The Butterfly Lampshade by Aimee Bender questions the nature of reality, the validity of reconstructed memory and the distortion caused by the filter of mental illness. As with The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender provides a novel that is poetic and somewhat otherworldly as it straddles between the believably real and surreal. Francie is a young woman who is obsessed with remembering and reinterpreting a specific, traumatic period of her life. Twenty years prior, Francie was forced to leave home when her mother is placed in a mental facility. Forced to go live with relatives she barely knows, her journey marks a pivotal moment in her development. Now an adult, she creates a type of isolation chamber and reduces her activities to focus on minutely recalling each moment of her travels during that time. She recalls her mother’s increasing instability and descent into psychosis with the immature lens of a child. Francie struggles to comprehend the irrational words and actions of her primary caregiver, unsure if she can trust what she believes she experienced. Faced with a lack of safety and doubt, compulsions and obsessions take over Francie’s life and she attempts to compensate by painstakingly exploring their origins. With uncanny eidetic ability, Francie recalls thoughts and events that include the unbelievable animation of objects from pictures and other unexplained phenomena. The reader is left to wonder if these memories are projections of her mother’s illness, her own inherited emotional instability, or actual supernatural occurrences. It is a testament to Bender’s skill as a writer that all possibilities are equally plausible within the confines of the character and the plot. The Butterfly Lampshade addresses what it means to revisit formative time periods with a child-like mind: one that is open to magic without reservation or fear. Bender requires her readers bring this same mindset to bear in order to truly appreciate the virtues of her work. It is a peculiar book, delightful and original-rewarding to those willing to embrace its strangeness.

Thanks to the author, Doubleday Books and NetGalley for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Some novels make you want to scream and for me this was one of them. The slow, glacial pace as the narrator sifts details of the journey between life with her mentally unstable mother and a new existence with her aunt in Los Angeles is both deliberate and highly testing. Yes, I see the point of trying to enter the questing, uncertain mind of a child of such a parent, but is this truly a novel? Could it perhaps have been a short story? Empathetic and persuasive, yes, but also obsessive, oppressive and much too long.

Part a story about mental illness and part about the mother-daughter relationship, it’s Francie’s story. Going back and forth in time, Francie relives what her mother’s mental illness was like. Francie, too, begins to deal with mental issues and some of her memories are bizarre. Bender has gotten into the heads of her characters well. The reader really understands the interactions of the characters with the world around them, but there’s so much rehashing and re-examining. This book didn’t touch my heart like The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.

Found up to 3.5
Much as I try not to be influenced by other works by an author, it can’t be helped, sometimes. I adored “Lemon Cake,” so had to request this book. I think that love probably influenced my rating of this book.

The Butterfly Lampshade is evocative, moody, thoughtful, and detailed. I often say that my mind works like an eggbeater - I made odd associations and wonder about coincidences. There was much about this book that appealed, and yet, I’m still feeling a little iffy.

I try to review as soon as I finish reading a book. I have no doubt I’ll mull this one over for a while, and may change my rating and opinion (upward) but for now... I feel kind of dreamy and drifts about it.

The Butterfly Lampshade is the long-awaited new title by the author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. It is largely an in-depth examination of mental illness and the toll it takes on families, particularly the bonds between mothers and daughters and sisters. Bender's prose is gorgeous and lyrical, though the ending is left a bit ambiguous.

Almost lost me at first -- but the Proustian closeness of the narrative, the simple and incredibly narrow focus, really won me over. But this book is going to be polarizing AF, make no mistake. It's so unlike her previous novel and even, in many ways, from her stories.

Aimee Bender is a beautiful writer. Whatever the mystical? magical? mysterious? quality is that she imbues into her stories, I always find it incredibly appealing. I read this book in one afternoon.

Rating: 2.5 stars rounded down (note: contains a spoiler)

This was a strange reading experience. I wasn't compelled by the storyline enough to keep me intrigued throughout. I had a feeling from the onset that nothing would be resolved at the end (it's not listed as sci-fi...) but I felt frustrated when she got the lamp from the babysitter and then sold it. To me, it seemed obvious that Francie was having delusions or had altered her memory in some way to fit around the butterfly, beetle and roses. So it felt like the entire plot was driven by her status as an unreliable character.

That being said, I could tell that the author was really, really talented. The book had great character development despite a slow plot, and I thought the back-and-forth of the chapters was done in a smooth, intelligent way. I think I would read this author again, but I don't recommend this one.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐟𝐟 𝐨𝐟 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠.

First, I am a fan of Aimee Bender and this book isn’t without beauty and deeper meaning. There were times I felt it entered a time freeze, slowing down too much for me and I lost interest but I would pick it up again at night and settle in. The silently beating wings of the butterflies are in the mental breakdown eight-year-old Francie’s mother Elaine suffers. Right away, the reader is scared for Francie as Elaine sinks into psychosis, terrified of her daughter, sure there is something wrong with her. With the sound mind of her Aunt Minn via telephone, her mother is calmed for the moment and a plan laid. Francie will stay with her much loved babysitter until Elaine’s sister’s husband (Stan) can get a flight to Portland. But by morning, her mother swears she is fine… nothing could be further from the truth.

In a bizarre turn of events, her mother’s accusation that Francie has a bug in her feels more like a premonition when, at babysitter Shrina’s, she finds and swallows her ‘fated bug’. From there the reader learns the history of her mother’s mental illness and the signs that haunt Francie’s own life. The stay with her Aunt’s budding family in Los Angeles, California becomes permanent, as her mother’s mind takes much longer to mend. She comes to love her baby cousin Vicky deeply, the two share a bond that grows stronger as Vicky is on the verge of adulthood. But her Aunt Minn worries about the state of Francie’s being, her actions, particularly when she and Vicky construct a tent on the balcony of her apartment.

Working in a frame store, it is her online business of selling ‘interesting items’ that she finds at yard-sales that is taking off and when she quits her job it sets off alarms in her aunt. Vicky wants promises that she is okay, not planning to do anything crazy so she can ease her own mind and her mother’s. But what if Francie is losing her grasp? How can she trust herself to even know when she is sick or well when her own mother lived with the confusion of those states, ending up institutionalized. How can she explain what it is, exactly, that she is going inside of the tent?

Through the years, she is sometimes afraid of herself, what she might do. The echo of her mother’s illness rings in her ears, instilling fear. From the moment she drank that bug, to the strange happenings thereafter, Francie must retreat within herself to sort reality from fantasy. The mind is a powerful creature.

The mental illness aspect is beautifully expressed, there were such heartbreaking moments from the very start when Francie’s mother breaks down, imagining it all with a child’s mind, the pain of separation, starting anew much like an orphan even though her aunt welcomes her into her home without hesitation. There is an isolation in the fear of an unstable mind, despite having an aunt who grew up with her own sister’s waxing and waning grasp on reality. The only thing I wish is that it dragged a bit less. I was hooked by the first pages, then lost interest but kept reading and was happy I did, but it’s not what I expected. Aimee Bender is a wonderful writer, I just didn’t feel it kept a hold of my attention the entire time although, I did care about the characters. It is a novel that takes it’s time with you.

Publication Date: July 28th, 2020

Doubleday Books

. As always, Aimee Bender's writing in this book was beautiful, and the settings vividly and evocatively drawn, especially the scenes from main character Francie’s childhood. Francie's relationship with her mother is also deeply and memorably developed. I also loved Francie’s relationship with her cousin, who becomes like a sister when Francie moves in with her aunt and uncle following her mother’s mental health crisis. This book treats mental illness and its effects on family members with empathy and sensitivity.

I am such a fan of Bender’s short stories, and I found myself wondering if this concept would have worked better in a short story format. The initial magical realism aspect was interesting, but there wasn’t quite enough plot to fill out an entire novel, and the book lagged in sections. I think Bender’s odd but evocative fabulist concepts really shine in short stories, but fell a little flat for me in this more drawn-out format.

This is a beautiful and slow burning book. Following Francie as she comes to terms with her mother's mental illness and her life as a young adult, there is a lot of time spent in her head thinking and not a lot of action or plot. This is 100% a character study, so don't read this expecting a lot to actually happen, but do read this expecting to think a lot about the line between thoughts and the world, especially through the eyes of a young girl.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an ARC through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

At its core, this feels like a book about processing trauma through fantasy. In theory it sounds like something I would enjoy, but I just found the execution lacking. While highly readable (I managed to get through this in a single day), I just didn't feel particularly connected to the characters or the story. I wasn't reading because I wanted to see what would happen next, but because I wanted to finish the book and get on to another. Those who like slow-moving plots and magical realism are more likely to get along with this, but I found it just didn't hit the spot for me.

content warnings: intrusive thoughts; psychosis

A melancholy, tragic word picture, tinged with fearful magic. The Butterfly Lampshade is beautifully written, but very sad.

Bender's newest novel about a young woman trying to remember every detail about her last days living with her mother as a child starts off a bit slowly, which may be intentional, since readers will later join the main character as she sits in her memory tent, waiting for memories to return, so we must be patient.

The book is titled after a lampshade that the main character's babysitter had in her home, a lamp shade she is reunited with twenty years later, and then, after the lampshade does nothing for her, she sells it--which is somewhat how the novel evolves and spins, the energy spent to remember details, and then discovering the details aren't that meaningful any longer.

When Francie, our main character is eight year's old, her single mother has another psychotic episode, and ends up hospitalized, and Francie lives with an aunt and uncle who have just had a baby, providing her with an immediate new family. The two girls become close and are with each other throughout this fast-paced novel, where we watch Francie continuously question how much she may be like her mother as she is certain she is going crazy.

Francie's mother is an interesting character, and I wish we had seen the two outside of the hospital and in the world more often than just at the ending of the novel. Regardless, a satisfying read.

I’m judging a 2020 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

A longtime fan of Aimee Benders this novel does not disappoint, it retains Bender’s usual magic and whimsy while still interrogating the larger tougher issues that make readers like myself turn to magic in the first place. Equal parts ache and fairy dust.

"Kidding!"she laughed. "Just kidding! These are for the blanket drive." Her eyes flashed, and she wrapped the striped one around herself as if to hold herself together. She had told me once while tucking me in that she did not always know when her behavior was off, which was one of the more horrifying aspects of being sick, she said, that she did not always know when her behavior was off, which was one of the more horrifying aspects of being sick, she said, that she did not always know what was well, and what was sick, and she had asked me, please, to tell her. "Please."

In this novel, we find Francie is sent to live with a relative as a small girl, while her mother is suffering from a mental breakdown. As an adult, Francie has a hard time dealing with her childhood trauma and distinguishing the past and what is a reality, what is memory, and what is a fantasy.

Bender has a very specific writing style - one that is thought-provoking, free-flowing, expressive and colorful. She also leaves some things up to the readers interpretation, which I enjoy.

I like Aimee Bender’s short stories because they are pithy and weird, yet I was disappointed by how very slow this novel was. The emotions Bender evokes are poignant, and the struggle the main character has about how to live her life while maintaining a relationship with her mentally ill mother is touching. But there are too many mundane details (at one point we even hear that the traffic light outside her apartment has changed) and I didn’t find the images of bugs that may be real or may be imaginary enough to sustain my interest in a story narrated by a very detached voice. Even though I didn't enjoy it, I would recommend it to Bender fans or to readers who like nuanced, psychological novels or challenging mother/daughter stories.

A very thought provoking book about a young girls thought process during the separation from her mother because of mental illness and how she used all her memories to deal with her sorrow and fears.. I can't decide if what happened to the insects is real or her trying to swallow something shes trying to hide from. her, but something that happens on the train which is real but can't be explained may be a reference to things that should happen does.
I found the writing very colorful, intense, and beautiful to read. I almost like the writing more than the story.
I've read "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake," and feel like its another version of talking about the mental illness in families in a different way.
Worth the read if you like to read between the lines.

The Butterfly Lampshade is the tale of Francie whose mother was hospitalized for a mental conidtion when Francie was only 8 years old. Several days after the fateful event that lands her mother in the hospital, Francie drinks a butterfly from a glass of water. Was it real? Francie tries very hard to remember the events of her childhood and what it means. I love Bender's lyrical writing style but this book left me wanting. For me, the ending was unsatisfying.

Heart-wrenching interesting read looking at mental illness and the fear of inheritance. It was definitely slow going but still interesting read from the author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.