Save Yourself! I Doubt Emma Will Be Much Help

TITLE: Tinfoil Butterfly
AUTHOR: Rachel Eve Moulton
PUBLISHER: MCD X Fsg Originals
PUBLISHING DATE: September 10, 2019

FROM GOODREADS: Emma is hitchhiking across the United States, trying to outrun a violent, tragic past, when she meets Lowell, the hot-but-dumb driver she hopes will take her as far as the Badlands. But Lowell is not as harmless as he seems, and a vicious scuffle leaves Emma bloody and stranded in an abandoned town in the Black Hills with an out-of-gas van, a loaded gun, and a snowstorm on the way. 

The town is eerily quiet and Emma takes shelter in a diner, where she stumbles across Earl, a strange little boy in a tinfoil mask who steals her gun before begging her to help him get rid of “George.” As she is pulled deeper into Earl’s bizarre, menacing world, the horrors of Emma’s past creep closer, and she realizes she can’t run forever. 

Tinfoil Butterfly is a seductively scary, chilling exploration of evil—how it sneaks in under your skin, flaring up when you least expect it, how it throttles you and won't let go. The beauty of Rachel Eve Moulton's ferocious, harrowing, and surprisingly moving debut is that it teaches us that love can do that, too. 

MY THOUGHTS: So the main thing I can say about "Tinfoil Butterfly" is that it was a wild, crazy ride.  The issue with me though is that is wasn't necessarily a good one and I really wished I had gotten off before I did.

Emma is hitchhiking from home to the Badlands following the death of her step-brother/lover/best friend.  She makes some wrong choices and ends up with Lowell, who is clearly using for sex and as a distraction  She finally decides to break away from Lowell and steals him van, ending up in a small deserted town in the Black Hills.  Looking for gas, she holes up in a diner and runs into a little boy named Earl, who is desperate for her help.

Let's talk Emma.  As expected, she is a pretty unreliable narrator.  Due to drug issues, medical issues and mental health issues, I'm still questioning what in the book actually happened and what Emma imagined.  She isn't really unlikable, but I never really felt a bond with her character and honestly was never really concerned one way or another about what happened to her.  Then Emma meets Earl.  Earl's father killed his mother and "ate her" and now Earl is trying to escape and kill his abusive dad - and he wants Emma's help.  I did like Earl.  I truly felt for this 10 year old and can't believe the life he's lived already at such a young age.  Earl has been disfigured by his father which is why he wears a tinfoil butterfly mask he has made.  He is no longer allowed to carve things out of wood because he stabbed his father, so he plays with tinfoil.  Oh, and Earl thinks his mother is now a crow.

You then have George, Earl's dad and Lowell who are both horrible people in their own right.  We also travel back and forth in time and meet Emma's mother, father and step-brother Ray.  Sounds like a lot to cram into a book that is less than 250 pages long.  But boy am I glad it wasn't longer.

As you can surmise by now, this book didn't work for me.  Is it horror?  Perhaps.  Is it magical realism?  Who knows although that might explain a lot because a lot of times that genre doesn't work for me.  Is it about mean, dysfunctional people in a mean, dysfunctional world?  Most definitely.  I'm not even sure about the ending.  All I know is Emma has some serious issues and poor Earl found a savoir that was lucky to save herself.

RATING: 2 PAWS