Author: Laura Miller
Release Date: June, 2012
Publisher: Createspace
Pages: 352
Age Group: Young Adult/New Adult
Source: Author

Rating: ★★★★★

Julia Lang expected a nice night away from the office–free of thoughts about the case, her failed engagement, her past. But she should have known better. Her past haunted her every chance it got these days, and tonight it came in the form of lyrics she never expected to hear again–not after a decade, not in the arms of another man and definitely not in the form of a confession. Now, Julia must discover for herself if the song–and more importantly, the man behind it–is enough to leave her new life for her small-town, Missouri roots and a second chance at love.

Simple and enjoyable. Those two words are probably the best ways to describe Butterfly Weeds. It's a simple love story that takes you on an enjoyable journey while Julia attempts to figure out her life. While reading the book, I could really tell that Laura put her heart into this book. She was able to project things in ways that made you want to keep reading, and have a great time following the characters in the book. Laura is a fantastic writer, and you will see that when you read this book. It was a fairly quick book to read, and it didn't lack at all in any department.

We've all seen stories similar to this be it in other books or movies. I actually had a movie pop into my head while reading this because it had a somewhat similar plot line. But it's cases like this there you have stories like this where it falls on the authors to really make it their own and add their own voice and flare into it. I really do feel like Laura was able to accomplish this. Following Julia was a lot of fun, seeing the choices she made and having that insight as to why she made those choices she did. I think another thing that really helped was that the places Laura wrote in for Julia as far as places she went, were also places that Laura has visited throughout her life. So in a way, you have the author projecting her life through this fictional story, and that is always really awesome. Little things like that really allow you to connect with the book and the author more than you normally would.

I really enjoyed the characters. You have Julia and Will which are extremely cute together in the beginning of the book, and then things kind of go out from there. They both start to go off in their own separate ways, and eventually Julia meets Brady and eventually becomes engaged to him. I never liked Brady, he just seemed really pushy and wanted things his way. Rachel was another good character, she was one of Julia's friends and she played such a great part in the story. I really liked her. Again, it's just a really simple love story. But the way the characters are written, and the way you are able to connect with them make it such a great book.

I was pleased with the ending, it was pretty obvious but that didn't take away from how good it was. It's always great seeing people happy, no matter how things work out to actually get to that point. You will experience a roller coaster of events leading up to the ending but I think it will be one readers really enjoy. Just keep in mind that everything through the story might not play out exactly like you thought it would, I know I was caught off guard by a few things towards the middle of the book. But Laura really did a great job making everything work really well.

I really hope you all will check out this book. I really feel like this is a book any contemporary or romance reader would enjoy. It's considered a YA book but I would say it could be marked as both YA and New Adult. It's just a really cute love story with a lot of heart. I really enjoyed getting the opportunity to read it, it's always nice to read such a sweet story every once in awhile. I hope you all will read it if it sounds like something you might enjoy.

Thank you to Laura for providing me with a copy of this book for review.