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Summary
Summary
"Fascinating. Ellison has the art of page-turning down flat, and readers will be swept up by both the terror--and the romance."
-- Booklist , Starred Review
"This book casts a spell over its readers."-- SLJ , Starred Review
"An engaging mystery starring a teen girl with obsessive-compulsive disorder. A pleasing mix of realism, tension, intrigue and romance."
-- Kirkus Reviews
" . . . a strong, twisty thriller of a debut . . . [with] a complex and memorable heroine."-- Publishers Weekly
"Lo's relationship with the mysterious street boy who calls himself Flynt, layered on top of her almost supernatural loneliness and helpless compulsions, gives the novel an otherworldly quality."-- VOYA
"A debut worth picking up. Stark and realistic."-- RTBooks
Penelope (Lo) Marin has always loved to collect beautiful things. Her dad's consulting job means she's grown up moving from one rundown city to the next, and she's learned to cope by collecting (sometimes even stealing) quirky trinkets and souvenirs in each new place--possessions that allow her to feel at least some semblance of home.
But in the year since her brother Oren's death, Lo's hoarding has blossomed into a full-blown, potentially dangerous obsession. She discovers a beautiful, antique butterfly pendant during a routine scour at a weekend flea market, and recognizes it as having been stolen from the home of a recently murdered girl known only as "Sapphire"--a girl just a few years older than Lo. As usual when Lo begins to obsess over something, she can't get the murder out of her mind.
As she attempts to piece together the mysterious "butterfly clues," with the unlikely help of a street artist named Flynt, Lo quickly finds herself caught up in a seedy, violent underworld much closer to home than she ever imagined--a world, she'll ultimately discover, that could hold the key to her brother's tragic death.
Also available in simultaneous e-book edition (ISBN 978-1-60684-268-3)
Author Notes
Kate Ellison trained as an actor in Chicago and has walked across the entire country of Spain. She is a painter and jewelry maker. Kate lives in Brooklyn, New York. The Butterfly Clues is her first novel.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Penelope, aka "Lo," has several obsessive urges-she is drawn to multiples of the number three, repeats the word "banana" for security, and steals various items that she hoards and carefully organizes in her attic bedroom. These compulsions have intensified since her beloved older brother, Oren, died, as has her habit of roaming from her suburban home into different neighborhoods of Cleveland. On one such journey to a seedy section of town dubbed Neverland, Lo is almost hit by a stray bullet. When she learns that a girl was murdered nearby and discovers some of the dead girl's jewelry at a flea market, Lo becomes determined to find the killer. The mystery pulls Lo into an underworld of strip clubs, drugs, and crime, and also introduces her to Flynt, a street artist who she connects with. In a strong, twisty thriller of a debut, Ellison builds tension effectively, creating credible (if slightly romanticized) portraits of both the decaying, violent streets of Neverland and the compulsions that make Lo such a complex and memorable heroine. Ages 14-up. Agent: Foundry Literary + Media. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Driven by compulsions and unhappy at home, sixteen-year-old Penelope feels compelled to investigate both the murder of a young woman named Sapphire and a part of the city known as Neverland. From the halls of high school to nightclub backrooms, insightful "Lo" works to unravel the truth around Sapphire's death in an effort to save herself. An intricate and uncommon mystery. (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Though 16-year-old Lo lives in safe, suburban Lakewood, she is drawn to a seedier part of Cleveland called Neverland, where her beloved older brother died of a drug overdose. In an incident that sets off a chain of events, Lo is grazed by a bullet while standing outside the house of a stripper who is not much older than she. Inside, Sapphire is being murdered. Lo's proximity to the crime only feeds her compulsions, which force her to repeat words, count, collect, and steal. After Lo comes into possession of some of the dead girl's things, she becomes obsessed with solving the crime, at increasing peril to herself. First-time author Ellison would have had a fine mystery if she had simply stuck with Lo's quest to find the killer while falling for an adorable street artist, Flynt. But by layering the narrative with subplots about a broken family and high-school horrors, all the while revealing what it's like to live inside the head of someone whose life is circled and squared by embarrassing urges, she provides a fascinating, fully fleshed-out story. The one false note comes in the not-unexpected reveal of the killer, who borders on clownish by the conclusion. But Ellison has the art of the page-turner down flat, and readers will be swept up by both the terror and the romance.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2010 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Penelope (Lo), the protagonist in Kate Ellison's murder mystery (Egmont USA, 2012), suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and also has an urge to steal. She's obsessed with numbers and can's even permit a tap on her shoulder without tapping herself to bring the number of taps to her current odd-number obsession. Lo survives in a grieving, dysfunctional family as the only remaining child after her older brother's untimely death from drugs. She doesn't have friends at school and spends much of her time taking city buses to parts of Cincinnati that are not safe. After Lo hears the gun shot that kills a young stripper, Sapphire, she hooks up with Flynt, a run-away artist who has been sketching strippers in clubs. Lo becomes obsessed with Sapphire's murder and as she investigates it, her own life and well-being are threatened. Therese Plummer dramatically narrates this first person story. Some adult situations make this title most suitable for older, mature teens.-Ann Weber, Bellarmine College Prep., San Jose, CA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
(Mystery. 14 up)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
