LITTLE BEE (Chris Cleave) - June 21/12

I had extremely high hopes for this book, since I absolutely adored Chris Cleave's debut, Incendiary. But this one, while well written, is simply not terribly interesting for much of the first half. The author presents the dual stories of two women, a British reporter and a Nigerian refugee, that are connected by a horrifying event that we don't learn about until 100 pages in, with this choice making it impossible to really care about either of their stories up to that point. (It doesn't help that the Nigerian's narrative is particularly tedious, with her stay at a detention center, her escape with other girls, etc). Having said that, the book does improve substantially in its final stretch and I'll admit to getting a little choked up when it turned out Sarah had gotten on the plane with Little Bee. (The impressively bleak conclusion, in which Little Bee is seemingly captured and killed by soldiers, is good, too.) But yeah, this mostly feels like a short story that's been padded out to 266 pages. **1/2 out of ****