I found this book extremely difficult to get in to. There was nothing that made me want to read more of it. The characters didn’t seem realistic or personable and there was no connection for me. Towards the end of the book the story became a bit more interesting but overall this book did nothing for me. I appreciate the opportunity to read it. Thank you Netgalley.

A great book

Wow,
I really enjoyed the book.
I couldn’t put it down,it’s a page turner.
I love it and will recommend it to anyone to read.

The Butterfly Effect
A Novel
by Rachel Mans McKenny
Alcove Press
General Fiction (Adult) | Romance | Women's Fiction
Pub Date 08 Dec 2020 | Archive Date 10 Nov 2020

I could not relate to Greta, the main character. This was not a good match for me and I did not enjoy reading it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the opportunity to read the ARC.

Maybe someone else will like it better.
3 star

As a huge chick-lit read, I am well-aware of the "quirky heroine" trope. However, this debut novel, has a lead that is so unlikeable, it just pulled me out of the book completely. Greta is SO rude and horrid to those around her, I kept thinking "does she had a mental disorder?" I understood the plot - she had to give up her Phd project and funding in Costa Rica to come home for her dangerously ill twin, and she had issues with his fiancée and her estranged mother & ex, but she was so offensive to everyone - doctors and nurses, support groups - I just lost interest at the half-way point and did not care if she ever finished her project or got her HEA. I would suggest the author and editing team try to add some "humanity" and "humility" to this character before release date. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

I did not relate to the main character, Greta, and that is a good thing. Greta has issues. Lots and lots of issues. She is socially awkward with severe parental abandonment issues. Greta is blunt and accurately compares herself to the Star Trek Borg when it comes to relating to others. Greta is in school working on her doctorate which is about insects. Just as she is heading to Costa Rica she receives a call about her brother, her twin, who has suffered from an aneurism and is hospitalized. The story then revolves around her relationship and feelings about her brother, family, his fiance, and to a lesser extent her ex-boyfriend, Brandon, and her friend and fellow student Max. She now works for Brandon who already has a Ph.D. and is the one who started her love of all things butterfly. He is now in a committed relationship with someone else. The book was very well written. This is not a light-hearted feel-good story. It is kind of heavy and angsty which is not a criticism. Life is not perfect and we are all flawed. It hurts to see the pain Greta is feeling. Sometimes I want to read fantasy fiction that is all HEA and instalove and that is not this story. This story is real and gritty and describes real people and realistic circumstances but does end on a positive note with real character growth which I really enjoyed. All in all, I think this book was just shy of 4 stars but it was more than a three due to how well written and solid the storyline was so I rounded up. Another benefit to this story is you will learn a lot more about butterflies and insects than you did before so enjoy.

ARC received by Netgalley for an honest review.

I like books about quirky or strange heroines, so this must be for me, right? But no, I must admit I had a lot of issues with this heroine. She was totally unlikable to me for the biggest part of the story, even when I do understand what the author was trying to do.

Greta is a scientist and total opposite of her twin, Daniel. When Daniel lands in the hospital Greta flies home from her job in Costa Rica and to finish her study in insects (Phd) she has to work with her ex boyfriend again. Overall Greta was quite horrible to everyone around her and insulting.
The story does end on a higher note and I did understand her a little more. But it was not the romantic story I kind of expected.

This is a rather interesting book. Greta is definitely different from the typical romance character. The insect discussions make this book unique. I really like Greta at the end but it does take a while to warm up to her because she is unusual. I like the HEA and the twists along the way.

Thank you first of all to NetGalley and Alcove Press for the uncorrected proof to read and review.

This novel has a lot of work to go, if I’m being perfectly honest. I felt enthused and interested by the first chapter, and from there the plot and character development felt disjointed. I found the main character completely unlikable, and to play into a lot of negative stereotypes about women who are scientists. There were multiple comments that repelled me and pulled me out of the story (many negative comments about other women that played on sexist tropes, the comment that Spanish “isn’t a good language for science,” the ableist comment that someone with a disability and their caregiver make up “one and a half people”). Much of the other language seemed to make sense to the author, but left me utterly confused as a reader (what on earth is a “political ostrich”? Someone with their head in the sand? I still have no idea). The plot often relied on devices that didn’t seem realistic (such as the support group moderator being a caricature of a person who forced some people to share and was kind and gentle with others), and the ending felt incredibly rushed. Hopefully before publication a lot of work is done, but I don’t think I’d recommend this book to my fellow readers, which is unfortunate, because it had a lot of potential.

Unfortunately the storyline got lost in all the insect talk for me. The main character wasn’t likeable and the storyline got a bit tangled and confused in points. Not my type of book unfortunately

A big thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a chance to read and review this book.

To be honest, it was an average read. Pretty high on drama but it was not my cup of tea. I finished it but overall impression was average. I was very excited after reading the blurb and the plot is very interesting too but it kinda failed to live up to those expectations I had for the story. The writing was good and I liked some of the characters but not all of them; specially the protagonist.

This is a fun, quick read. The characters and plot are completely captivating. There are plenty of twists and turns that kept me interested to the end.

My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I'm going to rate this one a 3.8 out of 5, rounded up to a four. This novel is well-written, instructive, and often perceptive. There were a few passages that could have been omitted and I admit I started skimming over some of the flash backs, because they came across as filler and didn't really drive the action forward or enhance our knowledge of the characters or the story line. The long, drawn out dissection of why Greta was such a grump does not endear her to the reader. And yet I still give this a high rating because there were entire sections of this book that were quite well done. (The filler and often ill=placed flash backs got in its way, I suspect.)

In <u>The Butterfly Effect</u>, Greta and Daniel are twins. Daniel is the sunshine to Greta's dark night. Their personalities are polar opposites, yet when Daniel suffers a near fatal, debilitating illness, Greta immediately abandons her PhD work/study program in Costa Rica to help her brother in any way she can.

Greta has a habit of pushing people away with her abrupt, dismissive manner. For the majority of this novel, she also pushes away the reader - I wondered if Greta had Asperger's Syndrome. She was very self-absorbed: she certainly had no sense of anyone else's feelings or needs, other than her own. I couldn't understand why Max was such a devoted friend, and why Brandon professed to having loved her. She was impossible, rude and self-pitying. She was an incredibly negative person. Her treatment of her mother, Martha, and Daniel's fiancee, Meg, was insufferable! Why they even bothered with her after she constantly treated them so horribly has me totally baffled! Greta was rude, arrogant and downright mean!

And what gives with all the male attraction? Was Greta physically attractive? It didn't appear so. The third person narrator often described Greta's appearance as shabby, her hair unkempt and drab. ( I often wondered if the author would have done better to write this in the first person narrative. The narrative focus got blurred a time or two.) But, ah, yes, I'm forgetting: Greta had a brilliant scientific mind, and was better at creating insect traps than Brandon. See? That's all it takes to attract the opposite sex: a brilliant mind, right? Hmmmm. While the author appears to know a lot about the mating rituals of insects, I'm thinking that she may have skipped a chapter or two regarding human sexual attraction. Greta is described as a Hitlerite - an aloof, arrogant slob - and just about everything that came out of her mouth was an insult or a slur. Captivating, right? I'm still scratching my head over that one, folks. And yet somehow, despite these many discrepancies, I still enjoyed reading this book - for the most part - and couldn't wait to get back to it after work each day.

Do we get our expected HEA? Let me assure you that we do, but with some subtle, unexpected twists. Greta isn't the only one being led on a wild goose chase. You might find that you don't start warming up to Greta until around the 70% mark on your ereader. There are some memorable lines here and there about how certain behaviours (a gambling addiction - for Martha/ holding on to anger - for Greta) can feed on themselves and wreck your life. There are also several insightful passages that provide hope for this shipwrecked family. It will be interesting to see what other readers make of this rather rough gem.

This was definitely an interesting read. It came off completely different than what I was expecting from the premise of the book. This is a story about a girl named Greta who has to come back from her research project for her PhD because her twin brother has had a brain aneurysm. The entire plot is essentially Greta navigating her sudden new situation and trying to work around people. So, where to begin, the first thing I have to say is that Greta was hard for me to connect with and even as introverted and slightly prickly as I am, Greta took it to a whole new level.Greta is prickly, introverted, and has the social skills of a door, i.e. none. Every interaction she has with someone is stunted and makes her seem almost misanthropic. The only thing she really cares about is her twin brother and her PHD study in insects. The one glaring thing about her is her massive abandonment issues, since her mom left when she was younger. Greta is the worst to her brother's girlfriend and constantly treats her like trash, Greta is extremely angry at her mother who has come back to help her brother, and to her only friend Max, she barely reciprocates friendship. Greta is like this through the entire book until about the last 90% of the book. She really was not that likable and honestly at some parts of the book, I just wanted to shake her. The overall story is okay, but the inner narrative from Greta was a bit hard to bear especially with her constant anger and lamenting over all the things that upset her or how much she dislikes people. One nice thing about this story though was that I did enjoy learning more about butterflies.
* Thanks Netgalley for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*