Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - The Butterfly Garden

Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison

194 reviews

cc_shelflove's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

My many faces while reading this book: 🤢😵‍💫😭😫🥴🤮😳🫨🤬😣😤😪😷😵

A hard book to review and an even harder book to read! Meet the ‘Butterflies’—young girls who were kidnapped by the Gardener and adorned with magnificent butterfly wings on their backs. There is no sugar coating; the girls are brutally raped, killed, and stored for safekeeping. One of the victims, Maya, recounts her captivity to FBI agents following their discovery of the Garden. Will justice be served? This book was seriously fucked up and I don’t know that I can even stomach the next three (!!!) books, but I’m going to try. I must also mention that although the undertones were incredibly dark, Hutchison’s writing was stellar. Damn. That was a lot. 🤕

Buddy read with my best friend for spooky season. 💞

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lucashearn1's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Finally a good book for book club! This was super solid and I loved the way everything unfolded. Using the interview to switch back and forth was a cool way to approach that.

Definitely lots of yuck, icky, gross moments. Very un-comfy at times. I liked the character of Maya/Inara. She’s flawed but was a super interesting journey and character development as time went on. The relationships between the girls felt very real and we got a villain we can detest.

My biggest gripe comes with the last 20ish pages, I did not vibe with that reveal and I feel like it kinda tainted a big portion of the story. All in all an interesting read.

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kermittuesday's review against another edition

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It just really wasn’t that good. Neither was it bad. I felt so indifferent about it. It was picked for book club and it was not really my kind of book. But I wanted to give it a chance so I spent two days reading a good chunk of it and then decided to give it up.

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stelleisonfire's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

The concept was very intriguing albeit dark and the first half of the book shone. I quite liked the story being told from the interview room and I actually liked Maya’s character. The books starts to flag half way and I wasn’t a fan of the end twist. It almost wasn’t big enough for the themes of the book. Kept me on my toes in the first half but started to lose me in the second.

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mscora77's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

I really like dark. And this book did not disappoint. I read it in 2 days. I was obsessed. I wasn't really feeling the ending, but I see why it made sense to do it that way.

But, unlike other books, I was dreaming of this book and what happened. This book stuck with me, and I'm really liking the story line, regardless of its darkness; I embrace the darkness. And I can't wait to read the rest of the series.

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