It’s a rare and special thing for me to be entranced by a novel from the very first sentence, but in Little Bee, Chris Cleave does just that.

Little Bee, as she calls herself, is a 16-year-old orphan from a Nigerian village. When we first meet her, she is living in a British detention center for immigrants and refugees, about to be released after being locked up for two years. Her voice, full of dark humor and deep sorrow, evokes feelings of both sympathy and admiration.  Knowing only two people in England, Andrew and Sara, from a fateful encounter on a Nigerian beach, Little Bee sets out to find them and so continues along a path that was set before her two years ago, but one that began long before that day. 

Sarah is the other narrator of the book, a woman whose life has also taken unexpected and unwanted turns. Her young son, Charlie, insists on dressing and acting like Batman, and sees everyone as either “goodies” or “baddies.” His simple worldview underscores the naïveté of the adults of the book, who are unaware of the inherent ignorance of their actions and the inevitable consequences.

It is Charlie on whom so much of this book pivots and the most vital scenes with him felt a bit too contrived for my liking, but that small detraction from my enjoyment of the book doesn’t diminish its power. Little Bee is brutal, shocking and tragic. It’s a story about the how one person’s decisions can ripple-effect across people and continents, how even the best of intentions can have devastating consequences, and the dark side of living in a globalized world. The  book is riveting and works on many levels, although the way in which Cleave chose to bring the story to a close left me somewhat unsatisfied.