REVIEW:

While skimming a few early reviews once I was midway through Miss Benson’s Beetle, I saw several trigger warnings for animal abuse. ALERT, ALERT! Even though that would have made me pass entirely on the novel had I known it beforehand, I decided to keep going hoping it wasn’t too horrible. For my fellow tenderhearted friends… ***potential spoiler***… a dog is killed.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, Miss Benson’s Beetle is a quirky and poignant story about two women - one middle aged and frumpy, the other beautiful and uneducated - who go on an unlikely quest to locate a mythical beetle that may or may not exist. It’s such a well-drawn portrait of unique characters and the friendship that blooms from their adventure that it’s hard not to hope someone turns it into a movie or limited series one day.

If you read the animal abuse spoiler above, then you know there’s a bit of salt mixed in with this sweet story. Author Rachel Joyce doesn’t shy away from the hard moments, so readers should anticipate a few lumps in their throats.

I chose to listen to the audiobook as soon as I saw the narrator is the great Juliet Stevenson. In retrospect, I wish I had read a print copy. Occasionally with audio I’ll feel sure that I would not be interpreting a character the same way as the narrator, and that was the case here with the beautiful Enid. This is also typically a sign to me that a novel would make for a great book club discussion, since clearly there are different ways to view the characters. Barnes & Noble chose it as their Nov. 2020 B&N Reads Fiction Pick, so it seems they agree.

Already read Miss Benson’s Beetle and looking for a great resource for your book club’s discussion? Click the image below the publisher synopsis for a link to their Book Club Kit!

PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:

She's going too far to go it alone.

It is 1950. London is still reeling from World War II, and Margery Benson, a schoolteacher and spinster, is trying to get through life, surviving on scraps. One day, she reaches her breaking point, abandoning her job and small existence to set out on an expedition to the other side of the world in search of her childhood obsession: an insect that may or may not exist--the golden beetle of New Caledonia. When she advertises for an assistant to accompany her, the woman she ends up with is the last person she had in mind. Fun-loving Enid Pretty in her tight-fitting pink suit and pom-pom sandals seems to attract trouble wherever she goes. But together these two British women find themselves drawn into a cross-ocean adventure that exceeds all expectations and delivers something neither of them expected to find: the transformative power of friendship.