Litle Bee by Chris Cleave

I know, I am probably the last person who reads books that end up in book group circles to have read this book. In fact, I got it because my mother's book group read it and she shared it with me. None-the-less, I am going to write about it. After all, I have written about 'Anna Karenina" and that was written in the 1870's. Just because I am late doesn't mean I have nothing to say. This is not a happy book. Every story has a sadness to it, but there is also a bit of humor added, which makes the book easier to read, but in the end, you are left with the sadness. This is a modern tragedy--and the story reflects on the tragedy that characterizes Nigeria today. The story follows two main characters: Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee who has traveled to London, and Sarah Summers O'Rourke, whose husband, a columnist named Andrew, has just killed himself. The story alternates between the two women's points of view, and a fair amount of it is told in flashbacks, because their shared story actually began two years before the book opens. Little Bee has to escape Nigeria, and when she does, she tries to get back to Sarah, a woman who saved her life. But she gets caught, and ends up in the illegal immigrant track out of England and back to where she came from. Much is made of how individual stories of being threatened hold no water for a country that is considered 'safe'. Little Bee is interested in survival, and her character comes off as realistic, practical, and thoughtful — the things that have happened to her, the revelations of which are one of the book's main mysteries, are hard to believe. Through her, the author tries — and largely succeeds — in making a statement about the horrors of internment that refugees who come to Britain face, and just how far apart life in the first vs. the third world really are.