never have to face. Two years later, they meet again--the story starts there...
Once you have read it, you'll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens. The magic is in how the story unfolds."

Well, that sounds cute! I thought to myself. Well, okay. This was a great book. I couldn't stop reading it, especially up until about the halfway mark. Not only did it have an unbelievable amount of momentum, but the narrators were charming and intriguing (one more than the other). But cute it was not. Totally horrifying and upsetting would be a better description. The book dealt with a lot of issues, chief among them the divide between the "first world" and the "third world," the concerns of the upper class vs. real problems, what sort of responsibility people of privilege have to help those who are disadvantaged, and the treatment of immigrants. But here is the moral of the story, in my opinion: Don't take a vacation in a country that's in the midst of an oil war! It will not turn out well.
This book will only take you a night or two to finish, and it's about 8 dollars or something on Amazon. Recommended!