Maeve Lawson, Butter
Hi Trevor, I finished Butter by Erin Lange. It was a very interesting book. The concept really illustrated how our society has become about our outwards appearances. You don’t have to be skinny to be liked. You don’t have to be tall or have blond or brown hair but, our society has become so pressing with magazines and movies that we feel we have to be this way. Butter is obese so, he is feeling this pressure even more than everyone else.
My least favorite character is Butter’s dad. He completely shuts out Butter! No parent should ever do that to their child. His dad should have been helping Butter through his struggle. By staying silently, he was hurting his son.
Butter really was a fascinating book. It illustrates how messed-up our society and how bullying is a horrible problem in schools. I hope you enjoy this book. I really am glad you liked Drums, Girl, and Dangerous Pie!
-Maeve
6 Replies to “Maeve Lawson, Butter”
Yes! I am so glad you liked it! I absolutely loved this book. I was waiting for the typical “Overweight Bully” story to come out but it was actually a lot different from that.
Butter was such a good character! Although he was a bit shut off to others he had such an awesome personality. I trully felt for him when the whole anna thing went down. He was in the wrong and Anna helped him see what he was doing. Therefore you are so right, she is definately an important character. She helps Butter with his recovery along witth looking at life different.
The group of boys made the story come to life. They gave the story the feel of highschool.
I was so eager to get to the end to see if he would actually follow through. He is such a sweet talented character and I would absolutely read this book again! LOVED IT!
Hey Maeve! Once again I must say your reading level and passion for reading really does amaze me! Here I am, the college student, getting my butt kicked by all these books I am have to read while you are just zipping through them. Kudos to you. Unfortunately I have not started reading Butter yet. I just finished reading Wonder by RJ Palacio and I thought it was a decent book. I personally liked Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie more. I think this is because of the fact that I was able to connect with Steven and his brother Jeffrey more so than with August, Via, Summer, and Jack Will. Do not get me wrong though, I still thought Wonder was a great book. I could never know the hardship of living with physical deformity like August. However, I do understand what it is like to move at that critical age while moving into middle school. It is not easy to start over and have to meet new friends, so I can sympathize with August on that.
I plan on reading Butter this next week and by your post I feel like it will be a good book to follow up Wonder with. I have no previous knowledge of what Butter is about but from your post I can understand that he is an overweight boy who is also not comfortable in his skin. I was an overweight child in my elementary years before puberty and all those magical things that take place, so I am curious to read about what could have happened to me if I did not get my weight under control. I plan on reading this book through this next week and my goal will be to get you another post by Thursday or Friday. Have a great week Maeve and I will talk to you soon!
-Trevor
It is so cool that you made the connect between Wonder and Butter. I agree with you; It would be really hard to move schools at an age where everyone has cliques and groups.
Hey Maeve so I finished Butter this week. Although it annoyed me slightly, the book was very good and I enjoyed it. The topic of suicide is a downer in general, so I was not fond of that, even though deep down I knew Butter wouldn’t go through wit hit. Quite a few parts almost brought tears to my eyes, mostly towards the end, and mostly revolving around his dad, who managed to ignore him throughout the book. Butter wants to be acknowledged by him, a fact which we can clearly see, so when his dad says to him “‘No, I missed my chance to be your coach. But if it’s not too late, I’d like to be a fan’”, you can completely understand why Butter says he has to fight a lump in his. His dad then admits he still goes to “their” mountain, which is something Butter still does but thought his dad had given up on. Butter’s relationship with Anna is also resolved and I like how they ended up friends. It was cool how through their eventual friendship that, on the very last page of the book, we find out Butter’s real name, Marshall. Up until the last few pages, I realized we had never been told his real name. He was just referred to as Butter and it was accepted because he did nothing to change it. I stopped noticing pretty quickly that that obviously wasn’t his real name, and I think that was cleverly done on the author Erin Lange’s part. Normally I feel like I would spend most of the book thinking “can you just tell me his name already?”, but she manages to make it all so natural and smooth, that it all just flows and you don’t think twice.
So I know you have finished Chocolate War as well, I just read your post. Seems like it will be an interesting book. I have a hectic week of school next week but I plan to finish it and give you a post by next Friday. I know that was the last book on our list to read together but I know you’re probably deep into a book of your own choice right now. Let me know how it is! Maybe even a suggestion of a good book for me to read on my own after Chocolate War…? Have a good weekend Maeve and I will talk to you soon.
-Trevor
Hi Trevor,
I totally agree with you. I didn’t even find myself wondering about Butter’s name until Erin Lange stated it. I knew that it was a nickname but didn’t think twice about it.
His dad annoyed me. I felt like, “How can you ignore your own flesh and blood when he is going through such a hard time of his life?” I am super happy that they made up though. I think that the experience brought them closer. You could guess that Butter wasn’t going to go through with it, but you get caught up in the story so you forget everything is going to be alright.
I just read Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. It was very good. I hope you had a great Halloween and I can’t wait to talk to you soon.
Bye,
Maeve
Hey Maeve
Yea I did have a good Halloween. How was yours? Did you dress up as anything? One night I dressed up as a tourist and another night I went as the “Bubble Bunch” in a group with my roommates. It’s a reference to an old Ashton Kutcher that featured a group of sci-fi nerds who dress in these suits added of bubble wrap.
So I am still moving slow with my reading. I am sitting down after I type this post to you to start reading Chocolate War. I am pretty excited for this book. From what I remember during my class conversation it is about a boy who does not want to participate in the school fundraiser. Seems like it is going to be a fun read because I have participated in many fundraisers like this that I did not want to. I’ll read a good portion tonight and then some more tomorrow so that I can get a post to you tomorrow evening about some of the material from the book. I know you have moved onto other books so it will not be anything crazy on my end. I am just trying to catch up!
-Trevor
P.S. Can’t wait for our Twitter chat tomorrow night!