The Butterfly Lampshade by Aimee Bender

From Goodreads

On the night her single mother is taken to a mental hospital after a final psychotic break, eight year-old Francie is staying with her babysitter, waiting for uncle to come take her to Los Angeles to live. There is a lovely lamp next to the couch on which she’s sleeping, the shade adorned with butterflies. When she wakes, Francie spies a dead butterfly, exactly matching the ones on the lamp, floating in a glass of water. She drinks it before the babysitter can see.

Twenty years later, Francie is compelled to make sense of that moment, and two other incidents – her discovery of a desiccated beetle from a school paper, and a bouquet of dried roses from some curtains. Her recall is exact – she is sure these things happened. But despite her certainty, she wrestles with the possibility the memories yet may signal she’s subject to her mother’s madness.

As Francie conjures her past, and reduces her engagement with the world to a bare minimum, she begins to question her relationship to reality.

Told in lush, lilting prose, The Butterfly Lampshade is a heartfelt and heartbreaking examination of the sometimes overwhelming power of the material world, and of a broken love between mother and child.

My thoughts

My thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.  I gave this a 4 stars or 8/10.

I started reading this story back in July, 20 I had to put it to one side for various reasons at the time.  I made a complete restart of it in March, 21 as I'd forgotten most of what I'd read of the 100 pages.  This was an unusual read in some ways, as it explores the relationship between a mother and her daughter. Every relationship between a mother and her children is different, none of us go through the same thing with our parents, we all experience similar things but in very different ways.  

Francie's relationship with her mother is an unusual one, her mother has mental health problems that lead to her being taken into a mental hospital.  As Francie ends up being cared for by other relatives, her life isn't the same due to not having that true relationship with her mother that she would have had, had she been with her mother.  Whilst waiting to be collected by her relative Francie spends a little time with a babysitter, during that time she spies a Butterfly Lampshade that has far reaching and long lasting influences over her.  Butterflies are delicate creatures and like the Butterfly our mental health is every bit as delicate, as we discover during the story of Francie and her delicate relationship with her mother.  How her mother's mental health may also impact on Francie in the future, if the problem runs in the family rather than being just a problem for her mother alone.  

Told in short chapters, this story soon has you hooked and wanting to find out more.  Short chapters are definitely a very addictive way of telling a story.  This was a well written and thought provoking in many ways story.  I will be reading more books by this Author in due course.  This would make a great reading group read in my opinion.