Hot Off the Shelf: The Butterfly Effect by Rachel Mans McKenny

[image description: The cover of The Butterfly Effect by Rachel Mans McKenny. Three drawn people, two men and a woman, with half a dozen colorfully drawn butterflies.]
I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review and I honestly loved it!
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There are some books I can’t say yes to fast enough and The Butterfly Effect by Rachel Mans McKenny is one of them.

I’m certain the universe meant for me to read it because, as you can guess by the title, butterflies play a big factor in the story. As it happens, when Rachel reached out to me I was in the woods chasing butterflies! (If you missed my post, I caught some pretty ones!) So we got to nerd out about butterflies, which only added to my enjoyment.

First, the synopsis:

A feminist Man Called Ove meets Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Project in this rollicking tale of a grumpy introvert, her astonishing lack of social conduct and empirical data-driven approach to people and relationships.

Is there such a thing as an anti-social butterfly? If there were, Greta Oto would know about it—and totally relate. Greta far prefers the company of bugs to humans, and that’s okay, because people don’t seem to like her all that much anyway, with the exception of her twin brother, Danny, though they've recently had a falling out. So when she lands a research gig in the rainforest, sh leaves it all behind.

But when Greta learns that Danny has suffered an aneurysm and is now hospitalized, she abandons her research and hurries home to the middle of nowhere America to be there for her brother. But there's only so much she can do, and unfortunately just like insects, humans don't stay cooped up in their hives either--they buzz about and... socialize. Coming home means confronting all that she left behind, including her lousy soon-to-be sister-in-law, her estranged mother, and her ex-boyfriend Brandon who has conveniently found a new non-lab-exclusive partner with shiny hair, perfect teeth, and can actually remember the names of the people she meets right away. Being that Brandon runs the only butterfly conservatory in town, and her dissertation is now in jeopardy, taking that job, being back home, it's all creating chaos of Greta's perfectly catalogued and compartmentalized world.

The Butterfly Effect is an honest tale of self-discovery, about the behavior of bugs (and people), how they can be altered by high-pressure climates, confused by breakdowns in communication, and most importantly, how they can rehabilitate themselves and each other.

Besides the fact that my nerdy amateur lepidopterist heart was gushing every time I learned a new fact about butterflies, there was so much more to love about this book.

The novel is from the protagonist, Greta’s, point of view and typically when you’re reading first-person POV you tend to like the protagonist and get on board with the way they approach the world, even if their approach is flawed. The Butterfly Effect is the first time in a long time that I’ve read a novel where I empathized with the protagonist but actively disliked her.

She’s a certified curmudgeon, is the definition of ornery, and doesn’t give a fuck who knows what she really thinks. I couldn’t help admiring her brazenness, while simultaneously thinking I’d head for the hills if I ever met someone like her in real life.

It’s revealed slowly over the course of the novel (and this is not a spoiler!) that trauma is what inspires her distrust of people of general lashing out at the world. There were times in the novel where I wanted to grab Greta and shake her for the way she pushes people away, distances herself from anyone who might try to love her, and lashes out when people have different ideas of happiness than she does. Then it hit me…

That was me before I got therapy and medication. My present-day self was annoyed with Greta at times for her behavior, which I later saw as a survival mechanism, until I remembered I used to do the SAME THINGS and I must have annoyed people similarly years ago. Trauma is a hell of a drug!

Combine unresolved past trauma with severe present-day stressors and you’ve got a Molotov cocktail of a human waiting to explode on people and sabotage herself, her success, and her relationships. Greta’s inner conflict alone would’ve been enough to drive a compelling novel but the beauty of The Butterfly Effect is that it’s so holistic and all-encompassing.

Yes, there’s Greta’s unresolved trauma, there’s also her professional goals going up in flames (or are they? hmmm! Not spoiling it for you!), run-ins with her ex, a new flame practically begging her to wake up and see that he’s there, medical/health drama, and family dysfunction. Seriously, this novel has everything you want in a soap opera and all of it is done super well.

I was hooked from the beginning. Even though Greta annoyed me at times, I couldn’t stop reading. I wanted to know what made her tick and the payoff was well worth it. There were also countless bits of witty repartee and clever turns of phrase that I never really stopped being in awe of how excellent the writing was. I read both “smart books” and “brain candy books” (using quotes because I believe every genre has merit and all have something worthwhile to offer) and this novel straddles that line perfectly. I got all the juicy drama and interpersonal conflict I craved while also feeling like I was smarter by the end of the book.

Which is perfect for the times we’re living in. Part of the reason I read so much is because I love being educated and entertained, preferably at the same time. But with the political climate what it is and the constant barrage of bad news and upsetting happenings in the world, I have to ration my sadness. To be frank, I just don’t have a lot of bandwidth at the moment for books that depress me because the world as a whole is SO goddamn depressing.

As heartbreaking as The Butterfly Effect was at times, it trended toward hopeful and had a happy ending. People seemed to recognize, even without her saying, that Greta had trauma and they were sympathetic and forgiving even when she was at her cruelest. And it paid off! A win for kindness! That’s the kind of content I need right now.

Generally, there are two things that will earn a book an instant five stars from me: 1) being extremely quotable and 2) making me cry. I can count the number of books that have made me cry on one hand. The Butterfly Effect is one of them. The ending is so perfectly satisfying and Greta is such a compelling character that it had me up at 2am bawling.

This novel is so good I would’ve loved it even if it hadn’t had butterflies. But the fact that it scratched that idiosyncratic itch of mine was a nice bonus.

TL;DR, get a copy of The Butterfly Effect by Rachel Mans McKenny! It’s out on December 8th and it’s phenomenal. Preorder it and it’ll be like a gift to your future self. And when you buy your copy using my Bookshop link, you support me, Rachel, and indie bookstores all at the same time. Triple win!