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A review by lawbooks600
Red Butterfly by A. L. Sonnichsen
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Representation: Asian characters
Score: Six points out of ten.
Let me tell you something, this book was a case where the author tried to make a story in poetry about an Asian but got it wrong because of reasons I'll explain later. I saw this book as the last verse novel one of the two libraries has to offer to me so not long after I finally picked it up and read it. When I finished it, I didn't feel comfortable reading it considering the author but even if that wasn't a problem, I could never fully connect to the story. I can't believe this book could win awards either. It starts with the main character Kara whose last name I forgot living with her adoptive mother in China while her stepfather lives in Montana (Did I mention Kara has a birth defect where her right hand is a stump with no fingers and people shame her for it? It's not clear why she had that unless it's from her biological parents.) Kara stays there for a few pages but she longs to visit her father in America but due to some circumstances that never happens when there is an accident; the police sends her stepmother somewhere and now Kara is in an adoption centre or orphanage.
Here is where the flaws surface, I didn't think poetry was the right choice since it looked like the author, like others pressed the Enter key many times and called it 'poetry.' I could never fully connect to Kara as a character even though she's living a live no child should experience nor could I do so to the other people in the narrative. Towards the conclusion of the story the worst flaw appears where Kara's second foster family, the Guernseys, adopt her but I discover they're white except the other adopted children who are Asian. It reeks of white saviourism to me and it didn't help that the author was dissimilar to Kara as well (spoiler alert: she's also white.) It's off-putting at best and inauthentic at worst. I get that the author could write a story like this because she found an abandoned baby and lived in Hong Kong but it wouldn't be problematic if an Asian author wrote it instead. It's such a shame that I could finally find a diverse story only for the author's attributes to ruin it. In the finishing pages Kara goes back to Montana so that her first and second adoptive mothers meet (technically she has gone through two adoptive families and one biological now) ending the novel on a high note. Note to myself that I should read more authentically diverse stories as soon as possible.
Score: Six points out of ten.
Let me tell you something, this book was a case where the author tried to make a story in poetry about an Asian but got it wrong because of reasons I'll explain later. I saw this book as the last verse novel one of the two libraries has to offer to me so not long after I finally picked it up and read it. When I finished it, I didn't feel comfortable reading it considering the author but even if that wasn't a problem, I could never fully connect to the story. I can't believe this book could win awards either. It starts with the main character Kara whose last name I forgot living with her adoptive mother in China while her stepfather lives in Montana (Did I mention Kara has a birth defect where her right hand is a stump with no fingers and people shame her for it? It's not clear why she had that unless it's from her biological parents.) Kara stays there for a few pages but she longs to visit her father in America but due to some circumstances that never happens when there is an accident; the police sends her stepmother somewhere and now Kara is in an adoption centre or orphanage.
Here is where the flaws surface, I didn't think poetry was the right choice since it looked like the author, like others pressed the Enter key many times and called it 'poetry.' I could never fully connect to Kara as a character even though she's living a live no child should experience nor could I do so to the other people in the narrative. Towards the conclusion of the story the worst flaw appears where Kara's second foster family, the Guernseys, adopt her but I discover they're white except the other adopted children who are Asian. It reeks of white saviourism to me and it didn't help that the author was dissimilar to Kara as well (spoiler alert: she's also white.) It's off-putting at best and inauthentic at worst. I get that the author could write a story like this because she found an abandoned baby and lived in Hong Kong but it wouldn't be problematic if an Asian author wrote it instead. It's such a shame that I could finally find a diverse story only for the author's attributes to ruin it. In the finishing pages Kara goes back to Montana so that her first and second adoptive mothers meet (technically she has gone through two adoptive families and one biological now) ending the novel on a high note. Note to myself that I should read more authentically diverse stories as soon as possible.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Deportation, Child death, Abandonment, Body shaming, and Animal death
Full trigger warnings: Death of a pet bird, child and friend from an illness, near-death experience, hospitalisation, body shaming, deportation, child abandonment in the past, adoption, loss of limb