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Book Summary and Reviews of The Fall of Butterflies by Andrea Portes

The Fall of Butterflies by Andrea Portes

The Fall of Butterflies

by Andrea Portes

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  • Published:
  • May 2016, 400 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

We Were Liars meets Looking for Alaska in a uniquely funny and heartbreaking teen novel about a passionate-yet-doomed friendship set against a backdrop of wealth and glamour.

Willa Parker, 646th and least-popular resident of What Cheer, Iowa, is headed east to start a new life. Did she choose this life? No, because that would be too easy - and nothing in Willa's life is easy. It's her famous genius mother's idea to send her to ultra-expensive, ultra-exclusive Pembroke Prep, and Willa has no intention of fitting in. But when she meets peculiar, glittering Remy Taft, the richest, most mysterious girl on campus, she starts to see a foothold in this foreign world - a place where she could maybe, possibly, sort of fit in. When Willa looks at Remy, she sees a girl who has everything. But for Remy, having everything comes at a price. And as she spirals out of control, Willa can feel Remy spinning right out of her grasp.

Andrea Portes, author of the hilarious, heartbreaking Anatomy of a Misfit, spins a similarly incandescent, heartfelt story that explores the meaning of friendship, new beginnings, and the precarious joy and devastating pain of finding home in a place - a person - with wings.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Snarky and painfully astute. But in a good way." - Kirkus

"Willa's memorable voice and humor, as well as her longing to cultivate relationships that will anchor her more firmly to the world, will linger with readers." - Publishers Weekly

"Fans of Chelsey Philpot's Even in Paradise will enjoy this coming-of -age story with emotional appeal." - School Library Journal

This information about The Fall of Butterflies was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Andrea Portes

Andrea Portes is the bestselling novelist of the critically lauded adult novel, Hick. The book was her debut and has since been made into a feature film starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Alec Baldwin, Blake Lively, Eddie Redmayne, and Juliette Lewis. Bury This, her second novel, was published in January 2014 by Soft Skull Press. Anatomy of a Misfit, her third novel, was her first for young adult readers.

Andrea grew up shuffled around between such disparate locales as Nebraska, Brasília, Texas, Rio de Janiero, Baltimore, North Dakota, California, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. Finally, Andrea was granted relief from this nomadic existence when she was accepted to Bryn Mawr College. She attended on full scholarship and later graduated cum laude, with a major in English literature. She then earned her master's in fine arts degree from UC San Diego.

After her relentless education, Andrea moved to the neighborhood of Echo Park in Los Angeles, where she spent years mostly getting into trouble. It was in this period of vague nothingness that Andrea penned her debut novel, in longhand in three notebooks. Currently, she lives in the neighborhood of Los Feliz, in Los Angeles.

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