Butterfly by Cambria Hebert

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Title: Butterfly : A Public Enemy Standalone
Author: Cambria Hebert
Series: Public Enemy #1
Published by: Indie
Release Date: November 3rd 2017
Format: Kindle Book
Pages: 296
Genres: Contemporary, Romance
Reading Challenges: Lenoreo's 2018 #LetsReadIndie Challenge, Lenoreo's 2018 Beat the Backlist Challenge, Lenoreo's 2018 New Adult Challenge
Find it: Goodreads ✩ Amazon ✩ B&N ✩ IndieBound
My rating:

Blurb:

Drunken brawls. One-night stands.No-show interviews. Toilet-papering my hoity-toity neighbor's house.Insulting my fans. Trashing hotel rooms.What's it take to become public enemy number one?I just told you.I've done all that and more.My poor conduct got me on the Celebs Behaving Badly listand ultimately ruined my career.From the world's number-one popstar to world's most hated.That's me. Ten Stark.Go underground, they said. Stay out of the spotlight.Most importantly, stay out of trouble.Everyone loves a good comeback story.For once, I listened.I met someone who didn't know my name,my face, or the bad behavior that defined me.She taught me I wasn't who everyone thought I was--everyone including me.Then someone whispered my name and things got messy, as they always do.Now I want her back.I'm not a caterpillar, but a butterfly.My wings are in full color, not just black and white.But first, I have to shed my cocoon and fly.

*this is a standalone college romance novel

My Review:

3.5 stars — I was a bit disappointed actually.  But not completely.  So this is going to be a bit of a weird review, b/c I did enjoy the book, but there were a few things that made me…uh…a bit ranty.  I apologize in advance.  This is all to do with me and my own button issues, you know?

So this book felt eerily similar to #Nerd (for fans of the #Hashtag series).  Which, for some people is OK, and sometimes it’s OK for me too, but I do tend to like to have a bit more uniqueness.  Some examples:

• Popular guy, isolated girl with no self esteem
• wears similar clothes (leggings/uggs/hoodies)
• guy sees something in girl and she’s completely different from anyone else he’s ever encountered; immediate connection to the point of obsession
• frat party with abusive frat guy
• bromance

I don’t mind most of these elements, and even like a lot of them…but I just felt like I was having deja vu while reading this book.  So now I’m not sure I want to read Toad, b/c is that going to be just Braeden and Ivy?  I’m probably being picky here you guys, maybe I was just in a bad mood…

The problem with having a beloved book to compare it to is that you can’t help but…well…compare.  And Ten/Stark in particular fell short in comparison to Romeo.  Ten just didn’t become very redeemable in the end.  I don’t know if he even felt that much GENUINE remorse for fucking PEEING on his fans.  His alcohol abuse was never really addressed, and he never seemed to see how much of a problem it was.  He got a DUI and just scoffed at it as though it wasn’t a big deal, and THEN he had 3 beers and drove shortly after, and no one thought that was a problem.  And in the end I just didn’t understand his transformation, or necessarily believe in it.  All this sounds so negative, but it’s more how he fell short.  He had lots of good moments too, I LOVED how adorable he could be with Violet…but I’m just not sure it was enough to make me a fan, you know?

I enjoyed Violet MUCH more.  I appreciated her sense of humour, her sassiness and snark.  I did understand her self esteem issues, but those were never really addressed in the book, which was a shame.

One area where this book seriously excelled for me was in how it represented and portrayed Rheumatoid Arthritis, and someone suffering from RA.  It helps that Ms. Hebert suffers from RA herself, and so she could give a very accurate representation of what it’s like to suffer from it.  It was very eye opening, and great as a diversity read.

This was definitely a case where I LOVED some things, and had a bunch of other things that irked me.  In general I really felt butterflies in my tummy with Violet and Stark’s relationship, their chemistry was palpable.  I felt their connection, even as I didn’t get why it existed.  Ms. Hebert has a tendency to write very possessive males, and I accepted it in her Hashtag series, but for some reason it really bugged me with Stark.  It felt…almost abusive…but not, but I don’t know how to describe it.  It just made me a bit uncomfortable I guess.

I LOVED Nate, and the relationship Ten and Nate had.  They made me laugh and smile.  Ms. Hebert *really* knows how to write an awesome bromance.  Related to that, I really enjoyed the music aspects to the book, the few times we got that.  I loved that Ten and Nate connected over that.

On the other side of the coin, I HATED the whole naked drawing drama.  But not in the way you might expect.  I was disgusted with Violet’s disgust at the naked form.  She’s a freaking artist for god’s sake.  There is nothing perverted about drawing a naked model, it’s NOT SEXUAL.  It was so judgemental, I couldn’t even.  You’re taking a drawing class, are you kidding me??  A real artist would not have felt that way IMO, but I could be wrong.  Sorry, ranty…it just annoyed me, to say the least.

So yeah…my review went everywhere, didn’t it?  It was a book of extreme reactions and emotions.  I loved so much, but I was also disappointed.  *shrugs*  Ah well.  I’m not having luck with books lately, so maybe I’m in a mood too.