Month of November 2022 - The Thief Books

The Honey Thief by Elizabeth Graver (1999; 2000 ed.) 264 pages.

Setting: Ithaca, New York

2.5 stars rounded up. I simply didn’t find the story very interesting and was left with an incomplete feeling at the end.

This is about an 11-year-old girl, Eva, who was trying to cope in life from losing her father when she was only 6-years old. He had psychological problems and was bipolar, and he had committed suicide. It was possible she may have inherited this gene as well. After stealing a few jars of honey and getting caught, this little girl befriends the single 42-year-old man, a beekeeper named Burl, and begins to spend her days down at his house, while her mother worked, learning about bees.

I have to say, I was just a little creeped out that the author set the little girls age so young. Thank God this was written by a woman because, at times, I wasn’t so sure where the story was going. Seriously, with today being different times, and with child sex trafficking a big issue in the news, this story just didn’t set well with me.

But, it never lead to that. It really didn’t lead to anything, not even a love interest between Eva’s mom, Miriam, and the beekeeper. ( )

At first this is a story about a mother moving with her pre-teen daughter from New York City to the countryside where she hopes for a fresh start. The daughter, Eva, has been caught shoplifting a number of times, she’s definitely got an attitude and maybe something else is going on. Her mother Miriam has to work long hours to support them, so Eva is left to her own devices- there’s a babysitter but she goes out bike riding and exploring alone. Finds a small farm nearby where a man puts out honey jars by the road for sale, on the honor system. You can guess what happens. Then Eva sneaks into the field where the hives are kept, and meets the beekeeper. She finds his work fascinating, starts pestering him with questions, hanging around, wanting to know more. He shows her things when he opens a hive, in spite of feeling uneasy about it. Meanwhile there’s chapters showing the mother’s point of view, and they weave into the past, telling what happened when Miriam first met Eva’s father. At first I thought this part so dull in comparison- personally I much preferred reading about how the bees were tended, and I related a lot more to the reclusive beekeeper, his reasons for settling on his grandmother’s farm leaving behind a lucrative desk job. . . but I soon found how relevant the backstory of Eva’s parents was.

SKIP this paragraph to avoid SPOILERS: her father had a mental illness, which he failed to disclose to Miriam when they first met, fell in love quickly and had a baby without much planning. He hadn’t had a bad episode in a long time and wanting to be better, thought he’d put it all behind him, until things slowly started unraveling. When Miriam finally realized something was seriously wrong, they were at a crisis point. This all felt way too familiar to me, as a reader- someone in my family has bipolar disorder, so I knew exactly what they were talking about it and a lot of it rang true to me. How the symptoms sneak up on you, subtly getting worse, but you don’t want it to be the mental illness so you don’t see it for what it is at first.. And after you’re always questioning: is my teen just being a teenager? is this normal mood swings? or is it a manic episode.

So I found the book really compelling, even though some of it was uneven, sometimes the dialog a bit awkward, the accident at the end a bit predictable. However then it dropped off abruptly. I expected a bit more resolution- I was glad that Miriam finally told Eva more about her father, but she didn’t really explain the illness, and there was no hint of them finding out the answer to the big question: does Eva have it too. I suppose that’s realistic after all- you wouldn’t immediately tell an eleven-year-old who’s ready to find reasons to distrust you already, that you suspect she could have a serious mental health issue- but still I wanted to know more.

I liked this well enough I’ll look out for more by the same author.

from the Dogear Diary ( )

Elizabeth Graver's first novel, Unravelling, was hailed on publication as "exceptional" (The New York Times Book Review), "a pleasure" (The New Yorker), and "exquisitely poignant and sensual" (The Boston Globe). Now, in her second novel, she proves herself to be a major voice in American fiction. The summer that eleven-year-old Eva is caught shoplifting (for the fourth time), her mother, Miriam, decides the only solution is to move out of the city to a quiet town in upstate New York. There, she hopes, they can have the normal life she longs for. But Miriam is bound by a past she is trying to forget, and tensions escalate. It is only when Eva meets a reclusive beekeeper that she-and her mother-can find their way back to each other, and can begin life with renewed promise. A haunting novel of memory and desire, The Honey Thief reveals the healing power of friendship and the ineradicable bonds of mother and child.

Rather slow reading, but a lot going on in my daily life. The story about a chasm that evolves between mother and eleven year old daughter due to the tragic and early death of the father. In her need to protect her daughter she stops communication and the gap widens; the daughter Eva, seeks solace and understanding but ends up entertaining herself through watching bees. ( )

Twelve year old Eva is caught shoplifting, twice. Her mother, Miriam, decides that a change of scenery is in order, for both her and Eva's benefit, so she moves them to upstate New York, near Ithaca. Eva's father had died 6 years earlier. Eva is a lonely child and riding her second-hand bike around the area, she happens on a stand selling honey, unmanned. She decides to take a few jars.

However, she's intrigued and returns, to ultimately befriend Burl, the 40-year-old owner the stand and the associated farm and bee hives.

The Honey Thief is about growing up, about dealing with loss both through the death of a loved one and the result of a dear friend/lover moving away. Eva, Miriam and Burl are all dealing with loss of some sort and the means by which they cope/learn are different.

The Honey Thief is an interesting story and an enjoyable read. However, if you want a more compelling story, one that teaches you about bees, then Telling the Bees by Peggy Hesketh is really the book for you. ( )