The Fall of Butterflies

Reviewed by: Brooke Faulkner - McArthur Public Library, Biddeford, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: September 13, 2016

Review

Sardonic, smart Willa Parker is pressured by her well-to-do, famous and largely absent mother to leave What Cheer, Iowa, were she lives with her devoted but poor dad, to attend Pembroke, an exclusive, all-girl boarding school on the East Coast. Feeling lost and alone, Willa fully intends to commit suicide after arriving at Pembroke, but instead encounters extraordinarily wealthy, magnetic Remy Taft, and is drawn into a close friendship with her and all that comes with it -- a sense of kinship and belonging but also an emerging understanding that wanting for nothing has come at a price for Remy and others -- including Remy's lifelong friend Milo, who emerges as Willa's love interest.

Willa's practiced flippancy is believable and often expressed through witty observations and readers will sympathize with her and appreciate her wry, outsider commentary about the world of extreme privilege that surrounds her at Pembroke. Some may spot that drug addiction is behind Remy's mysterious and abrupt absences before Willa does. Early on, the two use the drug Ecstasy together, but it's quickly clear that Willa is far warier of the possible repercussions - since unlike Remy, she has lived a life in which she actually has experienced consequences.

Much of the territory of this novel has been explored before, but Portes has crafted genuine characters and her spot-on portrayal of Willa's stumble into greater understanding of herself and the world through heartbreak is engaging and poignant. Teens who are fans of writers like E. Lockhart and Rainbow Rowell will find much they like here.

Overall Book Score: very good