Butterfly
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4.8 • 5 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
On the verge of her fourteenth birthday, Plum knows her life will change. But she has no idea how.
Over the coming weeks, her beautiful neighbour Maureen will show her how she might fly. Her adored older brothers will court catastrophe in worlds that she barely knows exist. And her friends - her worst enemies - will tease and test, smelling weakness. They will try to lead her on and take her down.
Who ever forgets what happens when you're fourteen?
'Lucid and beautiful, compassionate yet unflinching, enigmatic yet touching, sometimes tragic sometimes funny . . . a writer at the height of her powers.' Weekend Australian
'Rich, visceral . . . Hartnett's tiny domestic insights unleash a tornado of human experience.' Herald Sun
'Hartnett's prose is breathtakingly good . . . Will make adult female readers shiver with gladness at being all grown up.' Big Issue
'Full of insight and wit.'The Guardian
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hartnett eviscerates modern suburban life in this blistering story of broken families, buried secrets, and foundering lives. Plum Coyle is almost 14 and terrifically insecure, with two older brothers, Justin and Cydar, who love her but are as emotionally helpless as Plum and their parents. Plum prepares for her 14th birthday, desperately trying to stay afloat with a set of friends who are ready to pounce on the slightest vulnerability, and befriends an older neighbor, Maureen, but cruelties and pain are never far away. Plum's secrets are humiliatingly revealed, as are those of Justin and Maureen. Hartnett's exquisite prose is soaked in visceral descriptions of consumerism, human weakness, and an ugliness that lies just below the surface of everyday life; the closest the book comes to offering a moment of hope is when Cydar, by far the most self-aware character, sacrifices to purchase Plum the birthday gift she wants more than anything a television. It would be easy to dismiss Hartnett's story as misanthropic, yet it's not so much contemptuous of humanity than of what it has become. Ages 14 up.
Customer Reviews
Butterfly ~ Sonya Hartnett
An amazing book which truly reflects real life situations and aspects that could happen to anyone. This being so, this particular story captures the essence perfectly. It is a book like no other I've read.