The Butterfly Box

<b>I'm not sure whether I enjoyed this book or utterly loathed it.</b> Some of the characters in the book (Nuno, Toby, Julian, Sam, etc) redeemed this to 4 stars otherwise I'd most likely rate it a 0 star.<br /><br /><u>Ramon Campione Story</u><br />The plot totally lost integrity for me due to <b> the sexist, irritating, weak, condescending creep that is Ramon Campione</b> (the principal protagonist's father). He was an unmitigated diaster - the most selfish, pathetic weak loathsome being whom I felt utter disgust. Furthermore, who possessed the utter audacity to justify his weakness and utter immorality behind the most shallow arguments to convince the readers why he was a terrible absentee father and husband i.e. blaming his wife (a feeble minded creature called Helena).<br /><br /><b>I'm not a vindictive person, however, if Roman had received his just desserts than I would have felt satisfied with the ending. However, this book was a treatise to his utter nonsense.</b> <br /><br />Every feminist will be insulted by Ramon Campione and Helena's story. Its an affront to women's lib. The age old burden of blaming a woman for a man's weakness. I appreciate Helena has some culpability in the events that took place, however, considering the circumstances, Ramon is seriously a horrid piece of work hiding behind an affable exterior and a misguided philosophy.<br /><br />Helana's story is rather tragic in a pathetic way. She's a feeble minded bimbo of a character, however, she did not deserve her fate. Perhaps if she had not married so young and had learned more from life she would have been a better person. All I can say is – thank God for career women. Helena's story tells you why you ought NOT to put all your eggs in one basket, particularly if that basket is a man.<br />It starts of like a typical Mills &amp; Boon story – with blonde English Helena, a beautiful 18 year old naïve country girl who falls instantly in love with the tall, very dark handsome Roman, an exotic charismatic Italian Chilean romantic wanderer. They marry and move to Chile, where (anyone would have guessed) Helena depends on him heavily and becomes needy (so far from home, away from her friends and family and so foreign – what did he expect??). This neediness begins to permeate her character until she's becomes contemptible. Roman's response is to wander off to far parts of the world despite his responsibly to this needy woman he dumped in Chile and his children.<br />He becomes an absent father who indirectly blames his wife for why his son Hal didn't feel a deep affection for him like his daughter Frederica. Frederica loves her father unconditionally (blind hero-worship manifests itself throughout the novel with other characters too), with very little effort on his part <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="35e84ba5-8a76-46cf-b805-bea87d12d0a7" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="35e84ba5-8a76-46cf-b805-bea87d12d0a7">(this doormat characteristic in Frederica is in built from a young age and almost ruins her life (as you will find later)).</label><br /><br />Ramon's story just becomes silly after that. Its obvious that where he must make an effort to obtain love he loses interest and wanders off i.e his son Hal. If Helena was a career woman he would most likely have had a more successful marriage, but then he'd most likely feel threatened by her career – he's that sort of despicable weak character. <br /><br />The most pathetic part of the book is that he falls for a maid (and although he hides her away for most of their relationship) he tries to convince himself that its true love. Its more likely the <b>illicit and informal nature of the relationship that kept him happy, not love.</b> I have nothing against “household help”, but it takes a contemptible creature to play around with his family's household help, particularly when your children are in the house and your still married (even if its a bad marriage). If you must be unfaithful – how about a little further away from home? <br />And then he tries to convince us that he loves this maid because she offers him unconditional love. That equates to her being a doormat - men in the real world take women like that for granted. And its unconvincing that a educated learned man would find a maid interesting for long other than in the psychical sense. This is not a spoiler as Roman and his lusty pursuits are only a minor subplot. <br /><br /><br /><u>The Supporting Characters</u><br />Apart from the despicable Roman – the remaining characters, particularly Nuno, are delightful. <b>The entire Appleby family are an excellent bunch (and make up for the tiresome parts).</b> Sam is a good strong intelligent type. Not a clichéd dark dashingly rich handsome type from Mills &amp; Boon but a real person without the fairytale qualities, but all the strong admirable traits that make you thin- AT LAST – after a surfeit of Roman the cliché types! <br /><br />I say read this story as a very LIGHT reading because otherwise it'll only annoy you, particularly the way Roman is forgiven so easily in this book (which resembles more like indifference than love).

Goddamnit!, she did it again. She wrote this romance that I read in three hours, because it was so bad and I was so bored to do anything else but breathe, eat and read, and still it was NOT passionately written and deeply felt, how she wrote on her page. ''The Butterfly Box is an epic saga of love, possession and metamorphosis.'' Where can that be found in this romance, please point those pages. I'll borrow you my cursor, here you are --&gt; ... See, you can’t, because it’s NON-EXISTENT!

Superbly written story. The characters are so easy to connect with, to fall in love with. Perfect holiday reading. 

Absolutely love this book! I could read it over and over again. <br />The characters are so easy to connect with, to fall in love with. Especially the Appleby family.<br />I really enjoyed the variety of settings, I feel like I could visit these places and recognize the hills, the shoreline, the yappy dog down the road. <br />An all-time favourite.

This wasn't a bad book. Lots of melodrama in it which I found over the top. A bit of a classic 'what did I learn after it was too late' kind of book - those annoy me - so probably why I didn't enjoy it as much as others will.

<i>“Cuando brille el sol y sientas su calor en tu cuerpo, ahí estará el amor de papá.”</i><br /><br />“La caja de la mariposa”, es la historia de Fede, quien te cuenta cómo va creciendo desde Chile hasta Inglaterra, ya que sus padres se divorcian. En el libro puedes encontrar muchas cosas que de la vida diaria, que te permite identificarte: experimentar celos, el amor de la familia, el desamor, la pertenencia y dependencia en las parejas, el sexo, la idolatría, la desintegración familiar, la soledad, los amores platónicos.<br /><br />“La caja de la mariposa” es un libro que te hace reflexionar las diferentes formas en que se puede amar y llevar las relaciones. Al principio me pareció excesivamente largo y explicativo, pero todo tiene una razón, y a medida que uno se adentra en toda una saga familiar y en sus relaciones, la piezas encajan y todo tiene sentido.<br />Vale la pena leerlo!<br /><br /><b>100% recomendado</b>

Literally the worst book I have ever read. It’s like Santa M. has never met an actual human being before. The male characters are ridiculous caricatures and the women are all so pathetic. There is no nuance or complexity to anyone in this book. The worst bit though is the weird almost paedophilic part where the main character who is 7 develops a crush on a 15 year old. 7 year olds with romantic feelings is a little weird but we are told the older bar tee doesn’t notice her as she’s too young. Bloody too right!! This book is just complete trash. Don’t buy it.

Full of shallow self obsessed charcters apart from Nuno,the saving grace.

This book sent me on an incredible journey and the characters were so well written. For example, one of the characters (Sam Appleby) was extremely punchable when he let Federica go and she married another man. However when he saw her going down the aisle in the white dress and felt a pang of jealousy, I instantly felt so sorry for him and I felt this urge to throw the book across the room. Obviously, I didn’t do that because I wanted to know what would happen and the ending was one of the best I’ve read in a long time. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling and I hope this book has the same effect on other readers!

This book made a big impression on me, reading this in my teens. I just loved its characters and that it followed the families and of course Federica's life. Whilst reading it was as though you grew up with the characters and you felt like you knew them well. It certainly encouraged me to seek more by this author, as well as encourage desires to travel. Very easy to read, enjoyed the setting both the Cornish coast and also Chile. It is every bit the saga it is described. Feel that this will stick with me and would definitely recommend it to others.