The Bean Trees provoked a very emotional, negative reaction in me, entirely without intent.
The book overall was written very poorly. It's attempts at humor fell flat at best and were uncomfortably tacky at worst. The struggles presented in the book, while of a legitimate nature, are put together in such a way so as not to inspire any meaningful reflection upon the institutions which uphold the circumstances which can lead to such unfortunate circumstances. The way in which these struggles are dealt with are also not accessible outside of a very specific audience, and even that audience itself could bear to seek more meaningful entertainment.
Most frustrating for me in this book was the nonchalant and dismissive way that child-raising was portrayed. It was heavily romanticized and painted it as a sort of comic, contrived circumstance which the narrator easily lapped up for something which they personally found profound but was not the responsible, adult course of action for the child. The books attempt at oscillation between tongue-in-cheek humor to attempting to convey a serious message to the reader made this even more alarming. The destructive stereotypes about responsibility for children perpetuated by The Bean Trees for me makes it one of my least favorite books of all time.