The secret life of bees by Sue Monk Kidd

By Laia Esquerrà

The Secret Life of Bees (by Sue Monk Kidd) is a drama set in South Carolina in 1964.

This is a dramatic but beautiful and very realistic story about the difficulties of being a "nigger" or living in their vicinity in that period.

Lily, a 14-year-old white girl, escapes from her horrible father, along with their maid Rosaleen, whom she gets out of jail. The two of them escape to Tiburon, SC, where they move into a black women's house. The Boatwright sisters are very powerful black women who own a bee farm. Lily and Rose work with them and live in the honey house. The Boatwrights have a different religion and they encourage Lily to join them. Lily learns to have faith and finds out what being loved is. One day she tells August (the oldest sister) what a horrible person she is and that she killed her mother when she was four. August comforts her and gives her some of her mother's belongings and tells Lily about her. Her mother had lived there too; August was her nanny.

Lily is the main character of the story; she is a young girl who is very strong and mature. Over the course of the book she gets to know what it is to be loved and will find her love while dealing with a dark past, a horrible father and an unknown mother.

This should not be missed. The book is worth reading, and the movie is also well worth watching. I recommend it because it gives an accessible but very clear vision of the 60s in America and of how black people were treated.

To kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee

By Victoria Englert

To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic of English-language literature. In practically every high school in the USA the students have to read this book. The story takes place in Alabama in 1936. The narrator, six-year-old Scout, lives with her brother Jem and her father Atticus, a lawyer. In the summer, Scout and Jem meet Dill, a boy who comes to visit every summer and the three of them start making up stories about their neighbour, Boo Radley, who has been living in the house in front of them for a long time, although few people ever see him. When the school year starts, Boo starts leaving presents for the two kids in a tree, but the siblings are sad because they never see him.

Meanwhile, Atticus is assigned a case that will turn his and his family's life around. He has to defend Tom Robinson, a black man (who in those years were called “niggers”) who has been accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell. Atticus accepts the case, but everyone in Scout's school starts calling her Dad a "nigger-lover", and Scout starts getting into fights to defend her father's reputation.

When the day of the trial comes, Scout, Jem and Dill sneak inside the court house because Atticus doesn't allow them to go. There, Atticus says that Mayella and her father are lying, that Tom did not commit the crime, but in those years people did not like black people so everyone thought he was really guilty.

As Atticus humiliated Bob Ewell, Mayella's father, the latter spits in Atticus' face on the street and swears he will kill him. One night, when Jem and Scout are returning from a Halloween party, Bob Ewell attacks them and breaks Jem's arm. It is then that a man comes and saves them and takes them home. They later find out that the mysterious man is actually Boo Radley, and Scout is fascinated. The sheriff comes and they find out that Bob was killed during the struggle. Atticus says that either Jem or Boo were responsible for the death, but the sheriff, trying to protect them, says that Bob slipped and fell on his knife. Finally Atticus agrees on what happened and they leave it at that.

I am not going to tell you how the story ends, but this is really a book worth reading. What I liked most about this book is that it mixes thriller, comedy and insight to make the perfect book.

Crónica de una muerte anunciada
By Carla Gimeno

This book was written by Gabriel García Marquez in 1981. This is one of the most important books which he has written.

This book has a bit strange tittle because you know how it will end at the beginning, but it has had lot of success for its originality.
The book starts with the murderer of a boy in a village. It's strange because all the village knows that the boy will be murdered, but he doesn't.

While you read the book you can guess why and where the boy will be murdered. The twins will murder him because their sister, who will get married, is not a virgin and she tells them that this boy is the boy she lost the virginity with. The two brothers become mad and they take a knife to kill him. They say it in all the places of the little village and announce it to the villagers.
When they arrive at his home, they kill him in a brutal way.

The book is very original because you know the end, but you don't know why the two brothers want to murder the boy, and through the book you can discover secrets of the twins and the families.

El cuaderno de Noah
By Anastasia Macovei

This story is about two teenegers who fall in love. At first, the girl, Ellie, doesn't like Noah, but then, she falls in love with him. They met in an amusement park. When Noah saw her, he said that she was the most beautiful woman in this world. In those days they were 15 and 16 years old.Noah loves her so much, so he does everything to get her love. Finally, she accepts to go out with him.

Noah and Ellie are from different families. Her family is very rich, but Noah's family is poor. Ellie's parents want a good man for her daughter and they didn't accept their relationship. Ellies and her parents have a big argument, because Ellie's falther wants her to go far. The years pass and Noah writes to Ellie a lot of letters. She never answers to him, because her mother hides them.

14 years later, she decides to get married to a very good man, but a photo makes her to think.
In the newspaper she sees a Noah's photo, and she begins to remember what happened 14 years ago, so she decides to visit Noah. But Ellie doesn't say to Noah that she will get married to another man, and when she says to him, he gets angry and they have an argument.
Finally, Noah and Ellie get married, and have a happy life. When she is 78 years old, doctors find her an illness, she has temporary amnesia. Noah always stays with her, and when he wants she remembers something he tells stories about them. They die together, when Noah goes to Ellie's room.