Any one read Bee Sting?

I loved this book so much! Best thing I've read this year, I think. The characters were so well drawn, but especially PJ and Cass. However, I listened on BorrowBox, and Imelda's narrative was read as if the punctuation was there. If I didn't know the lack of punctuation was a thing, I wouldn't have realised.

Regarding the ending, I assumed that the opening was a big foreshadowing and the family all had the same family as the family talked about there.

One of the few books I didn't finish. Could not get on with it at all.

to not too.

I think the bits without punctuation were meant too indicate the stress of the narrator of that bit but I found it very confusing and had to keep re-reading bits.

I think Dickie shot himself as there was no way out of his predicament. PJ heard the shot fired so I'm assuming he wasn't shot. My understanding (from an ex in the Army) is that if you hear it and register that fact you've not been hit - there's no time in between hearing and feeling it. For the same reason Cass wouldn't have had time to leap in front of him especially in the pitch dark.

I couldn't get on with this book and I don't know why!

Seems I'm very much in the minority.

This sometimes happens with me, a very popular book just doesn't deliver.

I loved this book until the ambiguous ending (listened to it and actually rewound in case Spotify had skipped a crucial bit 😂). My mate who is an English teacher had read a lot more meaning into it than me, and thought she knew what the ending had implied. I think I like a super clear ending!

I'm in that part now - with the lack of punctuation - and I'm struggling. I HATE it when authors do that.

Yes, I thought about that!

I'm still undecided on who died, but I think Dickie killed his children and himself but not Imelda. I think this because:

The hunter game Dickie played with his children, Rose's comments about the squirrels when she's was dying, Cass' last comment about 'poor squirrel' - suggesting that PJ was killed fist. Dickie's weird friend going on about the only way to make sure his children don't find out would to be to kill them.

I think Dickie died because Rose also makes that comment about Dickie dying in a wood and Imelda thinks she's confused and means Frank died in a field.

I think Imelda survives because she sees the black dog and the vision of the black dog always preceeded someone else's death.

I'm not certain though! I feel like I should read the whole book again from the beginning to pick up on any clues along the way.

Brilliant book though!

No, I know it’s not the same tragedy. But the author has said that to him the ending isn’t ambiguous. That the beginning mirrors the ending. So a man kills his whole family.

I also wonder if he ends up realising that it’s his kids and kills them anyway. Due to a sentence where he says ‘sometimes what you give up is the best part of yourself’.

I also didn’t like the no punctuation thing. And it was irritating how no one actually seemed to like each other.

I thought the beginning of the book portrayed how we hear or see things on the news. We comment on the awfulness of it but really don't know what led up to the tragedy.
It's just "news" to us.
We'll forget about it.
The story of The Bee Sting gives us the prequel of one such awful event we will read about or see in the news.

But the tragedy commented on in the beginning of The Bee Sting is not about the family we meet in the book.

I'm with you. I just finished it and generally thought much of the second half was dull. Got annoyed with the lack of punctuation with Imelda and didn't see what the fuss was about. I much much preferred the Prophet Song which is one of the better books I have read this year. As for the ending to be honest I didn’t care what had happened! I guess it's horses for courses and we all like different things.

I’ve just finished this. Then heard an interview with the author that the ending isn’t ambiguous at all. He says the beginning of a book often mirrors the ending.

I’m not sure I liked the book really, found parts of it a bit dull. But the last 50 pages or so were gripping.

Loved it (although not the ending) but hated prophet song. I couldn’t actually finish it

It's brilliant.
Im glad that you all think the ending ambiguous - that makes me feel better that it's not definitely xxxxxx.

Yes! I finished Bee Sting last night

If you loved Bee Sting, have you read Prophet Song by Paul Lynch @Bassetthounddog ?
I read both for my book club but preferred Prophet Song.

Loved this book very much, just finished it. I am unsure about the ending for the family… I do notice it would have an effect on me as often felt quite unsettled and sad.

Did anyone else get this impression :
It opens with gossip about the event in a nearby town about a man killing his family.
There is speculation about why.
So is that what Dickie, Imelda, Cass and PJ's lives become in the end - fodder for gossips, with people speculating why.
But the reader knows why because the book has taken them on a journey into the lives of the family.

What an astonishing book. So clever. I’m recommending it to everyone I know.

High Tide In Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver

This is a collection of Kingsolver 's essays, choc-a-bloc with her wit and humour, her love of the animal kingdom, including.javalinas with whom she has a long running feud over their.treatment of her garden until she realises they came first and she was 'late to the party'.
She stresses that we are members of the animal kingdom and sometimes in danger of forgetting that, that we are driven by subterranean drives, hidden ebbs and flows that push us onward in spite of ourselves. We despair of events and changes and misfortunes (and she has had her share) but somehow those hidden tides propel us forward and we survive.

The best example of this is the essay centred on Buster the hermit crab. Transported from the seaside to Tucson, Arizona she discovers that the crab reacts to tides as he did at the coast. But there is no tide in Tucson. But the crab doesn't care - he goes into tidal mode hilariously and Kinsolver recognises the same impulse in humans.to survive, to make your world recognisable again after disasters strike. We are crabs and animals too and should remember it. 'Make me a good animal today".she cries.

Other essays explore the same theme. She admires.Spanish mothers because of the naturalness of their relationship with babies and children who are more integrated into public life than is popular elsewhere. Many essays deal with naturalness: love potions. babies, relics of the past like cooking pots hundreds of years old: still needed, still necessary. Some things never change.

In beautiful prose she introduces us to lessons learned from landscapes and.historical artefacts and animals and sunsets all leading to a benign and untroubled attitude to life.

I preferred Prophet Song

But I can admire the writing that made up The Bee Sting.

It's so Irish I wonder has it "travelled" well. Don't people get the nuances ?

I do hate an ending that isn't.
I'd like a "happy ever after" but life has taught me that isn't going to happen.

Oh my god just finished this. Mind blown!! I expect this book is a lot cleverer than I am, I think if I re read it there will be clues and hints all over the place. I googled a chat about it and they talked about all the foreshadowing moments, some of which I missed - the man in the next town that was the first paragraph, Rose's last word 'poor little skirls', meant squirrels i.e. Cass and PJ, and the warning about Cass staying away as @BadSpellaSpellaSpella said above. So I think its implying both were victims. But my first reading was as @Stokey says that Cass instinctively rescued PJ. I'm confused!! I get that Dickie was having some sort of breakdown from the stress of it all, but I found it weird that Imelda also seemed to lose the plot and run into the woods. Was there a supernatural element there, something drawing them to their fate that night? I'm not sure. Also the black dog that Lar saw, does that imply that Imelda is killed too?? Or maybe was it implying a huge tragedy in her life.

I am upset by the ambiguous ending, but thought it was the most amazing read. I personally didn't like reading the sections in Imelda's voice, the lack of punctuation really annoyed me.

I read it as Cassie sacrificed herself to save PJ.

There were lots of foreshadows especially about the squirrels. The trap guy ( can't remember his name) said there were no red squirrels but PJ saw one, and Rose on her death bed says "Skirls... Skirls". And Cassie feeling responsible for PJ and selfish for letting him run away. And didn't PJ save her when they were kids?

On the other hand, the OP specifically asks for opinions on the ending, which implies she’s expecting people to have read the book before joining the thread. It’s actually really difficult to discuss the ending of this book without giving stuff away about it.

Can we PLEASE have spoilers in the heading!! Fuck sake!!!