THe Honey Bus is a poignant memoir of May's fragmented childhood. Her parents divorced when she was just five and she went to live with her grandparents in California. Her mother ceased to function, leaving the care of May and her brother to her grandparents. Meredith found a stalwart supporter and nurturer in her grandfather, He not only taught her much of what she learned about bees, but also life lessons. Although her childhood was motherless, Meredith persevered and found some understanding of why her mother was that way. I'm glad the author found resolution. Reading what had happened to her mother made me empathetic, but it was still not an excuse for being totally worthless as a parent and casting her children aside for others to care for. Thanks goodness Meredith had her grandfather who filled the many voids in her life.

This is a heart-breaking and poignant story about an abused little girl who is saved by her eccentric and very kind grandfather. Using the symbolism of honey bee society, he is her comfort and her teacher as she learns about pain, family, community, love and grief, as she copes with survival and her place in the world.

Fans of The Glass Castle will enjoy The Honey Bus by Meredith May. Meredith as a young child is uprooted by her unstable mother and dragged across the United States to go and stay with her grandparents in California. Her mother is unable to deal with anything and retreats to her bed leaving her children in the hands of her parents. The children basically run wild as Meredith’s grandmother is more worried about the state of her daughter then her grandchildren.
Meredith’s grandfather takes care of bees. He and his equipment are a source of wonder for Meredith as he teaches her that bees are not as scary as she first thinks. The structure of the bee hive and how it operates fascinates Meredith and becomes a substitute for the lack of structure in her own life. The role and importance of the bee sticks with Meredith the rest of her life and she continues to do what she can for bees in San Francisco where she now resides.

This book was sent to me
I immediately became involved, interested, and engrossed in the story.

Little girl (5 yrs old), with a gnawing need for a family. Her parents are separating, so her mom and brother move and squeeze into her grandparent's house. She begins to follow her grandpa everywhere.
Learning at a young age, beehives revolve around the principle of family. By discovering the hidden world of the honeybees, and learning how the honeybee has survived for the last 100 million years. Using that ancient wisdom, learning what her parents could not teach her, she will learn to persevere.

I loved learning of bees myself, good educational information of the honeybee.
I never liked bees- being stung hurts.
With this book, I learned surprisingly powerful information.

The author did a great job of both making facts about honeybees fascinating and conveying the ways in which learning about bee society helped her to find her place in the world as a fully functioning adult even as she was raised by a mother who was mentally and emotionally absent. The relationship between Meredith and her grandpa as well as her learning about the bees was fully fleshed out. I also appreciated the epilogue, learning more about the ways in which humans are killing off bees with pesticides and migratory pollination practices.

I didn't realize this story was a memoir until I was about 75% finished with the book. I was already captivated, but when I realized it was a memoir it became all the more endearing. This one will tear at your heartstrings.

Following the divorce of their parents, Meredith and her brother try to understand and adjust to the next chapter of their lives. They are uprooted from their home in Rhode Island and moved along with their mother to their grandmother and step grandfather's home in California. Their mother has some serious psychological issues and their grandmother is so biased and loyal towards her daughter that other than providing basic needs like food and shelter, their grandmother has little to offer.

Grandpa (my hero) on the other hand, is loving, loyal and dedicated to the children. He is a beekeeper and teaches the children many lessons about life through the lives of the bees. He makes comparisons the children can relate to and is their constant companion and advocate in an otherwise totally dysfunctional family.

I was completely taken with this story and hated to see it end. The writing is wonderful and has you observing bee behavior up close and personal. I learned a ton about bees from this story and am fascinated,
Big thank you to Netgalley and Harlequin/Park Row for the arc in exchange for my honest review. Solid 5 STARS!

I usually never gravitate towards reading memoirs but something hit home when I saw this cover and was intrigued.

I can tell you... I felt so at home in my heart and soul through this book!

I'm so glad that I took a chance on this book because it truly was a beautifully written story about pain, grief, and the power of love despite coming from a dysfunctional family.

Meredith and her brother Matthew grew up in a very dysfunctional family net. Both of Meredith's parents broke up in the beginning resulting in Meredith and her brother moving to California to live with their grandparents. Meredith grew up with the loss of a father figure by her side but soon formed an unbreakable bond with her step grandfather.

Meredith's grandfather was a bee keeper and Meredith soon grew fascinated with her grandfather's stories of bees. Her grandfather used bees and the complexity of nature to help Meredith grow and thrive through her pain as a child. Meredith's mother was extremely absent and emotionally abusive to her growing up as a child into a teenager.

Meredith beautifully interweaves her memoir about the complexity of pain, love, growth, forgiveness, strength, and grief through nature and honeybees. I was blown out of the water with the symbolism and beauty behind these pages.

I truly enjoyed this memoir and Meredith's story of her being saved by honeybees! Powerful and uplifting!!

4.5 honey stars!!

Huge thank you to Netgalley and Harlequin/Park Row for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

Publication date: 4/2/19
Published to Goodreads: 1/20/19

This book is a wonderful story of broken families and how they interact with one another. I truly enjoyed reading about Meredith May and her brother, Mom, Granny, Dad, and Grandpa (Grandpa) was her Step Grandpa.

Meredith was a young girl who was from a broken home and had many problems growing up without her dad. Dad lived n Rhode Island and when Mom and Dad broke up. Mom and the kids, Meredith and Matthew, went to live in California with Mom's Mom and her husband, who they called Grandpa but he was only a Step-Grandpa. But the kids were small and they did not understand that Grandpa was really related to them.

Grandpa was a bee keeper and worked with the bees all the time. He helped Meredith understand what was happening to her through explaining how the bees did things.

He helped her get through school and make friends according to how the bees reacted to each other.
He was a very good man and the children understood this and stayed away from their mom who did not want to raise her own kids.

The book tells a lot about the bees and how they are disappearing and need help to grow and pollenate the plants.

A very good informative book about life, and how to help people interact with each other. I would recommend it to everyone who is in a broken family.

Well written and interesting.

Five Stars!

A beautifully written memoir about Meredith, a child that not only learns to survive a dysfunctional mother, but learns thru the eloquent life of bees and the wisdom of her beekeeping grandfather how to navigate beyond the circumstances she was given. I fell into this book on page one and connected so deeply to Meredith and her Grandpa, that I couldn’t put the book down until I knew where their journey led them. While their personal story captured my heart, the plight of the honey bees gripped my curiosity to the point I needed to re read some of the informational parts to wrap my brain around it all.