The Butterfly Garden

First, this is not a book about butterflies or butterfly gardens. There is a garden, but it’s not a happy one. This is a book about collections, not of beautiful bugs, but of beautiful young women. My wife turned me on to Dot Hutchison and this novel after she’d listened breathlessly to the audiobook.

This book is intense. It has elements you’d expect from a serial killer thriller, but boy, does it get dark really fast. If you were abducted and forced to live a life of captivity in a lush mansion, complete with a gorgeous indoor garden, would you… show more.

This book is both absolutely gorgeous and deeply disturbing.

The premise is simple: in an FBI interview, a young woman recounts the horrific ordeal she’s survived as a member of a serial killer’s “garden” of kidnapped victims. The reading experience is considerably more complex. Much of the story is told in flashbacks, allowing the reader to explore Maya’s experience in the Garden; that’s then balanced with her FBI interview, filling in blanks and establishing her as an almost-reliable narrator.

The dual timeline—one of my favorite devices to read and write—is handled brilliantly, and Hutchinson successfully achieves a formidable tightrope… show more.

The Butterfly Garden was creepy, and I questioned whether the main character was a victim or if perhaps she was involved in the garden. The author did a great job describing the Butterfly Garden's details. It came alive. This book may be too much for some people as it does involve torture from the captor. But I enjoyed the story. It was twisted and fascinating.