Book recommendation: The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver

by Emily

I'd read two of Barbara Kingsolver's books before stumbling on this one. I'd inhaled Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, as well as The Poisonwood Bible, and so when I was at the library a couple of weeks ago, I walked over to the fiction section and browsed through her other works on a whim, which is where I picked up The Bean Trees.

The Bean Trees was Kingsolvers very first novel, a fact that blew me away after I'd finished it. I absolutely LOVED this book. I loved the characters, I loved the setting. I loved the way Kingsolver can make characters seem SO REAL even when they're SO DIFFERENT from any kind of person I've ever met. I got sucked in FAST and I couldn't put it down; I actually stopped in the middle of reading one evening and tweeted that I was reading a book that I was DREADING having to see end. I loved it, beginning to end.

Look, I'm terrible at writing plot summaries, so here's the book description on Amazon.com: "Clear-eyed and spirited, Taylor Greer grew up poor in rural Kentucky with the goals of avoiding pregnancy and getting away. But when she heads west with high hopes and a barely functional car, she meets the human condition head-on. By the time Taylor arrives in Tucson, Arizona, she has acquired a completely unexpected child, a three-year-old American Indian girl named Turtle, and must somehow come to terms with both motherhood and the necessity for putting down roots. Hers is a story about love and friendship, abandonment and belonging, and the discovery of surprising resources in apparently empty places."

And after you finish it, there's a sequel: Pigs in Heaven. I already have it waiting for me on my bookshelf.

[photo credit: www.kingsolver.com]

Comments

[april]

Thanks, I need airplane reading for this weekend and both Bean Trees and Animal, Vegitable, Miracle were on my library's ebook site for immediate download!

[Mandorama]

Love B.K.! Put "Animal Dreams" on your list too. My hands-down fave.

[kayemgi]

The Bean Trees is one of my favorite books ever, along with The Poisonwood Bible. Her most recent, The Lacuna, is also a great read, though it takes a bit longer to get into the story than in the others.