Review for Meant to Bee by Storm Shultz

I’m not sure my first instinct would be to raise mysterious bees that are left on the doorstep of my new house. If I did end up doing so, I’d hope to meet the same handsome redhead that the main character here does. Read for one of the prompts for Around the Year 2023, the pun in the title is the main reason I selected this book. Or at least, it’s why I read the blurb which ultimately sold me. The title isn’t just a pun though, it’s a bit of both a promise and a warning.

Many of the plot points in Meant to Bee are derived by either fate or happenstance depending on which school of thought you belong to. The main character faces this obstacle? The universe answers with x, y, or z solution. Things going too well? Here’s this foil in the form of an unexpected ex being in a position of power. While I always struggle a little to stay invested when things seem all too convenient at points in terms of plot, the overall story was cute enough to keep me going.

In terms of the quality of the writing, the voices of the characters, especially the main character, were amazing. Smart, a little jaded, but still sweet, the single mother was determined to make things work for her own sake and that for her daughter’s too. My only issue is that things kind of skirted the line of her not being able to make it without a man in her life. I would have liked a little less knight in shining armor, but it never fully crossed the line into being too much and forcing me to put the book away.

There was a pretty funny continuity error. A relatively large one, made more obvious by the fact the novel was pretty much flawless otherwise. I think the author might have liked one line in particular when describing the main character’s daughter. Enough so that it was forgotten that daughter and father had actually interacted before the scene it takes place in the second time.

Meant to Bee works best as a feel-good romance. The content, despite the struggles of the characters, still strays more toward being on the lighter side. This is made more so by the way many of those hurdles are jumped, largely by chance instead of by intent or agency of the main characters.