The Butterfly Garden

The Butterfly Garden       **** 4/5 
                      Dot Hutchison - Thriller / Suspense

While reading  "The Butterfly Garden," I really wasn't sure how I felt. There were several moments when I simply closed the book and took a moment to gather my thoughts. It's a very dark novel, written eloquently but with dark undertones. 

The Gardener's obsession with one of natures most beautiful creations, butterflies, is carried to a new extreme when he starts to collect young women. He names them, tattoos intricate wing designs onto their backs and forces them to live in a preservation jar of his own creation; a garden so beautiful, yet so terrifying. He feeds them, clothes them and cares for them deeply, but on the night of their 21st birthday he preserves them with Formaldehyde and places them in a tomb of glass, displaying their wings in a hallway of eternal beauty...and death. 

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"The Butterfly Garden" was certainly a book I found hard to stop reading. The plot and characters are well developed and unique in their creation, but the ending left a bit to be desired. While I understand  the thought behind the closing of the book, it felt a little underwhelming. A long, twisted climb up a mountain side only to find there wasn't much of a view at the top. I think the ending could have been a bit more dramatic and deserving of the text that came before it. 

Overall all, darkness and anti-climatic ending aside, I really did enjoy "The Butterfly Garden" and would recommend it. 

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"The Butterfly Garden" was my KindleFirst selection for May! Check out the other books in the program this month HERE.

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