- Butterfly by Elle Harper
- Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
- Publication date: 1/25/2014
- Pages: 258
- Genre: New Adult, Romance
Counsellor Ben Hardy is certain he can help Grace heal. Maybe it’s a way to rid himself of the demons haunting him from that one horrific night when his life shattered.
When they meet, everything changes, and their pasts offer them a remedy to save each other…until Ben's traumatic history threatens to destroy the trust they’ve built.
Will the truth tear them apart? Or will it force them to understand the healing power of forgiveness and love.
@ Goodreads
This book is one that represents growth and recovery. The author symbolizes this metamorphosis constantly throughout the book through the use of a butterfly and I thought that this symbol was perfect for what the author described in the book.
Butterfly wasn’t a two-dimensional read, it was a 3-dimensional emotional roller coaster that took me on a journey of pain, regret, and hope. The author plays on these emotions well as Grace travels deeper into the depths of her recovery and therefore her agony. The excruciating detail of her recovery is one of the most life-like that I have read about as nothing is left unspoken of. This isn’t a book based on love, it’s a book based on recovery through love and self-worth. The writing style was fluid and lead me into another world that not most people see. The author did a great job of bringing this book to life.
When first meeting Grace, it is blatantly obvious of what she is has gone through and is trying to hide from. I liked that the author put strength into her character by way of Grace knowing that she needed help dealing with her past. She seems to know that what she is going through is abnormal in the sense that people who haven’t gone through her ordeal aren’t doing what she is. People who aren’t traumatized don’t check their locks a hundred times before sitting in front of the door with a knife because they are frozen of fear.
“…carefully avoiding my gaze in the mirror because I can’t stomach what I’ll see. I know what will reflect back at me: a woman who’s pathetic, weak, ugly, desperate, hopeless.”
Grace sees herself as disgusting and I loved how the author used Ben to help Grace recover her self-worth. This book not only has a great story, but also has tips that everyone should use no matter if they have been raped of not. Even with Ben’s help Grace struggles and it wasn’t an easy recovery process. She didn’t automatically fall in love with him, but slowly fell in love with who he was as a person. That’s what separates this book from others similar to it.
“I’m choosing hope now, because I’m tired of being in hell.”
While Grace has her demons, Ben has his own demons to battle and come to terms with before he can truly be the person that Grace needs. Throughout the book, there are little chapters from Ben’s point of view that give away his thoughts and feelings but not future events. It was great to read a book where I was only given so much information and had to guess the secrets that the characters were hiding. It isn’t fun to read a book where the reader knows everything and is just waiting for the characters to catch up.
“When your soul cries, no one can hear it, and the wounds you can’t see hurt the most.”
I liked that the author used Rebecca to show similarities between rape victims. It gives the sense that victims are similar in their reactions even if they went through different experiences.
By the end of the book Grace is both feet in to her journey to recovery and seems to be able to, if not fully, mostly recover from her pain. The journey that the author presents in this book is a heartbreaking one that shows the realities of the world, but also the hope that can shine through the darkest parts of life.
“So the butterfly has cracked though the dark chrysalis imprisoning her life. She’s soaring now, flying away from the ghosts and demons and into the bright sunlight.”
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