While consuming brainrot content on IG reels, I came across a mention of this book. I don't remember exactly what I saw, but it caught my attention a lot. Eventually, I read it; to be honest, I wish this book had been about butterflies, but it wasn't.

It's a story that, I would say, uses the admiration of beauty and that human need to take ownership of beauty as a precedent to more complicated elements such as kidnapping, domination, control and the objectification of youth in women.

A man - who is around his 50's or even 60's - kidnaps girls from the age of 16. He specifically chooses them for their radiant beauty. During the following days, he tattoos their backs. He draws wings of different species of butterflies; slowly, meticulously. The adaptation period is the most complicated for the girls because any element that ties them to their identity is torn away. They are given a new name, they cannot talk about their past. They only have themselves and the other girls - who average 20 - as they have become merely an object with an owner.

"The gardener", as they call him, abuses (SA's) them whenever he feels like it; still, you can "get attached" to him. The sanctuary they live in is beautiful. Artificial, but beautiful. They have clothes, food, a bed to sleep in. You come to forget that you are in front of a twisted fetishist. Someone can break your legs and expect you to thank him for giving you crutches, and in this case, that 'someone' is the gardener.

He swears to love them. He treats them with great care, and he can make you believe he's telling the truth; however, there is a difference between love, fascination and desire to become the owner of something (The gardener has a distorted vision) A butterfly collector can talk about love for butterflies, but that love is nothing more than fascination. He is fascinated by the beauty of butterflies, and that is precisely why he collects them. He wants to own that beauty and be able to dispose of it whenever he wants.

This "love" of the gardener is the most twisted and deceitful that exists, because true love cares about the other sides. The kidnapped girls know this. In fact, they fear that fact. Going noticeably against the gardener means that you could be the next dead. Like any collector, and specifically when a girl turns 21, her kills and puts her on display. She becomes a resin doll, with formaldehyde in her veins. Who would want that fate, after all?

It doesn't matter if you try to make the gardener happy, because he will never free you. There is a character who could have been "free", but her freedom meant that the gardener was no longer interested in her (and she, by the way, ends up with an eternal melancholy based on Stockholm syndrome) As I said, this old man is only interested in young girls.

The most painful thing is how there are individuals who know about the crimes, but do not report them; what's more, they take advantage of the girls who are locked up. In the end it took a stupid ego fight to get them to act and that didn't change anything. The girls lost their identity; physically and emotionally, they are broken. There is no way to give back what was theirs before they were kidnapped. It is simply ruined.

It is a crude story, so crude. The suspense left me wanting to read more and more. I also cried after understanding the pain of the victims, and I cried more when I understood the perpetrator (I was disgusted). That's why I was even more disappointed that the story ended so soon. I know It's some sort of saga, but despite that, the mystery was not adequately solved. It is a splendid read with good narration, though. I liked the resource of switching between the past and the present congruently. I highly recommend 'The Butterfly Garden'.