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dab_of_bookish_magic 's review for:
The Butterfly Collector
by Tea Cooper
This wasn’t a bad book but it wasn’t what I had expected, the title and the blurb are a little misleading.
We have two timelines, one in 1868 when Clarrie and Sid try to make ends meet and Theodora paints butterflies. The other in 1922 when Verity gets an invitation for a masquerade ball with a beautiful butterfly costume attached to it, and proceeds to investigate the mystery surrounding the Treadwell Foundation.
This book started off very slow and it took me a while to get invested. The overall pacing felt uneven, the buildup was dragging and some things mentioned in the blurb didn’t happen until about 75% in(!), which was very confusing.
The last ~25%, when the mystery was unraveling were good and I liked the mystery itself. It’s an important topic and the way the characters were all affected by it worked well.
The thing is, however, that the mystery had nothing to do with butterflies; butterflies were just a distracting subplot that didn’t even get a decent closure. I guess it was supposed to tie the story together but it felt contrived and unnecessary.
3,5 stars
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
We have two timelines, one in 1868 when Clarrie and Sid try to make ends meet and Theodora paints butterflies. The other in 1922 when Verity gets an invitation for a masquerade ball with a beautiful butterfly costume attached to it, and proceeds to investigate the mystery surrounding the Treadwell Foundation.
This book started off very slow and it took me a while to get invested. The overall pacing felt uneven, the buildup was dragging and some things mentioned in the blurb didn’t happen until about 75% in(!), which was very confusing.
The last ~25%, when the mystery was unraveling were good and I liked the mystery itself. It’s an important topic and the way the characters were all affected by it worked well.
The thing is, however, that the mystery had nothing to do with butterflies; butterflies were just a distracting subplot that didn’t even get a decent closure. I guess it was supposed to tie the story together but it felt contrived and unnecessary.
3,5 stars
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.