Lucas Stoffel

The Secret Life of Bees Book Review: Lily Owens is fourteen years old, growing up in Sylvan, South Carolina, in 1964. Her mother is dead — Lily has a fractured memory of the day it happened, a memory that includes a gun and an accident she may have caused. Her father, T. Ray, is cruel in the ordinary, grinding way that some fathers are. Her only ally is Rosaleen, her Black caregiver, who gets arrested and beaten after trying to register to vote. Lily breaks Rosaleen out, and

City of Girls is Elizabeth Gilbert's love letter to women who refuse to apologize for wanting pleasure. Set in 1940s New York City, it follows Vivian Morris, a wealthy young woman who gets kicked out of Vassar for failing her classes and is sent to live with her Aunt Peg, who runs a crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. What follows is a headlong plunge into the world of showgirls, nightclubs, and sexual freedom that Vivian never knew existed.