We first meet Lo as she is wandering around the Neverland neighborhood of Cleveland, a worn out ghetto riddled with crime and shady characters. A gunshot rings out and the bullet lodges itself in the building across from her. Lo hides in terror and then flees, rushing to get back to the bus so she can once again return to her safe suburban home on the outskirts of Cleveland.
The next day she is haunted by what she experienced the night before and learns that a young woman was murdered in the area she had been in. This sets Lo on the hunt for the killer and on a roller coaster ride of new experiences, emotions and first love.
Ellison has created a character in Lo that is at once endearing and incredibly annoying. Her spot-on habits of a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder make you want to scream, "STOP THAT!!!" at the page, when she can't stop tapping her leg three times and saying "banana" at every doorway or when she compulsively steals an umbrella right out of an old lady's bag on the bus. But with all her quirks, you learn to love Lo and understand her idiosyncrasies. She feels the incessant pull to solve the murder of this girl she has never met in order to deal with her own self-inflicted torment over her brother's death a year ago that she was not able to prevent.
A great cast of characters, an intriguing mystery and a bit of romance make The Butterfly Clues a must-read for the end of the summer.
Miss Keri
