Butterflies are the world’s most popular and beloved insect. From exhibitions at zoo’s to our own gardens, they are the one insect that we welcome with open arms. But why are we so drawn to them? What is their life really like? Wendy Williams dives into the hidden lives of these “living flowers” as she explores butterflies around the world and the scientists that are studying them. From fooling ants to inspiring the creation of life-saving medical technology, Williams learns about these creatures that are tougher, more intelligent, and more integral to our world, than we have ever realized.
As a lifelong fan of butterflies, the minute I heard about this book being published, I had added it to my to-read list on Goodreads and I put a hold on the preordered copy at the library. I was extremely excited to get my hands on this book and to dive into it. I am glad that I managed to get a hold of this book and read it, but those were not my thoughts when I initially started off reading it.
I found the beginning of the book to be a little slow and a little weird. I wasn’t too surprised that the book started off slow because it is understandable that a non-fiction book starts off with the basics and then builds up into the nitty-gritty of the subject matter. The weirdness of the beginning came from the fact that I was not familiar with Wendy Williams writing and thus some of the things that she “said” struck me as a bit odd. In fact the very first thing that I wrote down about this book after I started reading it was, “She just described dead insects as delicious... and luscious... I'm a little uncomfortable…” I can not fathom of any situation or any butterfly specimen that would evoke such a response in me. Why would I ever want to eat a dead butterfly? For one, they are all too beautiful for that and for another the thought of consuming a butterfly is entirely unappealing to me. Due to Wendy Williams’ use of unusual descriptors, I was little concerned about reading the rest of the book. Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about that at all.
Before I continue on with my review, I really quickly want to talk about the organization of this book. I think that the way The Language of Butterflies was set up is absolutely perfect. It started out with a little introduction of how Wendy Williams fell into the world of butterflies and then began talking about the history of butterflies. This was followed by the current issues, stories, and triumphs of the present in the field of lepidoptera. The book ended things by talking about where the world of butterflies is going. This order was perfect because it dived right into things that I didn’t know a lot about. It took away all of my lingering doubts after reading the words luscious and delicious in the same sentence of butterfly specimen.
Another thing that was great about the formatting of the book is that it always started answering questions at the beginning, whenever the phenomenon was described or observed. Reading about how it all got started and then learning more about how new things were discovered about the phenomenon really showed the progression of science. It made it possible to see how human understanding of things grows as time goes. Just being able to see the progress that was made on some of these burning scientific questions was extremely inspiring because it made me realize that even though the work being done right now may not feel like it is amounting to much, as time goes on it could be a valuable piece in a puzzle.
I loved the sizes of the chapters in this book. Wendy Williams managed to create the best sized bites for taking in the information. Each chapter had enough to get you interested, gave you a perfect conclusion, and wasn’t too long. Usually I read books in two hour chunks, however, I was really busy while reading The Language of Butterflies so I didn’t have the time to be able to sit down for an hour straight. But I had ten minutes that I could spare here and fifteen minutes of free time there and so I read through this book chapter by chapter. I never had to worry about a chapter dragging on for too long and everytime that I came back to read, I never got a feeling of disconnectedness.
Williams’ writing style was one that I enjoyed but it took a little getting used to. As I mentioned earlier, her style initially made me uncomfortable but as I continued reading, I realized that she has quite a sense of humor. There were quite a few jokes that were present which made the book feel a little more casual. It was almost conversational, like you bumped into Wendy Williams, sat down to have a cup of coffee with her, and so here she is telling you stories about everything that she’s learned. The fact that the tone was so casual made this book fun to read! It also allowed her to include some quirky and funny tidbits about scientists which was amusing to see. My favorite example of this had to do with two scientists having a differing opinion about the biological mechanism of a butterfly. In reference to this, she writes, “Stakes were high. A six-pack of Guinness was bet.” I never expected to read a non-fiction book about butterflies and giggle but that is exactly what happened. I laughed and thought to myself, “That sounds about right,” I wasn’t surprised that this bet had actually taken place. I was more surprised by the fact that Williams chose to include this little anecdote. Such anecdotes really brought out the conversational tone of the book.
Speaking of anecdotes, there were once again people that I recognized! I was surprised and happy to see these familiar names: Gerard Talavera and Chip Taylor! Gerard Talavera is a scientist who specializes in migration. He popped up in the book to talk about Painted Lady migrations, which are some of the longest in the world. Chip Taylor is the founder of Monarch Watch, an amazing organization that works with Monarchs to learn about their migration but also to conserve their habitat.
Overall, I am going to give The Language of Butterflies, 4 stars. I am giving it four stars because of how much I learned while reading it. I didn’t expect this book to be filled with so much information that I didn’t know. Also the casual tone of the writing along with perfectly sized chapters really added to my experience of reading this book. The only reason that I am not giving it a higher rating is that it met my expectations but The Language of Butterflies did not blow me away or exceed my expectations. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in butterflies, whether it be a casual interest or a serious one. Regardless of how much you already know about butterflies, I am sure that you will find something new that you can learn from this book.
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