slow geyserBOT
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slow geyserBOT
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slow geyserBOT
@digital anvil,@uneven mulch,@glossy path,@graceful flame,@whole torrent,@rustic holly,@wintry flint,@noble torrent,@sterile crown,@dusk harbor,@untold canopy,@outer ermine,@elfin bramble,@swift stirrup,@twin iron,@untold oasis
Welcome to the Buddy Read for The Bee Sting by Paul Murray!
This is a long-term BR that will close out in three months time so you'll have plenty of time to get to this :D
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is going under―but rather than face the music, he’s spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife Imelda is selling off her jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.
Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil―can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written―is there still time to find a happy ending?
The Bee Sting was both shortlisted for Goodreads Best Fiction of 2023 AND The Booker Prize. It's been on my TBR for a long time so I hope everyone has a great time with this.
slow geyserBOT
Welcome to the Buddy Read for The Bee Sting by Paul Murray!
This is a long-term ...
rustic holly
Welcome to the Buddy Read for The Bee Sting by Paul Murray!
This is a long-term ...
dusk harbor
Welcome to the Buddy Read for The Bee Sting by Paul Murray!
This is a long-term ...
This one has to wait a bit but I'm looking forward to reading it!
outer ermine
I missed TWO flights bc of traffic last night and had to book a new flight for the next day which is/was (idk) 9 hours later (i'm still at the airport 
)
noble torrent
Welcome to the Buddy Read for The Bee Sting by Paul Murray!
This is a long-term ...
sterile crown
I’ve had a lot of train mishaps and delays this week but that’s out of my control
whole torrent
yup, that’s my misfortune
uneven mulch
i haven’t really been reading lately so i don’t know
elfin bramble
swift stirrup
uneven mulch
i’m dropping out of this, sorry vaude
noble torrent
I was actually planning on starting it this weekend
noble torrent
Same, especially that it will be my "expected 5 star" prompt for Autumn Bingo 
Hopefully it will deliver. I have physical book I bought some time ago and audiobook too. It's a brick
sterile crown
I lowkey forgot about this
digital anvil
Well remember it 
sterile crown
I have been remembered!
digital anvil
I started 
I'm up to Chapter 3, it's CHONKY but I'm enjoying it, I've got like 3 chunky books to get through and alternating seems to be the move
digital anvil
OKAY SO
Bringing this back up on everyone's lists and to check in with my progress-
There's good news and bad news:
The good news is that in spite of this book being LARGE I'm actually about half-way through and it hasn't been a chore to read at all.
In terms of where I am I believe at chapter 4 of Imelda's chapter? The chapters are HUGE sometimes.
The bad news is that this book is a bit like having a panic attack
noble torrent
A panic attack in a good way or bad way? 
I totally forgot about this chonker I will squeeze it in later 😭
digital anvil
Uhhh the best way I can put it in a non-spoiler way is that each section is set up with what's going on with the individual members of the family - and there's so many layers of terrible things that are happening that it gives me palpetations.
I'm enjoying it but I'm STRESSED
noble torrent
That sounds bad in a good way for me, love books like that Thank you! That might motivate me
sterile crown
hoping to start this on vacation on friday 
whole torrent
i can’t find this book anywhere so im gonna drop out of this br 
digital anvil
Aw I'm sorry to hear that choco 
I'll see you in the next one!
slow geyserBOT
@digital anvil,@glossy path,@graceful flame,@rustic holly,@wintry flint,@noble torrent,@sterile crown,@dusk harbor,@untold canopy,@outer ermine,@elfin bramble,@swift stirrup,@twin iron,@untold oasis,@dusk harbor
Hi all! I'm sorry for the ping; I'm just checking in because we've still got tons of time but also to just update with some TW.
I'm nearly done with the book so I just want to forewarn people. I'm absolutely loving it but it's a very grim book. The description of tragicomic is very apt.
In the next message I'll post a more updated TW list and pin it; it's more adult than I anticipated.
slow geyserBOT
Hi all! I'm sorry for the ping; I'm just checking in because we've still got ton...
digital anvil
Trigger Warnings for The Bee Sting:
digital anvil
Okay time for some post-nap thoughts both spoilery and not. I'm going to have quite a bit unspoilery chunk because I hope that will help people get some scope on what this is like.
I loved this book. I felt like I was close to a panic attack through like a good 70% of this brick. I'm actually a big fan of family and interpersonal drama which is the name of the game in this book. I have no idea what other people are going to make of it- that ending will definitely be polarising but I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. The scope and plotting of this book is really reminiscent to me of #1278684885728366665 for anyone else that is in that BR. Honestly I can totally understand how this book was shortlisted for a Booker, I adore Paul Murray's writing; the four central characters are given totally distinguishable and unique voices amongst the general well-written prose that shapes this tome. The initial four parts are very long and establish much about these characters, what has happened to them, where they come from and where the Barnes misfortune is springing out of control for them particularly - after these four long parts (named after each character) we begin to flick between them rapidly as things spiral out of control.
In terms of themes where I thought it was important to update the TW list - it's rough and I really do urge people to check those warnings out beforehand; I'm happy to be the canary in the mineshaft because little bothers me. This book is as tragic as it is vaguely traumatizing honestly. The characters are hard to get a beat on - they feel realistic in both wonderful ways and awful ways. I cannot say that they are not exhausting but it's with the same kind of exhaustion that comes from following characters that are absolutely going through it, making poor decisions or being young and naïve.
Massive spoilers now for the whole book:
||The story takes place in a berg a few hours from Dublin, and Dickie and Imelda Barnes, once wealthy from the VW sales and garage business (inherited from Dickie’s father), are now struggling due to the financial crash. So, it is probably just a few years after 2008, but not specifically stated. Each of the Barnes family members have their secrets to bear - Imelda was originally intended to marry Dickie's brother, Frank (written as the golden son, athletic, charming and all around everyone's favourite guy) who died in a freak car accident, she only married Dickie out of grief and that she became accidentally pregnant by him. Dickie is a bisexual or possibly only homosexual man that is constantly struggling with his sexuality and guilt over an event that happened while he was in university and that he's now married to Imelda because of more guilt surrounding what happened to Frank in an attempt to "step up". Cass their eldest daughter hates the town that she feels stuck in and wants to escape to Dublin with her best friend(?) while 12-year old PJ is well-aware of the cracks in his family life and is considering running away with a friend he met online.||
||I hope that this is a good demonstration of how stressful the events in this book are - there's very little room for moments of solace as the constant stresses and trauma from both the past and the present line up at the Barnes' door. Events escalating to the point where more than once I found myself muttering "oh no". All of the Barnes family are absolutely self-centred messes - perhaps with the exception of PJ who I spent the whole time going "please don't do that" as he arranges to meet with a someone who definitely has bad intentions for him in a ploy to bring his family together again. Imelda grew up with a abusive, impoverished and difficult family life that left her longing for her prince charming. Then her prince charming died in a freak car accident so now she takes her grief and misery out on her crumbling husband while falling into an extramarital affair out of a need for love and spite towards Dickie.||
1/
digital anvil
||Dickie has started to build a bunker out in the woods beside their house while trying to hide the fact that the mechanic he was having an affair with is the reason why much of their finances are in shambles and why the reputation of his business is in tatters. He loves his children but will do absolutely anything in his power to hide that he cheated on his wife. Cass too is struggling with her sexuality while in university in Dublin alongside battling her own snotty sense of self worth that makes her lash out at people while also dealing with her own levels of self-hatred.||
Deep breath
||So yeah, I think in terms of characters that I got on best with, I felt the most sympathetic for Dickie and PJ while Cass is well-written but an absolute nightmare. I suppose by association Eileen, her best friend is the real worst but that's neither here nor there. In the general bleakness of this book, there's more bleakness as global warming and catastrophe lurk in the background like an ominous shadow. The town falls under water during a freak flood, Cass comes to terms with this in a stomach-dropping way, Dickie is building his shelter for the inevitable end times. It's impossible to ignore.||
||“You go to class and discuss famous poems. The poems are full of swans, gorse, blackberries, leopards, elderflowers, mountains, orchards, moonlight, wolves, nightingales, cherry blossoms, bog oak, lily-pads, honeybees. Even the brand-new ones are jam-packed with nature. It’s like the poets are not living in the same world as you. You put up your hand and say isn’t it weird that poets just keep going around noticing nature and not ever noticing that nature is shrinking? To read these poems you would think the world was as full of nature as it ever was even though in the last forty years so many animals and habitats have been wiped out. How come they don’t notice that? How come they don’t notice everything that’s been annihilated? If they’re so into noticing things? I look around and all I see is the world being ruined. If poems were true they’d just be about walking through a giant graveyard or a garbage dump. The only place you find nature is in poems, it’s total bullshit. Even the sensitive people are fucking liars, you say. No, you don’t, you sit there in silence like always.”||
||I think that the only things that I can critique this book for is just how heavy it is. It's not a pleasurable experience in the sense that things finally start going to go right for these characters - it's almost completely schadenfreude and stress driven. There's also a few superfluous plot choices that I could have maybe gone without considering just how THICK this book is. To name a few things I'd say that the weird clairvoyant aunt woman that Imelda goes to live with and predicts the future/omens is such a strange choice to have in this book? I appreciate where her place is and what she means for Imelda's storyline but I just found it disorientating to have in such a mostly normal piece? Also the plotline involving PJ's online friend wraps very quickly after a scary encounter in Dublin - it's heavily discussed in PJ's first chapter, dropped for the rest of the book and reimerges in the last 2% of the book. ||
Overall I might rate this highly, hell I'm giving this 5 ⭐but I have no idea if I'll be an outlier or a majority - this book is almost impossible to imagine how people will take it.
||“It is for love. You are doing this for love.”||
noble torrent
Oh wow okay I am totally picking it up after I finish a few of my books, probably at the beginning of next week.
graceful flame
my hold came in from libby
sterile crown
Starting tomorrow! Saturday
sterile crown
Part 1 - Sylvias
||I love drama and grim books, but man this really isn’t a feel-good book 
Elaine is a bad friend in every aspect and I hope Cass will realize that sooner or later. I think she already knows deep-down, but it’s hard to acknowledge when Elaine is her only friend. Boys are just taking advantage of her it seems and her family life is going down the drain also. I like it so far, but the chapters are a bit painful to keep track of, so I might just do it in chunks for the whole parts||
digital anvil
Part 1 - Sylvias
||I love drama and grim books, but man this really isn’t a feel...
That was a big problem for me so I kinda went sod it and just did my usual big review
sterile crown
Part 2 - Wolf’s Lair
||Wow and Nev is a shitty friend to PJ too, what is up with these kids! I think Vaude described it really well with the panic attack feeling because this book makes me feel so on edge 😭 there’s always the next tragedy waiting around the corner and PJ’s part made me so sad. A 12 year old shouldn’t worry about things like these. If he does go to Ethan I sure as shit hope he’s real, but something tells me he’s not and that it’s a trap||
sterile crown
Start of part 3
Excuse me what is this 😭😭
digital anvil
Start of part 3
Excuse me what is this 😭😭
OH THIS BIT LMAO
sterile crown
I saw that the entire part 3 is written like this
Fucking rip this is so hard to read 😭
sterile crown
Part 3 - The Widow Bride
||I found this super hard to get through due to the lack of punctuation 
I already thought it was weird that there’s no quotation marks for direct speech.
Imelda’s story is really sad though and I sympathize with her but also not? She hasn’t had it easy with Frank dying and everything, but she’s blind to the fact that her fighting with Dickie is probably causing Cass to act out and she’s likely not totally innocent in the garage thing either. She could be a little more supportive of her family given that she chose to marry Dickie after all and she doesn’t seem to have a great relationship with Cass and PJ. Idk, this part was hard to get through in more than one way||
sterile crown
Oh the next part has shorter chapters and punctuation lovely
digital anvil
Oh the next part has shorter chapters and punctuation <:kekcry:12693039934110474...
As a treat
sterile crown
Part 4 - The Clearing
||This was the saddest part so far. Everything in it made my heart ache for Dickie and everything he went through. We finally learn where the money for the garage went and one situation is more heartbreaking than the next. What happened with Sean was crazy and Dickie never got the help he deserved after that. Wanting to reconnect or just to be recognized by Willie is so valid and I get the feeling. He’s always been the second choice and in his brother’s shadow; at work, with his dad and with Imelda. She’s ungrateful as fuck and blames him for everything. Dickie’s story is really sad :(||
digital anvil
Part 4 - The Clearing
||This was the saddest part so far. Everything in it made...
Yeah NGL this whole section made me sit like:
https://64.media.tumblr.com/587d5bb09092ab0abb06f9affdd63b37/02c746e3a044f132-b4/s540x810/fb7d8fb879c2099e888039fc54e601b3064c20fb.jpg
sterile crown
trying to finish this misery today
sterile crown
||i honestly don't even know how to start this because i feel like i'm not worthy.||
|| > "It is for love. You are doing this for love."||
||this sentence made me feel so many things. i loved so many things about this book - the writing, the characters, the ending and how we went from long, slow chapters to shorter, rapid ones. it made me feel like everything was speeding up like a heartbeat. probably matched mine while i was reading the last chapter.
i won't lie, many parts were hard to get through, especially imelda's chapters because the lack of punctuation was hard to read, but i applaud the stylistic choice.
the characters are so fleshed out, i felt for every single one no matter how infuriating their choices were. i had a bad feeling about ethan, but i was also holding out hope that things would turn out okay for pj because he is way too young for this tragedy. it seems like everyone was gradually losing it. i wanted things to be okay so badly for all of them really, but dickie's chapter really did me in and made me sadder than the others. i just want to give them all a hug
i want to believe that dickie didn't shoot his own kids in the end and i like how we're left guessing. i do think it's implied that he did shoot them though simply because how this book went overall and no one was able to catch a break. so why should dickie who inarguably got the shortest end of the stick in all of this?
the plot really fell into place with augustina and ryszard. i thought he had made her up as an excuse to blackmail dickie, but it fell into place so perfectly.||
||in short, i loved it. it doesn't happen often that a book leaves me emotionally void and sad but this one managed it. it's going on the "books that i think about at least once a week" list which isn't very big. it doesn't take much to impress me, but it takes a lot for a book to evoke these emotions in me and stay with me||
rustic holly
I want to read this, but I might have to leave this one too. Sorry Vaude 
crimson oceanBOT
rustic holly
No Haikubot.. you should stay
digital anvil
I want to read this, but I might have to leave this one too. Sorry Vaude <:blobS...
That's okay Lemondrop!
glossy path
Welcome to the Buddy Read for The Bee Sting by Paul Murray!
This is a long-term ...
Just started this! I first heard about it when it got posted as a BR request. I should be done within a week or so. A small misfortune, hmmm. My favorite ankle boots have developed holes and now rainwater gets into them where before it didn't.
Chapter 1: That was a kind of hectic chapter, but it felt coherent because|| it kept its focus on Cass and her relationship with Elaine. I felt bad for Cass when Elaine got jealous over Cass's poem being read in class and started behaving like an absolute bully. Mean girls have a certain unique capacity to absolutely wound someone.||
glossy path
Finished part one. I really like ||Cass as a POV character. Both she and Elaine are dealing with family trauma and pain that they have no real way of making sense of, and they feel like complicated and true-to-life kind of messed up teenage girls. In the second chapter I was really worried for them, because they were not behaving prudently and were putting themselves in real danger. But they got lucky and things worked out alright, except for Cass's exam which she seemingly fails.||
glossy path
Finished part two. This book ||is stressing me out /lh. Ethan is definitely not a real boy and I sincerely hope PJ does not try to go stay with him. Also, I'm scared for what might happen to PJ if Ears gets his hands on him. Really, things are kind of spiraling out of control here and I'm not optimistic for this family. Still really not sure where this book is going or how it will resolve. I hope we get more quotation marks around dialogue in the next sections haha||
glossy path
About halfway through chapter II in part 3. This is a very long chapter, holy. We're starting to ||get some backstory for the family, which is nice, I feel like we're learning a bit about how things came to be as they are. The irony of my last post wanting more punctuation and then getting almost none in this section is not lost on me haha. I really don't care for that stylistic choice, but I'm trying to reflect on why the author might have chosen to do that. Is he trying to emphasize her rough upbringing? Is he just trying to make the text on the page look different for each character? I'm honestly not sure what it accomplishes.||
Also, ||thank goodness for Rose because I was really sitting here like "am I really going to have to just read this gang rape?" But luckily it didn't come to that.||
digital anvil
Also, ||thank goodness for Rose because I was really sitting here like "am I rea...
Ah no, if that happened I would have strongly added it to a TW message. 🫂 The only issue with going in a bit blind is that you never know what's coming 
glossy path
Ah no, if that happened I would have strongly added it to a TW message. 🫂 The o...
No, I appreciate that! I thought ||it might cut away or something if the event did continue. Rose with the redirect though haha.||
glossy path
I have about five and a half hours of flying today so I will have lots of time to read this!
glossy path
Finished part 3. What strikes me the most about this book ||is that each character viewed through the eyes of the other characters is flawed and frustrating, yet when we get that character's perspective we start to empathize with them and understand their behavior. It really is the case of these four people just hurting and struggling and not knowing how to reach one another, so they are entirely unknown and unknowable to one another.||
But then ||when we're given their perspective, we come to empathize with them more and see the other characters' behaviour through their eyes, which continually reframes the story. It's neat.||
Now please, ||let this next section have punctuation in it||
digital anvil
Now please, ||let this next section have punctuation in it||
Yeah this is one of my bigger complaints, it suddenly shifted into ||Cormac McCarthy|| mode
noble torrent
I really need to start this bad boy, didn't realise not that much time left. Will start hopefully today if not, this weekend for sure. High hopes for this one!
noble torrent
Only a few pages in but I like the writing a lot, really addictive? 👀
glossy path
Totally, it's quite gripping
noble torrent
Part 1 Really enjoyed it! ||The small-town setting and its oppressive nature really came through, especially with the gossip and judgment surrounding Cass’s family. Cass’s relationship with Elaine was so complicated—her unspoken feelings added so much tension, especially with the dynamic of jealousy and admiration. The scenes with Richard were so unsettling, particularly his manipulative behaviour in the woods. Cass’s struggle to balance her feelings, school, and family’s financial problems felt so real. The tension between Cass and her dad really stood out too; their argument was heartbreaking. I wonder what is this mystery around the whole wedding and uncle. I wonder if we get more about poetry?|| Couldn’t stop reading—it’s so well-written and gripping!
glossy path
Finished part 4. ||Dickie is truly the most tragically written idiot of all time. The complexities of shame and guilt are really well explored in this section, and I both feel bad for this character and want to shake him haha. ||
I'm still not really sure what this book is building to but I am along for the ride and thoroughly enjoying myself.
digital anvil
Finished part 4. ||Dickie is truly the most tragically written idiot of all time...
||YES, GOD. I had so many feelings about Dickie. 
||
glossy path
||YES, GOD. I had so many feelings about Dickie. <a:c_cry:827401998265614387> ||
me too! ||I keep swinging back and forth between "the weight of shame is really sad and he's a tragic character" and "this man is making all of the worst decisions and I can't with him"||
digital anvil
me too! ||I keep swinging back and forth between "the weight of shame is really ...
||Big, "this man is putting an oil fire out with WATER' vibe ||
glossy path
Part 5 Chapter 2: ||Now we're using second person? I reeeeally like this book but I do kind of feel like it's using all the cliche highbrow fiction strategies, the no punctuation, the shifting povs, and now the second person. It's kind of just checking the boxes. ||
That aside, ||Cass is gay and doesn't know that her dad is also gay, and they might be able to support one another and break down some of those barriers of secrets and shame, but instead they're doing whatever the opposite of that is haha. ||
glossy path
oooh boy that last section really pops off. I'm finished the book!|| Not sure how I feel about that ending. It's implied that PJ and/or Cass get shot, but I always struggle with books that don't tell us what happens next. The irony of that last line, "You're doing this for love," is really something. ||
There are a couple themes I need to reflect on a little bit. The main one is ||climate change/nature, and the way that plays in to this story about a family that's lost its way. What does the woods represent here? Why does it matter that the final section of the book takes place in the woods, and that each of the characters makes use of the shed in the woods at some point as a kind of escape? Is it that, in their attempting to escape, their troubles eventually come to them and find them in the woods? I'll think further||
noble torrent
Part 2 ||This book is raising my stress level for sure. LIKE MY POOR NERVES HELLO. I feel so bad for PJ with everything going on. Ears is unhinged and scary, why would you threaten a boy instead who did nothing wrong, disgusting. Ethan is for sure not a boy, just thinking if it's someone we know already? That is even more disturbing. For now I am happy PJ didn't go to him... Don't like this Victor guy. And this abandoned house in the woods with the ex-maid(?) and sex scene with this "Nazi" guy what is even going on. Dickie was stressed when they asked for Ryszard/Richard so something is happening there too. I have no clue what is going on sometimes, in a good way||
noble torrent
Now I know what is everyone's problem with Part 3
noble torrent
Part 3 Chapter II || Wow this Imelda’s backstory was so incredibly fleshed out. I don’t like her and at the same time I feel sad for her ||
noble torrent
Part 3 ||added so much depth to Imelda’s character. Her traumatic past with an abusive father and her complicated relationship with beauty made her story both heartbreaking and fascinating. Maurice’s arrival and the tension around saving the family business heightened the stakes, especially with the revelations about Ryszard and the missing money. I feel like Dickie is really hiding something-like he knows something, maybe even about Ryszard, but doesn’t want to say. I’m so glad Cass passed. I would’ve been so sad if those weeks had completely ruined her future. Rose is such an interesting character-I love the sparkle of mysticism and magic she brings. And what did she mean by Cass mustn’t come back? I really enjoyed this part, it revealed so much. Would be better if it had a bit more commas and periods, but reading physical + listening to audiobook helped me a lot ||
I was afraid I would be reading this book for longer than a week, considering how long it is, but surprisingly, it’s going pretty well. It’s gripping!
noble torrent
Part 4 Chapter I and II ||I am sorry Dickie but so far you are the most boring and uninteresting character and I hope you have something better to show in this Part ||
noble torrent
I kinda regret my words
noble torrent
Part 4 ||This part really changed my perspective on Dickie. At first, I found him the least interesting character, especially in Chapters I and II, where he seemed dull compared to everyone else. But by Chapters III and later, I started to regret my words-his backstory and struggles added so much depth. So incredibly sad! His time at Trinity, his relationship with Willie, and the guilt he carries over Frank’s death made him so much more complex. The contrast between his intellectual, sensitive side and the harsh expectations of his family and community was heartbreaking. I also found his obsession with the bunker and survivalist projects fascinating, like there is something more about that? This part surprised me, and Dickie turned out to be a much richer character than I initially thought for sure. But I can't stop feeling the saddest for Willie actually. Oh and the scenes with Ryszard... And on top of that there was that one scene that implied he did something to his brother, was it partly his fault he died? Or just guilt and regret speaking through. I still cannot imagine where this is all going and how this will end||
I will do everything to finish this one today 
noble torrent
Beginning of Part 5 ||I am surprisingly okay with "you" narrator here, actually didn't notice it at the very beginning for some time, lol. Did I get close to those characters so much 
||
digital anvil
noble torrent
Finished
noble torrent
4.25/5 from me. I am sad and angry because if not the ending I would rate it higher. ||That intentionally ambiguous vibe just left me feeling frustrated after such a long build-up. Like, really, after so many things we went through together, I should have gotten some closure! The pacing was slightly uneven: too slow at the start (even though gripping), with some moments dragging. But once it picked up, I couldn’t stop reading. What really shines are the characters. Every single one is so fleshed out and layered. Dickie’s guilt and repressed desires gave him surprising depth, especially after I initially found him boring. Imelda’s trauma - those flashbacks were gut-wrenching and had me on edge, like I was about to have a panic attack. Cass’s identity crisis was so relatable, especially with her struggles to figure out who she is and what she wants. PJ’s loneliness and that terrifying situation with Ethan? Absolutely haunting. The way personal tragedies and unresolved issues are woven into the family drama is like really good. They’re tangled together in ways that make the family’s dynamic feel so real. The financial collapse, for instance, isn’t just a backdrop. It amplifies their fractures and forces them to face buried truths and growing tensions. Even the “random” themes, like climate change, somehow felt impactful and tied into the story’s tone of collapse and survival. And the title? The nonexistent bee sting makes you wonder: are all family mythologies built on stories that hide painful truths?
It’s not perfect, but it’s gripping, emotional, and heavy—exactly what I love in a book!
“That is what love is. It is bigger than facts. It is bigger than the sum of what you have done.”
“Here’s a fact about the universe, maybe the number one fact: it’s impossible to comprehend how much it doesn’t care about us. It’s not just that it doesn’t care about Life. It doesn’t even care about matter. Everything we think of as everything…that’s only a miniscule fraction of the universe.”
“Yet isn’t it possible that from this tragedy something good could still come?”
“So many of the bad things that happen in the world come from people pretending to be something they’re not.”
“You couldn’t protect the people you loved – that was the lesson of history, and it struck him therefore that to love someone meant to be opened up to a radically heightened level of suffering.”||
glossy path
4.25/5 from me. I am sad and angry because if not the ending I would rate it hig...
Great review! I totally agree with your points here. It's been fun reading your posts as you worked through this book.
swift stirrup
starting it now
graceful flame
me right now with this book
noble torrent
When BR ends tomorrow and you still have ~600 pages to read POV
noble torrent
I am here cheering 
digital anvil
Is this subtle foreshadowing that we need an extension
Because real talk, I thought it ended on the 31st 
graceful flame
i wouldnt complain about an extension
graceful flame
@swift stirrup might need one too but im not sure
swift stirrup
i do need one but was hesitating to request for one lol
i started reading but then forgot about it so I'm still on the Sylvias section. it took me a bit to adjust to the narrator's accent
digital anvil
I'm happy to do it, I'll extend it out to the 31st so I can end all my BRs on the same day 
karmic silo
BR extended!
<t:1725965460:D> - <t:1735645860:D>
slow geyserBOT
Ongoing BuddyRead
slow geyserBOT
@digital anvil,@glossy path,@graceful flame,@noble torrent,@sterile crown,@dusk harbor,@outer ermine,@elfin bramble,@swift stirrup,@twin iron
10 days left guys! How are we feeling? It's a chunky book but if you're still reading, you can definitely make it!!! (think of the points!)
I'll post some end of BR questions about the plot itself but I'm going to ask a kind of general question that I think is relevant to this kind of book:
slow geyserBOT
10 days left guys! How are we feeling? It's a chunky book but if you're still re...
noble torrent
10 days left guys! How are we feeling? It's a chunky book but if you're still re...
Books definitely affect my mental state, especially ones like this that are heavy or emotional. I don’t fully disconnect, I tend to carry the mood or themes with me for a bit. But at the same time I can usually shake it off if I need to. It’s more about whether the book hits something personal. So it’s not like I’m fully suffering, lol. They just make me think and feel a bit melancholic, and that’s something I actually like and appreciate.
elfin bramble
I'll start this tonight or tomorrow. I obviously won't finish in time, but I mostly do buddy reads so I have a place for my thoughts, I'll keep up with the thread until I'm done
digital anvil
I'll start this tonight or tomorrow. I obviously won't finish in time, but I mos...
I can extend it if that's helpful!
elfin bramble
Partway through chapter 1 ||I can't help but feel sorry for Cass in her friendship with Elaine. It still seems like she is being used in some way, even if Elaine's obsession with Imelda is done. ||
elfin bramble
I can extend it if that's helpful!
Even if I'm the only one who needs it?
outer ermine
I haven't been on here in a hot second but I came back and i realized i've already started this book !!
digital anvil
I can see where we're at in a few days and extend it if we need to 
digital anvil
I haven't been on here in a hot second but I came back and i realized i've alrea...
Yay!!! Good to see you liyana!
outer ermine
Part I: Sylvia's
||UGHHH i hate Elaine, she's truly such a horrible friend and influence to Cass. ||
Part II: Wolf's Lair
|| It's so saddening to see a 12 year old carrying all the family's worries. PJ really internalizes everything Imelda and Cass say to him and it is devastating to read. ||
Part 3: The Widow Bride
|| Wow, how does this book break my heart more?? Imelda's upbringing is so incredibly traumatic, and then she loses Frank and marries Dickie?? I can't
I want to like Imelda because of everything in this chapter but the lack of care for her children in the last chapter stops me entirely. I haven't read the last bit of this chapter so maybe I'll change my mind(?) ||
elfin bramble
Finished Part 1 ||I never lost the impression that Elaine was using Cass in some way. She was at least an inconsistent friend. And seeing as their friendship didn't start until secondary school, when they were old enough to be doing science labs with iodine, and Cass never made any mention of any other friends, I wonder if she was a bit like Sarah Jane and on her own, and that's why she latched on so hard to Elaine. I agree with Rowan, that Elaine doesn't care about Cass. When she got the invitation from Sarah Jane to go fill out applications and watch a movie, I found myself flipping ahead and rooting for her to go. I don't think Dickie's business being stable would have made any difference; she was in Elaine's orbit no matter what. ||
elfin bramble
Finished Wolf's Lair. ||I'm so glad PJ realized he might be being catfished. I was so worried when he looked like he was going to go through with his runaway plan. He seems like a sweet kid, and it's rough that his better friends seem to be abandoning him, his parents have left him feeling insecure about his place in the family, and the only person offering him more positive support is likely a predator. I wonder what Cass saw on her phone during the car ride to the dinner, and I wonder what Dickie has going on below the surface too, particularly after his episode in the car. ||
elfin bramble
Finished the Widow Bride. ||I adapted to the lack of full stops quite quickly. Sometimes had to go back and reread something, but that was the case for the lack of quotation marks in earlier parts too. I like how it blurs the line between internal and spoken dialogue.
Imelda was certainly given more depth. I feel for her, with the loss of Frank, and considering she went through with the wedding out of a desperate attempt to see Frank again, I wonder if she ever loved Dickie. But her more despicable behavior from earlier parts (yelling at Dickie, snapping at PJ, hoarding consumer goods) we don't see as much in her part, so we still don't get to see her thinking behind it, her thought process in those specific moments. ||
I am only a little bit into The Clearing but ||given Rose's prophecy in the last part, I am very worried about what will happen||
elfin bramble
Finished The Clearing ||I feel bad for Dickie too. I guess it was a completely loveless marriage. I do think he made an error in judgement with the mechanic, right from the first cat converter thefts. And I wish he'd leave off with the prepping. He's been given an opportunity, losing the garage, but doesn't seem about to do anything with it.
I'm curious to see more of Big Mike. He's oscillated between conniving and sincere, and I want to see where that goes||
digital anvil
[I might not do an official extend but I'm happy to wait a little past the end date before submitting the report, you guys are killing it!!!]
swift stirrup
i was listening in the train today and I've made a lot of progress 
I'll share my thoughts when I get wifi 
my connection keeps breaking
elfin bramble
Finished. Certainly didn't expect to finish on time, but it's a surprisingly fast and gripping read. ||Kind of a stressful ending. I'll need to collect my thoughts before commenting more||
elfin bramble
I don't really have a lot of extra thoughts on the ending. ||I guess this is in line with tragedy as a genre, with all the main characters reaching as best they can to do their best and the worst thing happens. It was well foreshadowed, with Rose's prophecy, and with Cass playing the red squirrel as a kid, with Dickie asking Victor how to tell the difference between Grey and red squirrels in the infrascope. ||
swift stirrup
halfway through the Widow Bride. || this book is kinda intense - going from cass's struggle to pj's struggle to imelda's now. It's devastating how they're all under the same roof yet living in a different world facing different traumas||
I'll finish it by tomorrow 🙇🏼♀️
outer ermine
The clearing ||This entire section was the hardest to get through. For every other character, i've been able to see some sort of hope in their lives but for Dickie, everything somehow keeps getting worse?
I listened to this whole part staring at a wall with my mouth agape because truly, every subchapter was more tragic than the last. Dickie's whole story is just like the well he built. He dug his hole deeper and deeper, and finally when there is a glimmer of hope, it gives him e. coli.
I keep oscillating between feeling bad for him and then wanting to shake some sense into him. Because tell me why, everytime he has to make a decision, he somehow always chooses the worst path "forward" 😭 ||
swift stirrup
the widow bride II part 3: ||there's so many parallels between Imelda and her brother Lara with Cass and PJ. Same family but there's so much distance between them. Their drama is only creating more distance. PJ looked upto Cass the way Lara looked upto Imelda ||
outer ermine
finished with 3 mins to midnight !!
All i can say is i'm definitely going to need to sleep on this to collect my thoughts
digital anvil
Yay! Don't worry guys, carry on! I'm happy to give a few days for final thoughts and wrap ups 
outer ermine
Final thoughts
||Overall, I think in all aspects this book was great BUT it didn't feel enjoyable to read at all. Dickie's anxiety was written so well that I went to sleep with my heart racing. The last few chapters were tough to get though because you could see just how bad it was going to get. I felt horrible for each of the characters throughout but I felt the most for PJ. All of the traumas faced by Cass, Imelda and Dickie end up being the reason for PJ feeling neglected and then facing his own traumas. The cycle of trauma is always difficult to read about but because this was written in such a nuanced way, I was impacted more. That said, the ending confused me more than it did impact me. I'm not a big fan of an unnecessary ambiguous ending and that's what it felt like here. Tbh I don't think it was the right ending at all but maybe I'm missing something. At the moment, I'm going to hold off on rating this book until I can look at it a bit more objectively and not based on how anxious it made me feel ||
swift stirrup
Ok i had 3ish hours left of the audiobook and i finally managed to finish it.|| I kinda cheated and marked this as finished on storygraph so it'd be included in my 2024 stats cause i had crossed 22 hours out of 26h 10 min on 31st dec The last section was INTENSE. The ending holy shit was a full circle moment to the man who kills his family at the start of the book The pov shift from 3rd person to 2nd was random but it felt like a play being narrated especially in part 3 of the Age of Loneliness where there was no clear indication whether this was Cass/Imelda/PJ/Dickie’s pov.
I read some of the comments here about the lack of punctuation which i didn't really get until i read preview chapters. NGL I didn’t understand the reasoning behind that, and it also reminded me of The Road. One parallel i can draw from both books were that this was apocalyptic too - a personal apocalypse, a tragedy, a slow and inevitable doom that started way before the recession. Started before Frank's death too. Rose's prophecy was wrong tho. There were two ghosts at the wedding. I love complex characters, and this book gave them and some more. I could only sympathize with them and feel for them as they were got more entangled in their trauma and faced their own demons - if only they talked instead of running away from each other.
You only have to trust in the people who love you, he says. You only have to open your heart up to love.
The normality of the family crashed like the Wall Street. It was like a stray thread that unraveled the whole garment. ||
1/2
sterile crown
Makes me so happy that so many people decided to pick this up
swift stirrup
2/2 a lil tmi but - ||My family went through a rough phase a few years ago and it felt so unpleasant and uncomfortable having experienced Cass's fears & anxiety. She started isolating, despising her family, distancing from her friends and mourning her life by drinking away. But the most uncomfortable part was reading PJ’s struggle and being left emotionally abandoned - losing his family members to their own struggles, losing friendships (getting bullied too). When he said Cass was his best friend and now she's just a bitch and he's glad she's leaving soon - that twisted my heart. I wondered if that was something my brother felt too before :(( I thought Dickie was boring and just a loser before reading his part. My heart twisted for him. Living in your brother's shadow vs living as a ghost in ur brother's relationship Frank and Dickie’s relationship was greatly affected by Maurice.
”You only have to trust in the people who love you, he says. You only have to open your heart up to love.”
Murray writing about the environment and climate change didn't really come off as random either. Cass had met Dickie’s past, Willie, in college. She followed him during her climate phase. Dickie was obsessed with the bunker to protect his family during the end of world scenarios. Floods that boosted the mechanic business again, floods that leaked their homes, floods that brought Ryszard in his life. Storm at the end of the book Dickie hated hurting anyone but knew he must get rid of invasive species of squirrels. It’s bleak but it reflects their reality.
”Loneliness can make people do terrible things, he says. When you set down on this road, you never thought for an instant you would be this lonely, did you?”
I think the name of the book was so fitting for how i felt when reading this. What you thought would be a sting, would turn out to be a punch.
”It is for love. You are doing this for love.”
||
sterile crown
That last sentence gave me the shivers 
swift stirrup
i stood rooted in spot while to listening that part and I thought there would be more next. But the credits started rolling
slow geyserBOT
@digital anvil,@glossy path,@graceful flame,@noble torrent,@sterile crown,@outer ermine,@elfin bramble,@swift stirrup,@twin iron
Sorry about taking so long to get to this! I wanted to take some time to read everyone's final thoughts! I'm legitimately so proud that so many of you guys read this book with me!
It wasn't an easy read for sure but reading your annotations were awesome (〃´𓎟`〃)
In any case to close off, in the future would anyone be interested in looking at some of Paul Murray's older work?
slow geyserBOT
Sorry about taking so long to get to this! I wanted to take some time to read ev...
digital anvil
Finished: Vaude, Spinch, TheLastPage, Intro, Liyana3, Jac, Mimosa
If I missed anyone definitely ping me! I'm gonna submit the report!
swift stirrup
thank you for waiting I've come across good reviews about Skippy Dies when reading reviews about The Bee Sting so i wanna check that out!!
digital anvil
thank you for waiting <:Uwu:819615260792848384> I've come across good reviews ab...
SAME, that's why I wanna gauge interest - a ton of people had really good things to say about it and I loved his writing style in this.
noble torrent
That is not helping my #1322543858944577657 if I buy another book... Yep, I am interested in this one too
swift stirrup
That is not helping my <#1322543858944577657> if I buy another book... Yep, I am...
i just bought two more books what's one more lol /hj
glossy path
I would definitely read Skippy Dies, I thoroughly enjoyed this and would be interested to read more by this author. Thanks for hosting Vaude, I wouldn't have read this otherwise
noble torrent
Thank you for hosting Vaude, glad at least this book is off my list so a bit less for physical TBR tackle for 2025 
sterile crown
thank you for hosting!! i loved it
outer ermine
Thanks for hosting Vaude ❤️
