Book Review of The Butterfly Garden

Stella Miller

May 20th, 2018 - Greenville New York Arts and Culture

The Butterfly Garden, by Dot Hutchison, is about a team of FBI agents interrogating a young woman named Maya about the infamous Butterfly Garden. The Garden is a literal garden, built into a larger estate by a deranged man called the Gardener. The Gardener had kidnapped and raped several generations of girls. Maya is the main character, and she acts as the protector and friend to all the other girls.

The main characters are Maya and FBI Special-Agent-In-Charge Victor Hanoverian. Maya’s biggest struggle was trying to keep herself and the other kidnap victims alive in the Garden. Eventually, one of the girls, an insane teen named Sirvat, blew up the Garden. The girls had been rescued by firefighters. Maya started out with a hard shell and even harder emotions, and she ended up with cracks in her shell and a more vulnerable attitude. One theme could be growing used to letting people in and accepting their help.

The novel had a very sophisticated writing style; very well-written, with the perfect amount of details, a realism-themed mood, and varying sentence lengths.

“Some people stay broken. Some pick up the pieces and put them back together with all the sharp edges showing.”