Is it not bad enough that we have to revisit Mercedes’s proclivity toward being honest with the children she works with on about twenty separate occasions, do we really have to laud it each time? There are entire scenes that serve no narrative purpose but to self-congratulate. Sure, they’re all flawed (in super palatable ways), but they’re also the most competent and considerate people in the universe, and we need to be reminded of it again. This kind of goes hand in hand with my criticism of the book’s tone, but what’s so insufferable about Roses of May and The Summer Children is how obsessed Hutchison is with her own protagonists. The last thing I should be thinking is ‘why does this have to be so goddamn twee,’ but here we are. It follows FBI agent Mercedes Ramirez as she investigates a series of murders by someone who’s attempting to ‘rescue’ children from abusive households by killing their parents. I mean, in theory, The Summer Children should be dark. I was hoping The Summer Children might bounce back and show a hint of The Butterfly Garden‘s greatness, but I’m afraid this had nothing to offer but more of that obnoxious fan-servicing cutesy humor that plagued Roses of May.
But Hutchison’s followup novel, Roses of May, provided a starling (and in my opinion, utterly grating) tonal shift, abandoning a lot of the creepiness of the first novel and coming across as ultimately rather juvenile. All I have to say about Dot Hutchison’s Collector series is: nothing gold can stay.ĭark, twisted, and gripping, I thought The Butterfly Garden was altogether pretty brilliant.
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