Book Review: Butterfly Chaos by Melinda R. Cordell

(Disclaimer: I received a free digital copy of this novel in exchange for a review; however, I was not obligated to review favourably)

About the Book:
Three months after her cousin Toni died, Cassie is still reeling. Toni's best friend now ignores her in the halls. Cassie's cousin is dating the girl who torments her in gym. And Cassie has maybe a teeny-tiny crush on the boy who found Toni in the river. Then Toni's ghost visits Cassie and reveals that in two nights, a powerful EF3 tornado will rip into a dance hall, killing those three kids. Cassie sets out to keep everyone from going to the dance. As she argues and cajoles (and stockpiles minor munitions to clear the building, just in case) she uncovers stories about her friends' connections with Toni - and all the reasons they refuse to skip this awesome dance. Why does everyone have to be so bullheaded! Despite everything Cassie does to change their destiny, they find themselves directly in the killer tornado's path. In those last moments as the tornado bears down on them, Cassie must find a rock to cling to as the whole world is torn to pieces around her.

Here's a link to the Amazon page, if anyone is interesting in buying the book and/or seeing a sample!

    Butterfly Chaos follows Cassie, a young girl who is struggling to cope with the drowning death of her cousin, Toni. Cassie's family is extremely close, and her and her cousins seem to have a more sibling-like relationship. Toni was older than Cassie, and as such Cassie looks up to her and is racked by guilt over her death. I found the title of this book very interesting; it's mentioned in the book, and refers to the idea that tiny decisions affect the future, so if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, the air movement can cause a tornado in Texas.
    This idea is played with very interestingly throughout the novel; Cassie dreams of the tornado multiple times, and sees how her actions throughout the novel affect the events of that night.
    Another aspect of the novel that I enjoyed was the characterization. While there were some minor characters who remained very one-dimensional that I think could have been better fleshed-out and given better motivation, but Cassie herself was a very interesting character. She did not fall into many stereotypes many YA heroines often do, and her narration was relatable and made her seem very real.
    I also thought that the town the author placed her story in was well-written; Cordell works in enough detail for readers to understand the culture of the town and Cassie's family, without being bogged down in unnecessary details and "info dumping".
    This book was a fairly quick read for me; when I found the time to read it, I devoured most of it in one sitting. The story was fast-paced and heart-pounding, and I found the ending was quite a twist. I didn't love everything about the book, of course, but I think it was a very worthwhile read.
    I'd say this book would be appropriate for middle grade or young adult readers; it's classified on Amazon as a teen book, but it could definitely be good for middle grade readers as well due to the age of the characters and the plot of the book.
    4/5 stars!

Are Outlines a Blessing or a Curse? (Method Mondays)

    I'm going to be 100% honest here. I hate outlining. I absolutely despise it. I would much rather dive head-first into a story and just start writing than sit down and plot out what's going to happen. I will also admit, though, when I sit down to write and have no clue what needs to happen to bridge event A with event B, I really wish I'd sat down and taken the time to write an outline.
    This isn't really going to be a tutorial on how to write an outline, because outlines can take any form you want them to, depending on what suits you. What I want to do with this is more of a discussion about outlining as a practice and why I would or wouldn't do it.
    I really only learned to outline in my last two years of high school, mostly because I had to for English classes. Has it come in handy? Yes, definitely. Am I 100% willing to admit that I complained about it for nothing? Not quite.
   Contrary to how I've made it sound, I do outline from time to time. Most of the time it's for blog posts or something similar, but I often do it for short stories too, especially if I want to get the ideas down before I forget them. For example, for the sequel to "What's a Princess to Do?", I wrote an outline when the idea for the story came into my head. It's just 17 bullet points, each one of them a short sentence. Some of them are only fragments of sentences.
   I'm not usually a very detailed outliner (for stories, at least; when it comes to more academic writing, sometimes that changes); if I come up with a particularly good line of dialogue or a little bit a scene, I'll put it in the outline as I come up with it, but most of the time it's just a sequence of events. Character A does this, so that happens, so B has to do this, and so on. That's a bit of an oversimplification, but for the purposes of not having spoilers or sharing plot points that will end up edited out or changed, that's what I'll say.
    I know plenty of people who have much more detailed outlines than that, and if that's what you like and what works for you, then go for it! I'm not big on detailed outlines because I'll just end up writing the full scene instead and then my "outline" will just be the book or story itself.
    I think the only "danger", if you can call it that, to outlining is that it is possible to become too dependant on an outline and forget to let the story "breathe", so to speak, and adapt as you continue writing. If I use an outline, I follow it when I don't know what needs to happen and when I need to make sure certain events take place for the plot to make sense.
    What do you all think of outlining? Do you do it, and if so, what does your normal outline look like?
   Thanks for reading!