My stepmother was the type of woman who painted the walls in our house eighteen different colors and wore turquoise-encrusted Kokopelli jewelry to show how in tune she was with the local culture. She hung Frida Khalo prints on the bedroom walls and thought that speaking ‘Food Spanish’ to waiters made her nearly fluent. She also compelled my sister and me to read a lot of Tony Hillerman paperbacks and other ‘local literature,’ which I am now almost positive included The Bean Trees. Because after

Marietta Greer has just completed two miracles of her rural Kentucky upbringing: graduating high school and avoiding pregnancy. To celebrate, she jumps in her ’55 Volkswagen bug and rides West, leaving her job at a Kentucky hospital counting platelets to stay true to her plan “to drive out of Pittman County one day and never look back” (11). On the road, she changes her name to Taylor and finds herself in Tucson, Arizona with a broken down car and a Cherokee baby in her arms.Taylor is an honest,...

A gently told story of the power of love, of how the families we make are as important as the ones we're born into. Each of us can make a difference with our compassion.

I have to admit, this book really did a number on me. It was recommended to me from a friend, so my expectations were high, but after the first few chapters I was was not getting into it. The narrator's first-person voice was simple, non-descriptive, and frankly just a bit too naive to handle for an entire novel. But the story was interesting, so I kept going.And the thing is, so does Taylor, the main character. As she charges her way through a haphazard journey to the Southwest, she begins to g...

I quite liked this, though it's obvious that this was Kingsolver's first novel. The main character, Taylor, is unevenly developed--she's too mutable, changing to fit what Kingsolver wants to say or how she wants to say it at various points in the book--and many of the other characters are types, not people, however finely observed. The plotline involving the refugees from Guatemala in particular was a little too anvilicious. And while it's set very definitely in the American South, the novel did...

When I first read this book several years ago, I was terribly impressed by 1) her writing style, which I really like - I wish I could write like that2) the interesting plot of a single girl who had avoided teenage pregnancy through her young life only to end up with someone else's baby3) the relationship she has with her mother, who believes her daughter "hung the moon in the sky" and can absolutely do no wrong. I think it would be wonderful if my daughters came out of their childhoods not pregn...

"But nothing on this earth is guaranteed, when you get right down to it, you know? I've been thinking about that. About how your kids aren't really YOURS, they're just these people that you try to keep an eye on, and hope you'll all grow up someday to like eachother and still be in one piece. What I mean is, everything you get is really just on loan. Does that make sense?""Sure,"I said. "Like library books. Sooner or later they've all got to go back into the nightdrop."I'm trying to get better a...

A young woman leaves home in Kentucky and heads off to establish a new life. Protagonist Marietta has never liked her name, so along her journey she changes her name to Taylor. In Oklahoma, her car breaks down. After repair, she goes to a restaurant, where a Cherokee woman bundles a small child into her car and drives away. The child appears to have been abused. When her car breaks down once again, Taylor and the child land in Tucson, Arizona. She rents a room from Lou Ann Ruiz, also from Kentuc...

Real Rating: 1.5* of fiveI made a huge mistake. I thought this was The Beans of Egypt, Maine. It wasn't...it was the hallucinations of a pregnant and sleep-deprived Kingsolver transmuted to fiction. I daresay its fans would say "art;" I beg to differ.Like the unbearable gynergy of The Mists of Avalon, the fog of womanness that enshrouds this book blocked my view of its merits.

5starsThis is an amazing cast of lovable characters who don't have much other than one another. It proves that "family" doesn't have to be blood related.

I read The Poisonwood Bible a little over a year ago and loved it, so I'm not sure what made me take so long to pick up something else by Kingsolver (maybe that ever-so-long to-be-read list of mine...) I was aware that this was her debut novel and that some readers felt it wasn't as good as her later work, but I was pleasantly surprised. I agree that it doesn't demonstrate quite the same depth and polish as Poisonwood, but it's a bloody good debut and there are clear hints of how sharp and vivid...

ok this sucks. boring. terrible writing. overly schmaltzy. i give up. i give up on barbara kingsolver. i LOVED "the poisonwood bible." one of my favorites. i abhorred "animal, vegetable, miracle." i am one of those people that HAS to finish every book i start, but I couldn't get past page 150. i was hoping that it was just her attempt at nonfiction that failed, but now i can't get page 150 of this either. i'm starting to think "the poisonwood bible" was a fluke. no more barbara for me. no more.

I love Barbara Kingsolver, but I can't believe this book was ever published. 1988 must have been a slow book year. I am being generous with the two stars, and I am only giving it that because there were a number of sections which showcased the excellent writer she would go on to become with experience. The characters are all so flat and undeveloped. Taylor makes no sense and was not likable. I never felt that she bonded with Turtle, always saw her as a burden then suddenly at the end, when she w...

“When I drove over the Pittman line, I made two promises to myself. One I kept, the other I did not.”Marietta Greer, in her early 20’s, left Pittman, Kentucky alone in a 1955 VW bug with no windows, no back seat, and no starter. Her first promise to herself was to get a new name: “I wasn’t crazy about anything I had been called up to that point in life, and this seemed like the time to make a clean break.” Her second promise was to drive west until her car quit running and stay there. When Marie...

I really liked this book. Even more than Poisonwood Bible- which was good in a different way. This book reminds me of Where the Heart Is. It's a quick read- I think you'll like it.

Barbara Kingsolver shot out of the barriers with her first novel – The Bean Trees – and really, has never looked back. There are very few novelists that deliver time after time with high quality, well thought out, interesting themes & character filled books; names that come to mind of people who do fall into this category are such novelists as Margaret Atwood and Jane Austen.The plot is very character driven rather than narrative. It is basically the journey of a young woman discovering herself,...

Barbara Kingsolver’s novel, “The Bean Trees” is fun read. Kingsolver is a superb storyteller. The characters are unique and descriptions make. The story comes alive.It's the story of Marietta a strong young woman from Kentucky who throws everything aside and begins a life changing journey--she just drives. It's a saga of uncertainty that keeps you wondering what’s next. Changes begin: 1) a new name of Taylor. 2) a Cherokee woman leaves a baby in Taylor’s car -- she names her Turtle. 3) she meets...

So many things about this book bugged me.1. Someone abandons a baby in your car and you don't get ahold of the police.2. Someone abandons a baby, in your broken down car, you don't have a home or money or a destination in mind, so you decide to adopt baby.3. You decide to adopt baby, but you spent the next several years being so bewildered by motherhood that you might as well have left baby in the car to be raised by coyotes.4. Americans in general are directly responsible for the torture of inn...

I read The Bean Trees as part of an effort to go back and read the early works of my favorite authors. Barbara Kingsolver is one of my all-time favorites. So I went all the way back to her first novel. And I’m glad I did. It’s hard to believe The Bean Trees is a debut novel.Missy, short for Marietta, later changed to Taylor, heads west from Kentucky in a broken-down ’55 Volkswagen bug. Unlike the other girls in her town, she managed to graduate from high school with good grades and without becom...

This is a character driven novel and if you don’t like the characters, I advise you to set it down, walk away, and read something else. If, however, you are willing to spend a while getting to know the two young women featured, I think you will enjoy The Bean Trees. This is not an action novel—it’s an exploration of the lives of two young women from disadvantaged homes and how they sort out their lives. Who can’t appreciate the desire to get out of Dodge after graduation and see what else the wo...