Penelope (Lo) Marin has always loved to collect beautiful things. Her dad's consulting job means she's grown up moving from one rundown city to the next, and she's learned to cope by collecting (sometimes even stealing) quirky trinkets and souvenirs in each new place—possessions that allow her to feel at least some semblance of home.
But in the year since her brother Oren's death, Lo's hoarding has blossomed into a full-blown, potentially dangerous obsession. She discovers a beautiful, antique butterfly pendant during a routine scour at a weekend flea market, and recognizes it as having been stolen from the home of a recently murdered girl known only as "Sapphire"—a girl just a few years older than Lo. As usual when Lo begins to obsess over something, she can't get the murder out of her mind.
As she attempts to piece together the mysterious "butterfly clues," with the unlikely help of a street artist named Flynt, Lo quickly finds herself caught up in a seedy, violent underworld much closer to home than she ever imagined—a world, she'll ultimately discover, that could hold the key to her brother's tragic death.
I quite enjoyed The Butterfly Clues. It was an good, solid mystery, but, aside from a solid plot, the characters were really what drew me into the book.
Lo has some very serious issues with stealing, OCD and hoarding that seem to be at an all new high after her brother Oren's death the year before. Her mother is non-functioning and, while I think he's trying to hold it together, her father is often absent.
While wondering the streets during the late night hours while in Neverland, Lo is nearly shot by a stray bullet. She finds out later that on that same night a girl, Sapphire, was murdered. Then, when she discovers pieces of the girl's jewelry at the flee market, Lo feels drawn to find out who killed Sapphire.
Along the way, she meets a host of colorful characters who live in the run down area of Neverland. Among them is Flint. She feels drawn to him much in the same way she feels drawn to Sapphire, but as she meets danger at every corner, it becomes increasingly difficult to know who to trust.
The story had quite a few twists and turns along the way. I did also enjoy that, instead of the story focusing solely on the mystery of Sapphire's murder, there were several things happening with the plot, involving school and her home life. It helped to keep the story grounded in reality.
Also, I felt quite sympathetic to Lo's need to complete her rituals. It added an interesting layer to her character that I hadn't seen before in other books. I often felt frustrated right along with her when she had to stop and do something (sometimes several times if she messed up or lost count).
My only issue with this, though, is that I'd hoped that at some point her parents would do something to try to get her help. It was clearly something she had been doing for a very long time, and while I could understand her dad's frustrations with it, it seemed like it would be been more productive to actually seek some sort of help instead. That being said, I felt quite endeared to Flint because of his easy acceptance of Lo's rituals.
All in all, I thought it was a very solid novel with great characters and plot.
No comments:
Post a Comment