The Patron Saint of Butterflies (review)

Though they both have grown up at the Mount Blessing religious commune, best friends Agnes and Honey, who alternate narration, lead very different lives there. Agnes, who lives with her parents and younger brother, Benny, is devout and determined, seeking to emulate the self-recriminating saints she reveres; Honey, abandoned at the commune as a baby, secretly watches forbidden television and dares to doubt the word of the commune's leader and his disciples. When Agnes' grandmother comes for a visit, she's horrified at the commune leader's refusal to allow medical treatment for Agnes' severely injured brother, and that becomes the final push for her to spirit Agnes, Honey, and Benny away from the commune. That's not the end of the drama for the girls, however, as Agnes is appalled by the outside world and seeks to return to the fold, while Honey finds out shocking information about her own past. The religious commune makes for an interesting setting, and readers will certainly be inspired to contemplate moral and spiritual questions along with its young residents. The story is rich with implausible contrivance, however, from Honey's discovery of her secret family (she's actually Agnes' cousin) to Benny's being yanked away from a hospital sans pain pills the day after delicate and extensive surgery, and it's never believable that Honey would be such a mainstream-culture kid merely from private exposure to television. The book also stacks its moral deck, conflating spiritual rectitude with cultural dominance and leaving a trail of holes in its objections to the Mount Blessing teachings that sharp kids will enjoy widening with informed argument. Readers may nonetheless find secret satisfaction in the repudiation of authority, food for thought in Agnes' shocked view of the outside world, and enjoyment in the involving melodrama.