Catching Butterflies

Search for Home (The Escape Series, Book 2)

By: Sandra J. Jackson

Narrated by: Carrie Coello

Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

April and Beth have escaped, and their captor is dead. Freedom is in their grasp - if only they knew where they were.

With some memories returning, April and Beth struggle to find answers to their questions. What they know is that they’ve been vaccinated against a strange virus. But what happened to their family, and to the rest of the world?

As they head out, they stumble onto the compound where their nightmare began, but the empty building only brings more mystery into their lives. Soon, they encounter others wandering on the numerous trails throughout the woods. For April, finding her family is priority one; for Beth, it's sticking to the trails.

How can April ever convince her to leave the forest...and why are they being hunted?

©2019 Sandra J. Jackson (P)2019 Sandra J. Jackson

Love it!

I was given a copy of this Audio Book in return of my unbiased review.

This is the second book in a series and I did purchase and listen to the first book prior to this one.
It is a great YA series about two sisters that have escaped being used as test subjects and their search to find their family. While I really enjoyed the story, I found the sisters immature and annoying at times but if I had been locked up for years away from my family and society I might be the same. That being said this is a well written book that kept me listening! The narrator is very good and makes it easy to tell who is who with different voices.
Bottom line I would have purchased this book to listen to if I had not been given a copy and intend to finish the series!!

We made it

I like the mystery, the love, the sadness and they made it finally they made it home. Yes I would recommend this book definitely
The Escape series success.

Catching Butterflies

I received this audible story for free in exchange for a honest review. I recommend you read the first book in the series.😎

Good listen

I did not listen to the first books, but feel it probably would have made this book better for me. I did enjoy it, but I felt I missed too much not having listened to book one previously. I give this book a 3.5 star rating rounded to 4. I just couldn't connect with the characters, again probably because I had not listened to book one.

Much more enjoyable than the first book

I received this copy of the audible for an exchange of an honest review. The narrator did an amazing job with the character's voices. I enjoyed this book more than the first book. Glad everything was explained with the plot as there was many questions unanswered in the first book.

Another great listen

I enjoyed this more than the first book but only because there was more action. We delve deeper into the main characters and get to meet a few more people as well. The ending is satisfying which I wasn’t sure would happen. Once again Carrie Corelli did a superb job.
I was given a free code for this audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

Slow build

Catching Butterflies follows April and Beth after they escape C.E.C.I.L. The girls are determined to find their family and what happened outside of C.E.C.I.L.

The first 3/4 of this book was slow. The decisions that the girls were making were starting to wear on me and felt like they were made in order to draw the story out.

The end of the book actually made up for the rest of the book. I finally got some answers. If I hadn't gotten any answers, I think I would be giving up on this series. The ending changed this book from a three star rating to a four star rating. After reading book one and two, I think they could have been edited down into one book.

A timely topic

Right now in 2020 the world is experiencing a pandemic in which over a million people have died. In Catching Butterflies, the sequel to Playing in the Rain, Sandra Jackson envisions a similar but much more deadly situation. Two feisty sisters, who have been vaccinated and held captive as experimental subjects, are determined to escape their captors and find answers to what happened to the rest of their family. To this end, they navigate a much changed and very dangerous landscape. I will not reveal the plot, but their struggle makes for an intriguing and thought-provoking story. The narrator does an admirable job of conveying the many emotions of the characters. I recommend both the story and the performance.

wonderfully narrated post- apocalyptic adventure!

I was gifted a copy of this Audiobook by @elderberrytales and Carrie Coello for my honest review.

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Let me start by saying I did not read the first book in this series and jumped right in to the second book. April and Beth are two sisters who have just escaped their captors and are trying to find their way back to civilization. They have very little memories and struggle to fight through the haze. With only the contents of their backpacks to aid them, they brave the unfamiliar woods.

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They know they've been vaccinated against a strange virus, but they have no idea what has happened to their family or the rest of the world in the meantime.

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Held captive at a facility in the woods called C.E.C.I.L, they were subjected to mind control drugs and brainwashing. Now they must try to find their parents and see if anything has survived the deadly outbreak. April has the strange sensation that they're still being watched and hunted. April knows they need to leave the trails and look for help, but Beth is still caught in the mind control and refuses to leave the dangerous looping trails.

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There wasn't a whole lot of action in the first half of this book, but it did fill you in on the events of the first book, so I didn't feel like I'd missed anything by starting with book two.

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Both girls have special abilities, which you will learn in the story, no spoilers here. All the children from the facility with special abilities have a hidden butterfly tattoo on the back of their necks. Hence the title, catching Butterflies. 🦋 The second half was redeeming and filled in a lot of questions and just enough information to keep you guessing for another book.

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I enjoyed this one, as did my 11 year old, and I'd read the third book to fill in more of the puzzle of the strange outbreak and how the world has changed in the aftermath. I liked most of the characters and the narrator made it easy to tell who was speaking with alternating voices which I appreciated!

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I would recommend this book to my fellow, sci-fi, post apocalyptic, adventure lovers.

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

Interesting premise, missed opportunities

This book takes place in a possibly post-apocalyptic world. There is a virus that we have heard wiped out a lot of people, but we don’t know the full extent of the destruction and the main characters don’t have first hand evidence, only what they have read and heard others say. Bad things have happened to them and they are trying to figure out answers. Overall it was interesting. There were some missed opportunities for highlighting the desperate nature of their condition. Big spoilers ahead.....Specifically, the main character had more awareness than the others who were brainwashed/hypnotized to stay on the path in the woods. The horror of being aware in a group like this wasn’t as intensely highlighted as I would have liked. That is a super scary concept and while the main character was upset by this I wanted more. Also the whole premise of their capture and stay at CECIL was based on eugenics and getting these people with “special” abilities to survive an epidemic. I wish the characters understood earlier that the premise was based on eugenics and tried to grapple with that horror. Perhaps a big argument/blow-up in the group and the main characters wondering if their parents were complicit in this. Instead they don’t discuss it and the parents just say that when CECIL told him their plan about saving people with special abilities that they said no and then were abducted. Some additional discussion about why they were horrified by this concept would have been good. Finally perhaps I missed a description of race elsewhere but it seems the main characters (and perhaps all the characters with special abilities??) were white but the one character specifically described as having brown skin wasn’t part of the special abilities group. So is this just a weird coincidence or is this part of the creepy eugenics premise? I hope the horrors of this are explored more in Book 3.