Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - The Butterfly Garden

I have read this book before. Long ago. I loved it then, and I loved it now. It’s a psychological thriller that follows the most twisted of stories, through an FBI agency, the place that deals with children, and it becomes a series that follows. This takes crime stories to a whole other level, and the writing is an easy to read type, but also very thought out and intricate. Keeps you on your seat at all times. I really enjoyed it, especially because the author likes to hang on the idea of the victim knowing or doing more than the agents expect, leading to the capture of their perpetrators. These are twisted in the best kind of way.

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alyssapusateri's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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evevallarta's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

Wow.
Esta demasiado intenso, es una historia muy fuerte, aunque el final cierra bien, hay una luz al final del tunel.
Esta narrado de manera muy unica e incluso al final sorprende un pequeño twist.
Definitivamente recomiendo checar los trigger warnings ⚠️ porque son a lo larggo de toooodo el libro.
Se gana sus 5 estrellas porque no le encontré ni un error, me engancho desde el principio
AUNQUE, no es de mis favoritos.

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thatbookmarkbabe's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is a tough one because this story really pulled me in and I read it in basically one sitting. I found myself just wanting to know what transpired to get to the point of Maya sitting with the detectives.

The pros:
-reminded me of Criminal Minds
-pulls you in and keeps you hooked
-the different characters really show people's different responses to trauma and a difficult situation, and I really grew to love the main butterflies depicted in the book

But i had a few issues with it that were hard to ignore, which I'll sum up in just a few points:
-this book forces you to suspend disbelief... like a lot
-the plot twist at the end was just laughable and unnecessary
-there was such a disconnect from the horrible elements that felt almost clinical. I didn't feel as much horror, terror, fear, panic, emotion, etc that you would expect based on some of the things that were described, and while i am not a fan of gratuitous violence for violence sake, it could have benefitted from more emotional and vivid descriptions of these events. The Gardener didn't feel as scary to me because I felt i was told he should be scary rather than shown
-the detectives felt like a rather unnecessary plot device
-I wish there were more stakes. Maybe if the events were told as they were unfolding, it would have felt that way

we already know the girls are freed and the abusive son is dead within the first 25% of the book, and there are like... 0 attempts at escape which i find terribly unbelievable considering there were 20-30 girls there at any given time being subjected to rape and torture and murder.

Overall I didn't hate the book for its flaws as many seem to. I still was hooked and reeled in, but it had the potential to be a 5 star read, if it weren't for the points described above.

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