The Bee Sting

It isn't often that I find a book that is so gripping that I am forced to read and read and read until I finish. This is a literal page-turner and I literally could not put it down. Night out on the town? No thanks, I want to get back to the world of 'The Bee Sting'. It is tense, humorous and everything else they say in the blurb.

No wonder I prefer fiction to theory. I wish I could spin a tale like this and build a world so convincingly real. Even the horrible characters have redeeming features (just… show more.

It was incredibly laugh aloud funny and simultaneously heartbreaking, in the grand tradition of the greatest Irish literature, music and humor.

Paul Murray immediately sucked me in with this story about the Barneses, an Irish family who has been hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis. Murray’s writing is propulsive and gripping, as well as hilarious.

I laughed through much of the book and was blown away by the ending. This novel is one I’ve recommended several times since I first encountered it.  

It keeps you paying attention. Each chapter is told in a distinctly different writing, and grammatical style. This helps keep the pace of the book, since the length can seem intimidating.

I’m actually in the middle of this wonderful and funny novel by Paul Murray, but even early on, I love that he finds humor and heart in the bad decisions and missteps of all the characters in this saga of a very dysfunctional family.

Can all of a family's problems be traced back to one particular moment and one angry bee? Not really, but Murray's characters can't help grappling with that and other silly questions.