Spent about half an hour trying to get into Butterfly by Sonya Hartnett. It did get the sense of a 14-year-old not fitting into their own skin marvelously well, tantrums and turmoil and all. Unfortunately, Hartnett's style is one that's most often described as "lyrical." My experience with lyrical is that they spend so much so much time seeing how pretty they can make the words that they forget that things are supposed to, y'know, happen. This held true for this book, too.
Also, there was as much of the story devoted to middle-aged neighbors and grown brothers as there was to Plum, the main character. More, possibly. Certainly there is a sense that Plum's agonizing concerns are really meaningless when compared to all these important things are going on around her. It's more an adult novel with a teenaged protagonist than a teen novel, really. Which is okay for some but not my cup of tea.
1 comment:
Yeah, I don't think that "lyrical" is the best type of reading for 48hbc. As you noted, too much thinking about the words along the way. No time for that!
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