"Koja (Buddha Boy) incorporates facts and folklore about bees in this spare and haunting novel....Her understated, tightly focused language evokes vivid scenes and heady emotions...each line of dialogue, each interaction illuminating struggles that readers face as well." -- Publisher's Weekly, starred review
"Teens who have suffered their own stings will appreciate Koja's honest and hopeful rendering." -- Bulletin for the Center for Children's Books
"Readers will find it hard to pry themselves away from this brilliantly written story . . . A must read for young romantics." -- International Reading Association
"Koja takes the typical teen love triangle and spins it into a layered,
intricate, emotional read. This story is thick like honey, humming with
beautiful imagery and dialogue . . . .
Kissing the Bee is a short but rich
psychological exploration of the intense complexities of friendship and love
in a teen world. A definite choice for reluctant readers looking for
something with a more creative, "emo" slant." -- School Library Journal
"Poetic, realistic, and filled with memorable characters, this spare novel
captures first love's exquisite, earth-shattering joy and the struggle and
thrill that come with claiming one's own life." -- Booklist, starred review
"Kissing The Bee is an amazingly straight-forward novel that will draw you in and keep you reading from the first page to the last. The main character is as true as she is flawed; a character that anybody who's ever loved can identify with." -- TeensReadToo.com, starred review
"Listen up high school seniors! This novel is for you....A treat for high
school students, especially seniors, before you get into school assignments
that are far less fun to read." -- Detroit Free Press (student intern review)
"[The] interplay of Dana and her own feelings drive the story, and her
burgeoning relationship with Emil has an understated passion that will
satisfy diehard romantic readers." -- VOYA
Excerpt from Kissing The Bee
"Avra, wake up....Avra. Hey."
We sat on either side of Avra's bed, ankle deep in T-shirts and ashtrays and crumpled magazines and empty water bottles, each of us tugging on an arm like she was a rag doll, trying to wake her up: "Hey, Sleeping Beauty, we gotta go."
She glared up from under the pillow, sky-blue pillowcase. "Go where?"
"The apiary," I said.
"The what?"
"The bee place," I said to the pillow. "For my project, remember? You said you'd help me take the pictures, you said --"
"No," she said, then said it again, louder, "no. I'm tired, Go without me."
"OK," Emil said, and stood up. Right behind him, hung on the wall, was a picture of the two of them that I'd taken at Harsens Point, out on the ferry dock, enlarged so it was almost life-size; seeing it now was like seeing him in a mirror, a mirror of the present and the past and "Come on, Dana," he said, leading me down the stairs, and as we climbed back into the car "She doesn't do much for you," he said, "does she?"
I shrugged. I wasn't mad; I wasn't even surprised. "You know Avra.'
"Yeah," he said, "I do." As we pulled out of the driveway he adjusted his sunglasses and "She's not usually a very good friend to you," he said. "Is she."
It wasn't a question, but I made it one. "Yeah, she is. She can be when she wants to." Why didn't he already know this about her? "She's your girlfriend. Isn't she?"
"That's different...You two are such opposites." I didn't say anything, he didn't say anything. I turned towards the highway.
"I've got directions. Want to read the map?"
"You assume I can read. That's good. I like that kind of misplaced confidence."
So I drove, and he navigated, from expressway to asphalt to gravel, careful with my mother's car, she let me keep it for the whole day because the trip was for schoolwork but it didn't feel like work, it felt like a
holiday, a skip day, the two of us off together alone. He opened bottles of
water, made jokes about the signs we passed; the wind blew his hair, the sun
turned it gold. I thought of Avra with the pillow over her head and I was
glad, so glad, so guilty and so glad.
