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A review by shannon97
Praise Song for the Butterflies by Bernice L. McFadden
2.0
This is a book centers around the subject of ritual slavery. But it never treats the topic with the depth and feeling that one might hope. In the first third of the book, Abeo is a very loved and cherished child in a well off family. For her, it is completely unexpected when her father takes her to the shrine and abandons her there.
Abeo experiences more than a decade of hunger, abuse, rape and torture. When she is finally released to a rehabilitation center, she is beyond the ability to speak and respond. But these years pass very quickly in the novel and none of the other girls she is enslaved with are well developed. Her time in the rehabilitation center is also glossed over with little detail. From there, the answers come remarkably easily. She has a chance meeting on a New York subway with a man she knew in her home country of Ukemby. Simple kindness and well timed words of wisdom erase her trauma and allow her to move on with a new life. In fact, her aunt in the U.S. struggles more with her demons and the difficult aspects of her past, despite a life that is orders of magnitude easier and less traumatizing than Abeo’s has been. These easy answers feel shallow and dissatisfying. In the end, I felt that McFadden just didn’t do justice to her character or to the subject she was trying to illuminate in this novel.
Abeo experiences more than a decade of hunger, abuse, rape and torture. When she is finally released to a rehabilitation center, she is beyond the ability to speak and respond. But these years pass very quickly in the novel and none of the other girls she is enslaved with are well developed. Her time in the rehabilitation center is also glossed over with little detail. From there, the answers come remarkably easily. She has a chance meeting on a New York subway with a man she knew in her home country of Ukemby. Simple kindness and well timed words of wisdom erase her trauma and allow her to move on with a new life. In fact, her aunt in the U.S. struggles more with her demons and the difficult aspects of her past, despite a life that is orders of magnitude easier and less traumatizing than Abeo’s has been. These easy answers feel shallow and dissatisfying. In the end, I felt that McFadden just didn’t do justice to her character or to the subject she was trying to illuminate in this novel.