Other People's Butterflies

by Cora Ruskin

Gwen Foster has never been kissed. But when she gets the chance to finally see what all the hype is about, it's with her best friend's crush. Embroiled in relationship drama she doesn’t understand, and ostracized from her friend group, Gwen escapes the angst by using her favorite femme fatale as a role model... and makes snooping on her classmates her new pastime.

Gwen's detective work appears to be going well, until an unknown social media account starts spilling all the scandalous personal details she's uncovered. Now this wannabe spy must stop whoever is behind it before everyone's dirty laundry is aired, and Gwen is forced to finish high school without any friends.

Other People's Butterflies is a coming-of-age contemporary mystery about not needing to find your first love – but yourself – and how to mend the relationships that matter to you.

Genres: LGBT, Asexual, Fiction, Queer, Young Adult, Coming Of Age, Contemporary

140 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 22, 2021

About the author

Cora Ruskin is a part-time MSc student of Science Communication, and works for a charity that helps victims of crime. Writing gets squeezed in between the two. She lives in Bristol, England, with five housemates and a very messy kitchen. "Other People's Butterflies" is her debut novel.

Reviews

[Sarah Bell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting debut with an ace/aro MC

Gwen is a interesting character - far from perfect but realistic for 17. And Ruskin does an excellent job of capturing the confusion of being a teenage ace/aro person, trying to understand your peers and the differences in how they experience things, without necessarily having the knowledge to understand yourself.

I also enjoyed the additional story within a story - it does a good of capturing that tough no-nonsense female spy genre.

All in all, a good read!

[Ela The Queer Bookish · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is your typical YA novel but with an aroace main character.

The first being alright while the latter needs to happen way more often. I do have a slight problem with that rep though, because Gwen makes an aphobic joke-y remark that bothered me quite a lot. Not every ace person is sex-repulsed, y’know?

There’s another remark that bothered me, this time an unsensible one about an off-page suicide due to cyber bullying.

That being said, let’s talk about the story itself. I couldn’t have cared less for Gwen and I was actually sad and disappointed about how her story turned out and around.

Especially the ending felt rushed and unrealistic. Just like that, that’s it? The only thing I felt was Gwen’s want-to-be-romantic-interest, even though he kinda fell into the “don’t friend zone me” talk. Which… sadly, realistic. At least he evolved away from that.

So, why did I end up rating Other People’s Butterflies 3 stars when I could’ve given 2?

Bookish Thoughts
Even though the story was flat and didn’t leave an impact on me – aside from ranting in my head about the remarks I mentioned above – as well as not caring at all about the MC and kinda hating her, the writing itself was fine to read. It was tell don’t show though but it did flow and reading Cora Ruskin’s debut novel wasn’t a hardship. I just won’t read this particular book again.

Disclaimer

I received a free ARC in exchange for an honest review. Thank you.

[LJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think my real rating for this book is 3.5 but since goodreads only allows round numbers, I'm boosting it up to 4 because it includes aroace representation.

This is a very readable YA novel about a teenage girl who, distanced from her friends because of her trouble understanding dating and sexual attraction, starts spying on all her classmates and that goes about as well as you'd imagine. Straight away I thought this was brilliant because the presentation of the aro-ace teen experience was absolutely spot on accurate. For that alone I think it is worth a read.

However, the actual plot of the book and the main character herself I liked a lot less. There were aspects of Gwen's personality that I found very difficult to like and overall I felt it was kind of problematic to have an ace character act so coldly towards other people, it sort of felt like it was playing into the trope of ace people being inhuman. Gwen sees a film (and then reads the book) about a spy who for some reason collects gossip on everyone and she for some reason decides to copy this behaviour. We have to read multiple chapters from the spy novel, which I really didn't care about at all, and neither Gwen nor Lana the spy are ever shown to actually benefit from all this stalking data-collecting they do, so I just don't get the point. I was pretty bored of the Lana segments and then about two thirds in, Gwen does something so stupid and illogical compared to her behaviour in other close by scenes that I just found I couldn't suspend my disbelief far enough and I had to put the book down for a while.

When I came back to it, the rest of the story moved quite swiftly and everything got wrapped up nicely somehow, which wasn't particularly believable either, but everything was so nice now that it was hard to remember what had made me have to step away from the book at all.

So overall I had several issues with the story, I didn't love it, but there were aspects to it that were brilliant and I'm sure it would be more enjoyable for the intended YA audience.

[aspeccharactersoftheday]

https://aspeccharactersoftheday.tumbl...

[chaospaladin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the writing and watching as Gwen figuring out who she is. Also Gwen picking up spying on people because she liked a movie character that did it is such a teenager thing to do and I thought it was great.

But there was quite a bit I didn't like as well, there is a chapter where someone is telling Gwen about something that happened and it's in third person when most of the book is in first, there is a joke-y comment by Gwen that makes it sound like all asexuals are sex repulsed (not true), and the ending was wrapped up to fast and neat in my opinion (all that stuff happened and everything is just fine now? What?)

Overall I'm delighted that the book exists but I don't think I'd reread it.

[Kierstin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has everything: gossip, mystery, an espionage sub plot, and some lovable backyard hens. Gwen Foster is a force of nature and seeing the world through her eyes is a pleasure. OPB showcases a point of view that is seldom talked about and brings it front and center. I imagine this book will be the “right book” for many readers to come.

[Jake Callum · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I'm asexual."
"What does that mean?"
"I'm not sure, I have to google it."

[cukrkandl · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Victoria Caro Méndez · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was one of the lucky ones that received one copy before the release date. And now I'm writing the review I promised.

I felt the protagonist. Everyone around non explaining a thing and expecting her to know everything. And everyone thinking she was the one who revealed all their secrets? That hurts.

[Andre Boone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fun book!

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not my favorite. The main character was extremely unlikable and was unrealistically portrayed. ACE/ARO is a spectrum and I felt like this just wasn't it. For me. Personally.