No adults or teachers or her own father believe June's call for help. They believe that she is just acting up. After her mother died and so no one steps in to help her. Not one single person believes or helps June and it breaks my heart. Paper Butterflies is that book for me. It tore my heart completely and left me crying, thinking about the book and its characters long after finishing. Overall, this is probably one of the best books that I have read this year; it really is. There are just so many things about it that make it important, eye-opening and gut-wrenching and I think it's a book that everyone should read. If you're going to read one Young Adult contemporary soon, make it this one and I promise that you won't regret it. The only moments of hope within this book, in fact, come from her relationship with a boy (of course) down the street. I’ve talked before about the ways in which the trend of using romance as the way to spur a character’s self-actualization is harmful and creates stagnant narratives (although apparently, not in a full blog post that I can helpfully link to?). The problem with using a romance to spur self-actualization for a child or teen is that relationships in which one person is incredibly isolated from others, especially family members, can very easily turn abusive without any oversight. This is not to say that abuse survivors should not date, but that to a teenager without a support system, reading YA, the idea of a romantic relationship being the only good thing in your life can seem very easy and very appealing, and thus it can be very easy to ignore warning signs. Utilizing romance as the main source of light in a dark book also, frankly, leads to very stagnant narratives, and has also been done before about ten thousand times. (I’m bored.) Neil and Olivia might have been best friends when they were 8, but now at almost 18 they were so different, yet still like magnets. These two main characters had me feelings all the feels of young, first love. The butterflies, the confusion, and the all consuming infatuation that makes you re-evaluate your life choices up to that point.

Butterfly Paper Book - Etsy UK Butterfly Paper Book - Etsy UK

Time was doing that sort of pause and halt thing again, too, and there was this odd feeling in my stomach, like… Junes home life is not easy, with a stepmother who puts Lady Tremaine to shame she lives to get free from the house. School isn't much better with the taunts from kids and the racial impact is real. Blister, however, comes to make it that little bit easier, to try and take Junes mind away from the horror that is her life.

Lisa Heathfield launched herwriting career with Seed, her stunning YA debut about a cult. Before becoming a mum to her three sons, she was a secondary school English teacher and loved inspiring teenagers to read. Paper Butterflies is her beautiful and heart-breaking second novel. Lisa lives in Brighton.

Paper Book Butterflies - Etsy UK Paper Book Butterflies - Etsy UK

But then she meets Blister, a boy in the woods. And in him, June recognises the tiniest glimmer of hope that perhaps she can find a way to fly far, far away. But freedom comes at a price . . . Hello Yellow - 80 Books to Help Children Nurture Good Mental Health and Support With Anxiety and Wellbeing - Some things in life can seem really tough...There are things that seem like a mountain and you can't find a way round it, yet don't have the energy to go over it, either. You always find a way, though, eventually. Us humans are very strong underneath it all.” Be the first in the know and get exclusive updates onlatest crafts, ideas, trendsand best of all freebies!And I still had to tell him about the bet, but right now seemed like an increasingly stupid time to do so. I knew what I’d said, about wanting to slip inside his world, and take a nap in it, or whatever. But I’d been in a vulnerable place, okay? I hadn’t seen my brother in weeks. And he had just left me— again. Neil’s face had felt like a ray of sunshine on a dark and shitty day. I don't have any real-life insight into child abuse, so I can't speak on how realistic this was. At the start of the book, I just wanted to scream at June to tell someone, to get help. This book just ripped my heart out and shredded it over and over again. So much depth of feeling written into a book. Phenomenal writing. I felt a million things reading this outstanding book and yes, it made me cry and only 3 books have ever had that impact on me. This is powerful. Open it up and fold the 4 corners in toward the center crease line. Line up the edges straight along the crease. Your paper will now be in the shape of a hexagon, with 2 pointed ends formed by the folded corners. [12] X Research source

Paper Butterflies by Lisa Heathfield | Waterstones

Lisa lives in Brighton with her husband and three sons. Before becoming a mum, she was a secondary school English teacher and loved inspiring teenagers to read. Suffering produces endurance... And endurance produces character and character produces hope... And hope does not put us to shame.”You can love someone deeply, but somehow not always do the right thing by them. People have flaws. We get so much wrong. Maybe if you try to understand him as a human being with faults then you can move forward.” The scenes with the priest, in particular, bothered me a lot. I have read the narrative that abusers were probably abused themselves and thus we should forgive them before. I find it to be a very tasteless and useless phrase in actually interacting with abuse survivors, and as JA points out, this statement (in many cases) erases accountability. Children can receive some pass for making awful decisions while living in an abusive household. Adults, however, should not. What genuinely upset me about these scenes, however, is that the priest does not once use validation techniques. In peer counseling training I did my senior year of high school, one of the first things we were taught was to validate the feelings of those experiencing hard times. Even in situations where no actual wrong is happening, it is important to feel as if your feelings are heard. The priest does not do this for June, ever. No one does this for June. LoveReading4Kids exists because books change lives, and buying books through LoveReading4Kids means you get to change the lives of future generations, with 25% of the cover price donated to schools in need. Join our community to get personalised book suggestions, extracts straight to your inbox, 10% off RRPs, and to change children’s lives. Thank you to Netgalley, Egmont Publishing and Lisa Heathfielf for the opportunity to read this book for an honest review.