REVIEW: The Butterfly Project by Emma Scott

Shel: The Butterfly Project is exactly the kind of book I need--it was healing. Let me back up to say that in the last few weeks I've read several books that are the beginning of or middle of a series and they're all tortuous in their cliff hangers which means I've been in twisty knots of angst for days. I reached for this novel because I knew 2 things: less importantly it's a stand alone so I knew I'd have a resolution by the end, most importantly Emma Scott has an innate ability to cocoon me in her words and I knew I was in for a night of fantastic storytelling. 

Court: She does. And it is exactly as you said. Healing, yet searches for a truth that was somewhat quietly profound as we went on this reading journey. I had no idea what to expect, because the first one I read was so beautiful I was a little afraid of this one...in a good way! I read this one in one sitting and fee like I'm immensely better for it. I like when an author is capable of using words and putting a little bit of a healing balm on a crack in my soul, and Emma Scott has that tremendous ability and I can't wait to read her words more and more. 

Shel: When I think about the story of Zelda and Beckett I think of it terms of these words: forgiveness, redemption, risk, and love. While these words sometimes apply to the characters differently, they all apply. Until they both took risks, they were living in a world of grey--a world that I imagined looked a lot like Zelda's comic book world. Thankfully, Zelda took a huge risk and asked Beckett for help and slowly their grey world began to warm with color and color. In order for the full technicolor picture could envelop them, they both had to find a way to be open forgiveness (and redemption). He had to be willing to let it be given to him and she had to discover if she had any to give. Again a huge risk because the inability to tap into that emotion would be the death knell to a future not crippled by the past. 

Court: Forgiveness is definitely the primary theme, but it comes in so many forms. Forgiving others: those who don't deserve it, and definitely didn't ask for it, those who did...but most of all forgiveness of yourself. Their journey is a hard one...but it's the way that their paths are so very different from each other that the story is original and complex at the same time. The added elements of their pasts as they are unveiled do bring a lot of questions and a few angsty feelings along the way but I had faith that we'd survive...and we did! 

Shel: Another huge emotion both of them tangled with was love. Allowing themselves to feel it seemed like a betrayal to the people they held onto in their past. Being in love meant a sort of happiness neither of them seemed able to wholly accept. It was hard as a reader to see that they both needed it and deserved it and yet they couldn't or wouldn't give in...until they did. And that moment---gahhh, they evoked these huge balloons of emotion inside of me.

Court: Huge balloons!!! I loved the setting of the story too and the way their respective jobs really felt authentic to the heart of the city of New York. I love when a setting is such a big part of the book, and it became a place of new beginning for the two of them in a way they neither expected. Zelda and Beckett in my brain are old souls, and they related to each other in a beautiful way. They became friends when neither expected, and the journey to the will they or won't they become more is one that you cannot miss. 

Shel: I loved everything about this novel--their struggles emotionally. I loved their definition of home. I loved their crappy apartment and their friends. I loved Roy and Aunt Lucille. But I especially loved watching these two go from living lives that felt like they were just existing..just living in a black and white world (or gray) to living in full color.

Court: Shel, that is the best description of the heart of it. I hope everyone picks this one up immediately! You won't regret it...and definitely will discover a word of books Emma Scott has written that will such up you heart, mind and soul! 

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"Where you are is home..."

At age fourteen, Zelda Rossi witnessed the unthinkable, and has spent the last ten years hardening her heart against the guilt and grief. She channels her pain into her art: a dystopian graphic novel where vigilantes travel back in time to stop heinous crimes—like child abduction—before they happen. Zelda pitches her graphic novel to several big-time comic book publishers in New York City, only to have her hopes crash and burn. Circumstances leave her stranded in an unfamiliar city, and in an embarrassing moment of weakness, she meets a guarded young man with a past he’d do anything to change...

Beckett Copeland spent two years in prison for armed robbery, and is now struggling to keep his head above water. A bike messenger by day, he speeds around New York City, riding fast and hard but going nowhere, his criminal record holding him back almost as much as the guilt of his crime.

Zelda and Beckett form a grudging alliance of survival, and in between their stubborn clash of wills, they slowly begin to provide each other with the warmth of forgiveness, healing, and maybe even love. But when Zelda and Beckett come face to face with their pasts, they must choose to hold on to the guilt and regret that bind them, or let go and open their hearts for a shot at happiness.

The Butterfly Project is a novel that reveals the power of forgiveness, and how even the smallest decisions of the heart can—like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings—create currents that strengthen into gale winds, altering the course of a life forever.

#standalone

256 pages
Published February 28th 2017

Source: Netgalley