Butterflies in November

By: Audur Ava Olafsdottir

Narrated by: Angele Masters

Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

In Butterflies in November, internationally best-selling author Auur Ava lafsdttir crafts a "funny, moving, and occasionally bizarre exploration of life’s upheavals and reversals" (Financial Times).

After a day of being dumped - twice - and accidentally killing a goose, a young woman yearns for a tropical vacation far away from the chaos of her life. Instead, her plans are thrown off course by her best friend’s four-year-old deaf-mute son, thrust into her reluctant care. But when the boy chooses the winning numbers for a lottery ticket, the two of them set off on a road trip across Iceland with a glove compartment stuffed full of their jackpot earnings. Along the way, they encounter black sand beaches, cucumber farms, lava fields, flocks of sheep, an Estonian choir, a falconer, a hitchhiker, and both of her exes desperate for another chance. As she and the boy grow closer, what began as a spontaneous adventure unexpectedly and profoundly changes the way she views her past and charts her future.

Butterflies in November is a blackly comic, charming, and uplifting tale of friends and lovers, motherhood, and self-discovery.

©2004 Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir. English translation copyright 2013 by Brian FitzGibbon. Recorded by arrangement with Grove/Atlantic, Inc. (P)2014 Audible Inc.

couldn't stop listening to this story!

I loved this book so much that I was sad when it came to an end. The last line is so perfect that I cried.

A heroine of note whose triumph is self discovery.

The main voice in the book is a heroine that is exploring her past, her future, and the life of a woman in transition. She is clear and unemotional, but not without feeling. She has a rational solidity that observes her life with a comfortable scrutiny whereby she learns who she truly is and explores what it means to be a mother, daughter, and lover.

I find it interesting that the author writes a juxtaposition in the cliche of characters. The men in this story are are the more emotional and sentimental, where the woman is almost stoic, but still retains depth. She sees things just as they are, even if they are only her daydreams. This gives her the ability to accept change, both outward and inside herself, with grace and without attachment.

I will think fondly of this book for a long time to come.

A Very Quiet, Enjoyable Book

Low-key Icelandic novel. Well narrated to convey the dry humor of the story. Good characters.

Exceptionally choppy

This completely triggers my ADD. The story jumped all over the place, and I could barely make any sense of it.