Paper Butterflies Kindle Edition

If one could take a life, a pretty devastating one, but all the more real for all the suffering therein, and distill it such that it took the form of a novel instead, Paper Butterflies would be that book. Not since The Enchanted have I read anything so painful, so upsetting, so hopeless but yet somehow framed in hope. Breathtaking.In truth, I don't recall the last time I read a book that was this intense, this raw, this difficult to get through due to the circumstances surrounding the protagonist, June. However, I want to be clear here that this is in no way due to any fault with the book; it is the book's subject matter that makes it a difficult book to pick up. But pick it up, you SHOULD!From the moment we start reading, we know, we can literally feel, that June is living a terrible nightmare. Her step mom and sister by marriage torture her, and her dad apparently has no clue. Sadly, June is subjected to similar abuse at school. Yet, nowhere does anyone around her think to inquire about her situation.Her abuse began when her dad remarried, when June was only 9 or 10. The book follows June from this point, until her early 20s. It was a thing of awe-inspiring beauty, to watch June grow, to stand beside her as she did her best to cope. It was also maddening, seeing the same missed opportunities for help that she saw. At times, I wanted to scream at some of these "mandated reporters," such as nurses, teachers, etc., etc.Yes, this is a story of how June's entire world failed her again and again and again. And yet it is also a story about June's ceaseless fight to hold onto her sanity throughout, and to embrace joy wherever she caught even the slightest glimpse of its existence. It's a story of human nature, of the past repeating itself, time and again, until something happens to break that cycle. It questions our assumptions. It tests us, setting us up to feel this way or that about a character, then makes us reevaluate the criteria we utilize in making such decisions about people: whom to like, whom to dislike; who is basically GOOD, and who is NOT; ARE some people BORN evil? Or are we in fact all born GOOD?? Do we ever truly know ANYONE???I remember, about a week ago, this book came through my feed. Someone had posted that this book was the most depressing story they've ever read. Well, that was enough to spark my interest. And I am so grateful that I found this compellingly readable, heartbreaking, and inspiring novel. I finished it in only 3 sittings.Clearly, this novel threw me for a loop. It managed to keep surprising me to the very last page. Terrifically executed. Such perfect economy with words. Everything was evoked so vividly, I felt present in the story. An intense read, to be sure.HIGHLY recommended.However, it's not for everyone. In these gory days, there's nothing in here you've not seen before, I'm guessing, however the scenes where June was victimized did become increasingly difficult to read. Not so much because of explicit language ... these people were just CRUEL. OVER AND OVER. I liked June more with every page I read, so that contributed as well. If child abuse is your RAGE button, this may not be the book for you.

This is the saddest book I've ever read, bar none. I never cry over books but I certainly did cry over this one. Trigger warnings are in order for child abuse. But a great book, brilliant writing.

One of the best written YA books I have read in a long time and as a high school reading teacher, I read a lot of YA lit. The story is gripping and you are cheering her all the way through. I promise you won’t regret it.

I'm only half way through this, wish I had a decent amount of time to just sit in one session to finish. Survival mode!

Warning: only read if you want to be thoroughly depressed. The characters in this book just didn't resonate with me. There was an interesting twist but overall I didn't enjoy this book.

Amazingly well written. Heartbreaking

Very easy read but a very touching story.

When I received Paper Butterflies in the mail, I was excited for two reasons. The first? THIS GIRL GOT HER REVIEW OF SEED INTO THE BOOK! I was over the moon when I found out about it and was so excited when I finally saw it in physical form! Anyway, other than that, the second reason was because I really loved Seed. I'm still hoping there's a sequel, but I was definitely eager to read Paper Butterflies. So after months of putting it off, I finally buckled down and read Lisa Heathfield's second book.This book wrecked me.Paper Butterflies was both beautiful and absolutely devastating. By the end of the book my heart was probably in a million little pieces.❝Kathleen puts another slice on my plate. I look up at her and she nods at me. Maybe this is the day she changes. Maybe she'll put her arms round me and say she really does love me and she's sorry. I smile back. A little bit of the grit in my heart feels like it's floating away. I eat my cake, the chocolate filling my mouth. Megan stares at me, but I don't care. Kathleen can love me too. I run my fingers along the crumbs on my plate, smudging dropped bits of chocolate cream. 'More?' Kathleen asks. I laugh slightly. 'I need to leave space for a sandwich.' 'But the cake isn't finished.' Just like that, the look is back.❞–p. 18, paperbackThis is a story of abuse, and the way our main character June is treated by her stepmother, stepsister and classmates is heartbreaking. Children can be so cruel, but holy crap, the way her horrific stepmother goes about abusing her? I had to put the book down for a break a quarter way through because it was honestly too much for me. It definitely highlights the importance of real-life issues being represented in young adult novels, or any book in general. The story, however, was so gripping that I picked it back up after collecting my thoughts and read it the whole way through.I liked the alternating chapters of 'Before' and 'After' as it added to the mystery of how it all ends. The 'Before' story also jumps through year after year, which I thought was pretty cool, because we see how June grows, and how her friendship with Blister blooms into something. Oh, Blister. Blister and his family were the shining beacons of hope in this novel, honestly. The chapters about June and Blister and the rest of the Wick family were the little breaks of relief in this sad, dark story. I loved all the family members, and the relationship between June and Blister was just so adorable that it could make you momentarily forget about the horrible way that June is treated at home.A dark, melancholic buzz speckled with spots of tormented sunshine that burgeons and turns on itself, slamming readers with an unpredictable twist, Lisa Heathfield's Paper Butterflies does not disappoint. I loved this book so much, and recommend it with all my heart. An important read for teens and adults alike, you don't want to miss this one.

Wow. Paper Butterflies is a book that made me anxious, terrified and absolutely furious at turns, not at the protagonist or at the author but at the whole situation and the way it unravelled. Paper Butterflies is a book demonstrating just how cruel people can be and just how badly a child can be failed, even by those who care for them. Paper Butterflies is suffocating in its intensity; it is the child disbelieved, the child afraid to tell, the child constantly thought to be at fault when others are abusing and brutalising them. It's heart-breaking, even more so because you can see the way this tale is going right from the early pages.Split into Before and After with huge gaps through the years, Paper Butterflies is the story of family dynamics in the very worst of ways. June's mother died when she was six years old, and her father has since married a new woman, a woman he loves, a woman he believes loves his daughter. Except Kathleen has her own daughter and she detests June, to the point beyond indignity and into true cruelty beyond belief. Her own daughter, Meghan, is a mere year younger than June, but is made to be an accomplice to her mothers cruelty. Even at school she is an outcast for her colour, tormented because she is not white, blamed for the petty cruelty and tricks of those around her by those who should be looking out for her. Her only safe haven is Blister, a friend she keeps desperately secret for fear that even this might be taken away from her.This is gut-clenching. So many times I wanted to scream for the adults to get their heads out of their backsides and realise what was happening. So many times I wanted to scream at June herself to just tell someone, and yet every time she tries, she is rebuffed. And when even those small bits of information are rebuffed, is it any wonder why a child would not trust to share the far more frightening secrets behind the apparently perfect home. Paper Butterflies is a book about helplessness, about the destructiveness of anger and about how the entire world can seem to misunderstand you, yet there are still those few candles in the darkness. It is heart-breaking, harrowing, breath-taking.It is not a novel to entertain. It is a novel to enlighten. To force you to see what is so often hidden behind forced smiles and sugar sweet voices. It is a book that may open your eyes. It isn't gentle while it does so, but then, child abuse never is really, is it?

This is the second novel I've read by Lisa Heathfield (Seed being the first) and I'm starting to notice a trend. While the author certainly chooses interesting (and actually traumatic) topics to write about, there seems to be little depth to the characters or the plot - and there are also some unusual turns of event. This review will contain spoilers in order to fully describe why it didn't fully click for me. So look away now if you don't want to see any more . . .I think that when it comes to books about child abuse, they need to be far more uncomfortable than this novel, in order to fully immerse the reader in how bad the character's existence is. I know it must be a fine line for a writer - too much description could be viewed as gratuitous, especially for a YA novel. However, too little description (as there was here) doesn't help the reader engage with the daily reality of what's going on. What doesn't aid readers in fully immersing themselves into June's experience at the hands of her stepmother, Kathleen, is the layout of the novel. A huge timeline is encapsulated in what is a relatively short book (starting when June is 10 and ending when she's 24). Each chapter represents a new age, and interspersed among these are chapters entitled 'After' with June clearly older and talking about her childhood to a reverend. At this point in the novel, I didn't know what 'After' represented - but clearly it was a time when June was away from Kathleen and looking back at the abuse.Because the novel gallops through June's life, and also because she never fully reveals Kathleen's abuse to her friend Blister (a boy whom she meets by chance and spends all her free time with), I don't think the horror of June's existence was properly conveyed. It made is seem as though there was one incident a year - mainly involving being made to eat too much food. While other descriptions were quite extreme (particularly having ice cubes forced into her mouth), the periods with Blister seemed to be the main focus of the novel - thus detracting from the severity of the Kathleen episodes. In fact, I think the opening of the novel (where June, at 10, is forced to drink great quantities of water, then not allowed to go to the toilet before getting onto the school bus) was the most powerful and shocking part of the book. I do think that the amount of time June was able to spend with Blister cancelled out many of the more fraught elements. It would have been better to read more about how she couldn't get out to see him etc.Also, as she got older, and her relationship with Blister became closer, I'm not sure I entirely believed that she wouldn't have shared the extent of Kathleen's abuse with him. While I appreciate that, for many abuse victims, fear keeps them from disclosing what's going on, June did have a lot of distance between Blister and Kathleen. Blister was a supportive, unrelated (to Kathleen) character, who did probe a number of times as to whether June was telling him everything. I sort of felt, human nature being as it was, and due to how long they were friends, that somewhere between the ages of 10 and 17, she'd have confided more.Where the novel really started to go wrong for me, though, was when June was convicted of killing her family after a fire in the home. This was as a result of June cutting up Kathleen's precious possessions (after her own memory box collection had been destroyed) and then throwing a match on them. The fire was unintentional. That she ended up being convicted for double murder (of her father and Kathleen, who failed to escape the fire) and attempted murder (of her step sister, who did escape, but was in a coma) stretches credibility enough. But the fact she was handed a death sentence at that age stretched it even further for me. I do know that people under the age of 18 can be sentenced to death in certain American states, but it's far from common. And once June arrived in prison, the book felt less like paper butterflies and more like papering over the cracks. All told, June enters prison at 17 and is there until 24 (when she's taken to death row). Six years, and this experience is really skimmed over. She has visits from Blister, he sends her paper creations (which he used to make for her when they were kids); she gets chummy with the woman in the next cell (until that woman is sent to death row). Come on! Prison isn't just sitting in a cell, circling an exercise yard with the woman in the next cell (pretending you can see lakes and flowers), having visits from Blister. It's a harsh, brutal existence - especially given what June's fellow inmates would have been like. There's no description of daily routines, the food, run-ins with other inmates. None of that. And this was a huge failing of this novel - it was a surface narrative. And while Blister's commitment to visiting June was admirable - again, there was no real hook for the reader as to what kept him motivated. Here, alternating chapters may have worked well - allowing us to see what Blister was doing. Apparently they were going to change legal teams - but that took right until the end of the novel. Megan (the step sister) had regained consciousness long, long before and would have been quite capable (and willing) to give evidence on June's behalf as to Kathleen's behaviour. So the latter part of the novel just didn't ring true (and I found, with Seed, that parts of that didn't quite ring true either).I also felt the conclusion of the novel was a let down. There was a note from Blister - which may have worked if June hadn't been granted a reprieve (but she was granted a reprieve) which felt unnecessary. I wanted to know more. If it had ended with June being killed, then that's one conclusion. But did she win an appeal; did she get released; did she and Blister end up together (or had Blister moved on and entered into a grown up relationship). It seemed that Blister's life had been put on hold, right up until the age of 24 (and despite June telling him to stop visiting her a while back), yet the ending of the novel is unfulfilling.That's not to say Paper Butterflies isn't well written. It is. It's very moving at times too. However, what could have been a really great novel fell short for so many reasons. I think it would have been more powerful either with a condensed time line or as an even longer novel - giving more depth and description to longer periods in June's childhood, rather than trying to cram 14 years into a mere 320 pages. So, while readable, this novel isn't one that will live in the memory unfortunately.

Reading this book last night was what inspired me to start a blog. I wanted to talk to people about this book, share my thoughts and see if it affected others in the way it affected me. I read the book in just under two hours. I couldn’t put it down. I cried my eyes out over and over and it made my heart ache.As you start reading the first page, you are introduced to 10 Year Old June. I was shocked as I read the first few paragraphs as you quickly realise that she is being forced to drink two glasses of water by Kathleen, who we later learn is her stepmother. June’s father remarried after June’s mother drowned. The next few pages are uncomfortable as you are told in June’s voice about how she is desperately trying not to wet herself but she can’t stop herself. This then leads to the other children laughing at her. The bullying continues throughout the story.June also lives with Kathleen’s daughter, Megan who frequently joins in with the bullying. We quickly learn that June’s Dad is unaware of what is going on and there are several occasions where she tries to tell him but he is oblivious.June finds escapism from the abuse she is experiencing at school and home when she meets Blister, a scruffy boy who spends his time in trailers in the forest. They form an instant friendship, which later turns into a relationship. I will leave you to read the beautiful interaction they have, and the complete adoration he has for her.The book flicks between “Before” and “After”. It is unclear where June is in the “After” chapters as she is speaking to a Reverand and someone called Mickey. He tells her that she needs to forgive, and we are told that she “never spoke out” about the abuse she received. As a reader, this is heartbreaking. Some of the scenes are so graphic, “Megan’s face is expressionless as she lowers my red ribbon until it sits at the back of my throat. I start to gag, but it only makes it go down further” that you find yourself open mouthed in shock.As time goes on we meet Blister’s family with his six siblings, one of which is Tom who has cystic fibrosis. His character is beautiful, he is sweet natured. This coupled with the violent scenes at June’s house lead the reader on a turbulent rollercoaster of emotions.June finally snaps when her memories box containing photographs of her mother, and her origami angel from Blister amongst other things are ripped to pieces and scattered across her room. That night, when the family are sleeping, she goes downstairs and begins to burn their memories. The flames take hold of the house and she goes to help the others but it’s too late. She escapes out of the front door as the house explodes.We are then quickly taken to the “After” chapter and a shocking twist to the story is unravelled. We discover that June is now in prison. Not only that, but she has been sentenced to death. The next few chapters are emotionally unsettling, frustrating and heartbreaking. The fire killed Kathleen and her father, Megan is in a coma.I will leave the ending for you to discover yourselves, it’s something that I do not want to ruin for you, something you should experience for yourself. I just hope that you enjoy the book as much as I did.

Saddest book I’ve ever read. My favourite genre of book is all things sad and heartbreaking like The Fault in our Stars etc but this was painfully sad and didn’t have an ending that satisfied the amount of sadness in the book. I would not recommend reading this book - I wish I’d never read it.

Just started the book... It is amazing! Only slight issue is that the text does not seem to be printed in the centre of the page more to the very edge. Don't know if it is just mine though.

When I started reading this book I found it a little hard to get into but I stuck with it and found that it is one of the best and very well written books I have read in a long time.I felt every emotion and loved both June and Blister, especially Blister.I even had a tear in my eye through the last few chapters.Excellent read, highly recommend this to everyone.

This book grips you to the end. Despite the incredibly sad story line , the book will warm your heart and show you that there is always hope.I strongly advise you to read this.Amazing.

Not the same cover as the pictures, but it’s still a beautiful book

This book is incredible! I read it in 5-6 hours of getting it ! It features a girl named June who's stepmother is the evilest person who has roamed the earth! And believe me you will hate the stepmother . The only bad thing is the ending and how sad it is ! But an amazing book , a must !

Good book and again fast delivery

Xmas prezzie for my youngest.

Came in perfect condition. Please make sure tissues are handy when reading.

My daughter love this book.

Be warned: this book is amazing , but its inscredibly sad. I advise to have tissue handy throughout, especially nearer the end however the book is incredible and so well written that it is well worth a read

An amazing book, but very sad. Not for the one who want a happy story, but for those who wish to read about trials and forgiveness. Not only in other but in yourself.