The Bees - Laline Paull

I rated this book 9/10

The Handmaid's Tale meets The Hunger Games in this brilliantly imagined debut set in an ancient culture where only the queen may breed and deformity means death.

Thrilling, suspenseful and spectacularly imaginative, The Bees gives us a dazzling young heroine and will change forever the way you look at the world outside your window.

Escape into a bizarre dystopian thriller based entirely on the life cycle of a bee. Flora is born a sanitation worker, the lowest on the hierarchy within the hive. This beautifully written novel follows her advance through the ranks. It's strange; unlike anything I've read before - such a simple idea so well executed.

I like the way that Paull captures the suffocating and claustrophobic feel of the hive, the bees living in such close proximity, as one body made from many. It has a hypnotic feel to it at times, and is easy to draw up the sights and smells that she describes throughout.

I'll admit that it was really weird at first, and I needed a few chapters to get used to the narrative, but soon enough I was absorbed and couldn't put it down. I think that this is set to be a big hit in paperback in the springtime.

Definitely worth a read.