Butter Kindle Edition

I was getting my oil changed and while waiting, read an article in a neighborhood paper about this wonderful book and how the author lives locally. The book sounded interesting and I was going to be at the oil change place for awhile, so I bought the book on my Kindle app and started reading. It was a fantastic read and as a mother of two children (one going into middle school and one starting high school) I decided to buy a paperback version for them to read. My daughters both loved the book! Although we have had family discussions about topics like this before, reading this book allowed a new conversation about the story and how we can relate it to our own lives. It was a wonderful way to start a discussion about bullying, chatting online to strangers and friends, and how important it is to try to do the right thing.

BUTTER by Erin Jade Lange is a book that resonated with me in a way I had not expected it to. I had actually started this book after finishing one I'd hoped I would love, but unfortunately turned out to be just `eh'. On the contrary, I went into BUTTER on thinking it would be just `eh'. Why? Well, I admit, I initially thought that Butter would literally be eating HIMSELF, and I was somewhat (morbidly) disappointed when I discovered that he would just be eating a lot, eating and eating to the point of death. (Silly me!) But joyfully, I finished the book having fallen completely and utterly in love with Butter (both the book and the character!)Simply stated, if you or anyone you have known has ever dealt with weight issues, bullying, peer pressure or any type of insecurity whatsoever in high school (which is just about everyone) you HAVE to read this book. The book is told from the point of view of "Butter", a morbidly obese senior in high school who has been dealing with weight issues most of his life. You can blame it on bad genes, terrible self control, or his enabling mother, but when push comes to shove, this guy is FAT. And he's in high school. With that said, I am sure you can only imagine the treatment he receives by his classmates. Go ahead, imagine it, guys. I am willing to bet that how he is actually treated is far worse than anything your mind comes up with. Just wait until you read about how he got his name. *shudder*Oh, and he's been to fat camp. So we get to join Butter as he is horribly treated in school AND as he stands by growing fatter and fatter, while his fellow camp buddies become thinner and thinner. What a real self-esteem crusher, right? And then there's this girl... Yup. Butter, who is actually incredibly funny, likable and an all-round great guy, happens to like one of the most popular girls in school. Doh! That can only lead to trouble, right? And it does... In a series of events that leads to Butter proclaiming his eventual demise (death by eating) to his classmates over the internet.Erin's writing and her story and her characters are as unforgiving as they are hopeful. Her characters are at once likable and highly realistic. They are forced to make difficult decisions, many of which lead them (or should I say Butter, in particular) into big trouble. Erin is an adept author, mastering the difficult task as a female author to write as a male lead. Butter is endearing, if not a bit, well... stupid... at times because of the things he says and does (but that comes with the territory of being a teenager, right?) And the kids at Butter's school? They are downright awful. But then again, they are your typical teenagers, too, right?So how does it all go down? How far will Butter take his antics? And will he get the girl? Well, what unfolds may surprise you, perhaps disturb you, or maybe even make you think. I know that's what it made me do.Highly re-readable and unforgettable, I recommend BUTTER by Erin Jade Lange to anyone who wants a different and insightful contribution to contemporary YA fiction.

This book was fantastic. It's not my normal genre, it was a recommendation, and I couldn't put it down. It's about fitting in and acceptance and depression and love and just how crappy teenage years can be. Quite frankly, I want this book taught in school - it matters, and it's incredibly entertaining, too.

I was really interested in reading this book. I had it on pre-order so I got started the day it came out. I think it was my morbid curiosity kicking in that made me want to read this book so bad. That's kind of a freaky idea to eat yourself to death live on the internet.The book is about a 423 lb. boy with the unfortunate nickname of Butter. He spends his life in a self-imposed isolation despite his mother's and music teacher's best efforts to draw him out. Even the kids at school leave him alone out of pity. The only times Butter is happy is when he's playing his saxophone and when he's online talking to his crush under his online alter-ego.Once Butter finally makes it known that he is going to eat himself to death online and makes it known to the school, he starts getting the attention that he realizes he's been craving. He gets to sit at the popular table. His crush is finally starting to notice him. But is the new found fame worth it? Is it for the right reasons? What happens when he reveals who he really is to his crush?I flew through this book. It was well written and the characters were definitely memorable. Butter was relatable at times and frustrating at times, but I always wanted to know what he was going to do next.Other than language, there weren't any big red flags in terms of parental warnings. Butter would be ok for most teens.

Butter is the nickname of a morbidly obese high school guy. The range of emotions is explored well, from isolation to elation of being accepted via being picked on. Butter makes a date with death and he suddenly becomes popular and as this date races closer, he shoves away choices and goes headlong into the light of eating himself to death.Why only 3 stars? I think this is more of a teen book and the depth of any character sans butter was not developed well. We got to know them by "pretty" "jerk" etc, one word names that encompassed who they were. It has good lessons about bullying, eating emotions, friendship, etc. it was a quick read which I ate up. :().

Butter's life is depressing. At school he sits alone, and at home his dad doesn't talk to him and his mother is constantly feeding him food. His only friend is from a fat camp and doesn't go to his school. One day feed up with being invisible and taunted he decides to kill himself by doing one of the only things he knows how to do, eating himself to death. Wanting to go out with a bang he announces his last meal on the internet and instead of helping him the kids at school make him their celebrity. An odd topic to begin with, the author manages to take the absurd and make it real giving Butter a deep and complicated world view. Slowly he learns from the experience what is forcing him to eat and how he contributes to his own problems. By the end he not only understands himself better but the reader does too.

Read this review along with others on my blog by following this link: https://bibliomad.wordpress.com/Body image. Self confidence. Weight issues. Ring any bells?For me, those phrases ring the bells of the young generation of modern society. My generation, to be frank, along with people younger and older than I. The introduction of the internet has led to the idea that everyone everywhere is judging you and only you. We all feel devastated when we get fewer likes on our profile picture than someone else, and all have a spring in our step when someone compliments our Instagram aesthetic. It is this idea – the idea that social media can control our emotions in previously unheard of way – that Erin Lange explores through Butter, and I’m endlessly happy that she did.The book opens with a nameless boy, identifiable only by his derogatory nickname Butter. Personally, I thought ‘Butter’ was a term people adopted for him, due to his weight, and link between body fat and cooking fat. However, his musical companion known as The Professor argues otherwise; he is called Butter, because he plays the saxophone smooth like butter. Butter himself, however, buries the truth of his name deep down, blaming said truth for his current weight predicament. The withholding of information here really engaged me, and enticed me to find out why Butter is called what he is – could it really be so bad that he now tips the scales at 400 lbs because of it?Next, comes Butter’s realisation that life is no longer worth living; he feels he is too fat to recover, cannot survive another year in this ‘fat-suit’, and doesn’t want to live in a world where severely overweight people are forced to pay for 2 seats on aeroplanes. As a reader, one understands and empathizes with his reasoning. One doesn’t, however, believe he will go through with it. That is until peer-pressure comes along, and Butter is met with another predicament:Butter publishes his wishes on a website, quickly found by fellow students of the high school he hates so much. But, instead of grief, he is met with congratulations, and morbid encouragement, many people vowing to watch his deadly suicide meal on New Year Eve. This leads to a new-found popularity for Butter, one he doesn’t want to give up in aid of killing himself. Yet, if he doesn’t kill himself like he said he would, he is the cowardly kid who pulled a sickening prank, pretending he would kill himself. But if he does, who knows what will happen? Who knows what lies after death? What about his loving mother and not-so-loving father? But more importantly, what about his popularity status?That’s a real dilemma…so what to do? Well, Erin Lange keeps the options open until the very end. One wishes Butter won’t go through with it, yet is ‘friends’ wish otherwise.And that’s the basics of the story, one that keeps you guessing from the very start, right up until the very end. So, you’re perhaps wondering, why only 3 stars if you think the plot line was so brilliant? Well, Reader, I will tell you: the writing is lacking, as is the character development.Because it’s a modern YA contemporary, it’s acceptable that this book is written colloquially, making it an easy read, and also feeling as though one can connect with the protagonist a little more. However, the writing is at no point exciting or particularly funny or particularly shocking. Many things are glossed over, just as many things are rushed through – hours can pass in a paragraph, yet those hours are important to the story, and I was really annoyed to be left behind by this story that seemed on a mission to run away with the wind. Had the pace been a little more controlled, I feel the book would have benefited drastically.In terms of characters, Butter – in my opinion – isn’t likeable. He feels as though he’s entitled everything he wants, and acts cocky, on some occasions, to get it. I didn’t like reading from his perspective, because it felt like I was the bad guy for not being 400 lbs or more. However, this did help to build on the purpose of the story, and allowed me to understand the extent of Butter’s suicidal tendencies a lot more.On another note, I felt as though Butter was very transparent, and didn’t have his morals in the right place; he fell for popularity so easily, despite hating the ‘popular kids’. Granted, I can understand how popularity gets its hooks into a person, yet it wan’t like Butter was universally popular, nor was he popular for the right reason, and nor was he intended to have this popularity forever. Frankly, his 15 minutes of fame were intended for the final 15 minutes of his life, a fact Butter was too naive to see, despite not being naive at all. In my opinion, these tropes combined didn’t work to build Butter as the poignant character he was probably intended to be.Despite this, the characters the school kids played worked really well. One naively prays that real people are not as despicable as they are in this book. They, however, are, and that is a really striking thing for me in this book; the honesty Lange writes this book with is truly unnerving, yet equally effective.What’s interesting about this book is the way it addresses modern issues; I never even considered the fact that peer pressure could cause suicides before this book. And now? I’m horrified I didn’t see it before. The kids in this book glamorize suicide, stating the protagonist has ‘Butter Balls’ to even consider it, let alone vow to do it. The encouragement Butter receives doesn’t feel threatening, it doesn’t even feel insulting; in the simplest terms, it is motivating. And motivating someone to commit suicide? Drastic, but unfortunately…realistic.Overall, I didn’t particularly enjoy this book, but I was hooked on the suspense, and the ultimate outcome. Also, I very much respect the meaning and moral of this book. Thus, I awarded it 3/5 stars.

I pre-ordered Butter the day it became available on Amazon. As it's not out in the UK yet I had to go for the American hardback, the price of which made me gulp a bit. I didn't care, however, as after reading the synopsis for Butter I knew it would be one of those novels I had to have and had to have RIGHT AWAY. I waited impatiently for months. And months. Then I got an email from Amazon saying it would be dispatched two weeks earlier and was due to reach me in a couple of days. I did a little body pop of joy. Then it arrived. And I devoured it.Butter isn't a book you can enjoy, per se, but I loved it. It was addictive, moving, well-written and impossible to ignore. It demands attention, from the cover to the synopsis and then the story itself. This isn't a happy story; it's dark and twisted and, at points, quite sickening. There are moments of comedy but it's sarcastic, biting comedy that just adds to the darkness of the story.This book exploits the morbid curiosity that dwells within so many of us. Despite the fact I was reading about a teenage boy self-destructing to the point of suicide, it didn’t cross my mind to stop reading; I had to find out what happened, I had to find out whether he went through with it. I think Lange did a brilliant job at capturing a sense of mob mentality within the population of Butter’s school. I’ve seen people in a couple of reviews saying it was unrealistic, that there’s no way that would happen; I didn’t have a problem picturing it at all, unfortunately. We see the dark side of human nature in Butter, from the protagonist to his parents to his classmates. I thought it was interesting that Lange didn’t make Butter a target for bullies; the fact his size means he’s gone beyond that to people feeling too sorry for him to pick on him really stood out to me.While Butter might not be bullied outright, bullying is an underlying theme in this novel. He might not have things thrown at him in the hallway but the bullying explored here is more insidious, disguising itself as friendship and support. And, to me, that’s the most dangerous type of bullying. Bullying can manifest itself in so many different ways and we see a lot of these touched on in Butter, including the different relationship Butter has with his mother and father. I think the way his parents react to his size so differently was wonderfully done and what I imagine to be so realistic.I’m not going to discuss the ending here because obviously it’s such a crucial part of the story but I’ll be interested to see what people thought of it. If you have read Butter I really want to hear what you thought about the ending – please don’t post any spoilers in the comments but do drop me a message on Twitter because I need to talk about this book with someone!In conclusion: Butter arrived at my house at approximately midday. By 4pm that afternoon I had finished it. So, take from that what you will. Also, there’s nothing like this book to make you inspired to do your 30 Day Shred workout, I can tell you!

I bought this for my 11 year old. He is quite mature when it comes to selecting reading material.......I knew if he needed to discuss any of the topics in the book he would come to me.On page 14, he brought the book to me and said, 'mom, there is an awful lot of swearing in this book'. We then decided that I would read it first.I found the story to be interesting but as someone else mentioned, the character was a bit one dimensional. I never understood what drove him to become so morbidly obese and the book never really got under the skin of the relationship with his dad.Between the unnecessary swearing, talk about drugs, alcohol and light sexual references, lies the story of bullying and suicide. But the other tough thing about this book is that it never really got to grips with Butter's depression or despair. The main character, at times, was angry and ambivalent, but never seemed depressed. It appeared that Butter's suicide plan wasn't born out of out of a mental illness but more of a need for attention.I just think the writer missed an all opportunity to grapple with the mental state of the the main character. Surely Butter's mental health is something that is key to his overall behavior.Nevertheless, it was still an interesting idea for a story, but it will go back on the shelf until my son is 13 or 14 due to the language and alcohol/drug references.

well well well !! I had read about the synopsis of this book months ago before it available in the UK ... and boy I am so glad I finally got it :Dwhat a refreshing change ... I am secretly sad that this is her first book - only because I simply want to read more if her writing - its clear precise and also has underlining issues that get you to think !the book is mainly about the guy butter - a morbidly obese friendless guy ; we can all feel that without food he would have nothing else : ah wait !! he plays a saxophone and he is so good at it but no one knows : this book without giving too much away sees butter go from almost no life to being involved with the in-kids and then having a few good lessons about life and the likewell worth the wait and although I have this as an ebook I am going to buy the paperback so my sister and friend can read it too !!do try it ;o)

An absolute masterpiece that I just couldn't stop reading. There are so many possibilities for the ending but this is the one I didn't expect, one that brought me to tears. Truly addictive, inspiring and relevant, Butter is a book that will stay with you for a long time, and I'd recommend this to anybody, as you'll be hooked by the first chapter.