Butter
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
A lonely obese boy everyone calls "Butter" is about to make history. He is going to eat himself to death-live on the Internet-and everyone is invited to watch. When he first makes the announcement online to his classmates, Butter expects pity, insults, and possibly sheer indifference. What he gets are morbid cheerleaders rallying around his deadly plan. Yet as their dark encouragement grows, it begins to feel a lot like popularity. And that feels good. But what happens when Butter reaches his suicide deadline? Can he live with the fallout if he doesn't go through with his plans?
With a deft hand, Erin Jade Lange allows readers to identify with both the bullies and the bullied in this all-consuming look at one teen's battle with himself.
Acclaim for Butter
An ABC New Voices Pick
Abraham Lincoln Masterlist
Nevada Young Readers Award nominee
Iowa High School Book Award nominee
Sakura Medal winner
Waterstones Children's Book Prize nominee
South Carolina Young Adult Book Award nominee
Blue Hen Book Award nominee
TAYSHAS List
Teens' Top Ten Pick
Erin Jade Lange
Erin Jade Lange wrote award-winning contemporary young adult fiction for a decade before diving into the paranormal worlds that keep her up at night. As an only child, she spent a lot of time entertaining herself as a kid, usually surrounded by a pile of books. When she ran out of books to read, she started to write, and she never stopped. Erin grew up in the cornfields of northwestern Illinois, along the Mississippi River, in one of the few places it flows east to west. She now lives in the sunshine of Arizona with her husband and identical twin daughters who make her laugh out loud every day. Visit Erin online at www.erinjadelange.com.
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Reviews for Butter
127 ratings24 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Butter is a high school junior. Normal high school juniors have enough pressures with life, members of the opposite sex, getting ready for college, etc. But Butter is five foot ten and weighs approximately 423 pounds. We all know that most people avoid the morbidly obese and Butter is starting to see that maybe life isn't all it should be. He has an online "relationship" with a very hot girl at his school but that is all done without revealing who he actually is. His mother overfeeds him out of guilt and his father ignores him out of disgust. He really has not true friends except for Tucker, a guy he met at a Fat Farm (Butter's words, not mine). About the only things Butter truly loves is playing the saxophone. But even that doesn't bring him much satisfaction since he mostly plays it alone in his room. He won't join band since they are not advanced enough and don't play the music he likes. So he is a loner, a social outcast. He decides to create a web page and tell everyone that on New Year's Eve he is going to eat himself to death online. This brings him attention and "friends". A lot of emotion and choices follow. What will happen New Year's Eve? Will his "friends" save him? Will he get Anna? Read this great book to find out.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Marshall is a shy, sensitive teen who plays the saxophone and lusts after Anna. He also happens to be morbidly obese. As the online persona, Saxman, he communicates with and builds a relationship with Anna. Meanwhile, the"real" Marshall posts online as Butter (so-called for his ability to play his sax as smooth as... , or because of the rumor that he once ate an entire pound of butter?) He plans a big reveal for Anna on New Year's Eve -- well after his plan to eat himself to death ...online! His blog, Butter's Last Meal, encourages morbid postings on what that final repast should entail. The two story lines build to a crescendo and a deus-ex-machina conclusion (Butter goes into a diabetic coma before the deed, er, meal is done). Adult characters are generally positive... mom is well-meaning but an enabler; his teacher, "the prof" encourages Butter to pursue music. The ending, while trite, does manage to convey a positive message after all the negativity. This reader found the tone and language of the book discordant at times. Swear words were casually strewn and seemed out of character for a "nice" boy like Marshall. The adults seemed a bit off and the ending too pat. Nonetheless, this book is proving to be very popular with the high schoolers I know and presents an intriguing concept.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Butter is an unreliable and unlikable narrator, yet despite his obvious many flaws, most noticeably his ability to blame everybody bar himself for his situation, you end up feeling an element of sympathy towards him. This book did have me hooked, however, I was left frustrated with the over stereotypical portrayal of the rich, all-American teenagers who made up the popular crowd. A good book with a clear message for all bullies and bystanders.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I have really mixed feelings regarding Butter.It's a very memorable and unique novel that touches on a number of difficult themes - particularly cyber bullying and the fact that you can by complicit in something even if you do not actively take part - but I just found it impossible to become emotionally invested with the lead.I really felt as though I should sympathise with him - he is so witty and intelligent and it is tragic that no one can see past his weight - but his jaded world view and various actions throughout the novel just made it hard for me to like them. Butter hates people judging him yet his judges everyone else on their appearance. He is jealous of Tucker's weight loss yet makes no effort to lose any of his own. Not to mention the fact that he essentially stalks Anna. It is really difficult to empathise with him when we can see him gradually breaking his crush's heart.On top of this is the premise. While I accept that peer pressure is a problem in high school, the degree that it goes to in this novel is too extreme. Out of the entire school, nobody notifies a teacher or parent about Butter's suicide threat? I could buy a smaller group but it is tough to swallow that an entire school would be so callous.At least the novel was a fairly quick and light read so it never felt as though it dragged on, but I have read better novels of this genre.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book was spectacular. I seriously had to stop myself from crying at the end, granted I tend to cry at the silliest little things, but really, this book rocks.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gripping, gritty, creepy, all of the above. An interesting mix of high school b.s., celebrity culture, and a desperate need to be loved and noticed. Not perfect but a much needed addition to the fat lit genre.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enjoyed Butter but found the ending a bit disappointing. Interesting insight into the effects of obesity on individuals and the character was believable and a tad creepy but totally understandable.Set in an American high school a very morbidly obese boy is struggling with friendships, school and family. He decides to commit suicide and set up a website to invite people to watch him do it by eating himself to death but this sparks interest in him with other pupils and as he becomes the focus of interest he begins to realise why he has been overeating. People don't really think he will do it and bully him online and egg him on but he doesn't quite see it as bullying. Covers a lot of issues like cyber bullying, friendships, online stalking, family pressures, obesity etc. Very interesting book and the characters are believable.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/53.5 stars. This was well written but fairly predictable. Reminded me of a boy MC version of a Sarah Dessen book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book intrigued me so much when I read the inside cover. I first asked myself how could anyone come up with this concept? A boy so desperate that he was willing to eat himself to death on live camera. I just had to read it. I devoured (no pun intended) this book within a few hours and I liked most of it. I was really rung in by Butter's character. I desperately wanted everything to work out for him even though I hated Anna's character. She was flat and boring and I didn't care for her presence at all. I thought that the ending was a pretty realistic one which I enjoyed, however I sort of wished that there was more closure with how Butter was going to deal with everything rather than how he and Anna's relationship ended.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A bit morbid, but a quick read and worth the time.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It was the bright yellow simple cover of this book that drew me to it. I tend to find that books with simple covers have a wonderful story within them. This book took me on an emotional rollercoaster and I challenge anyone to read this book and not shed at least one tear or get a lump in the back of their throat. I feel like everyone will be able to relate not just to the bullied characters but will also be able to see a bit of themselves As the reader is getting told the story through butter’s prospective I was not 100% confident that he was going to go through with what was mentioned at the start of the book. It wasn’t until the last third of the book that the pace really picked up and Butter’s mind seemed to enter a darker place This is an extremely thought-provoking book that I feel everyone should read. There was quote throughout this book that remind us that we all need to be a bit more compassionate to other people as you don’t know the person they are you only see what is on the outside. I am going to end this review with one of the quotes that struck me the most in regards to showing more compassion to other human beings. “Look, I get it. It sucks to be next to the fat guy on the plane. Maybe he’s taking up too much of your armrest or crowding you into the window, but trust me, nobody’s more uncomfortable than that guy, having to squish into that tiny seat and knowing nobody wants to sit next to him.”
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lange creates a unique voice in Butter, an obese boy who is continually ridiculed and taunted. One night after a particularly heartbreaking rejection, Butter takes to the web to inform his bullies that he plans to eat himself to death on New Year’s Eve. What follows is a complicated story in which blame and personal responsibility are often at crosshairs. It’s difficult to rate this book because 90% is excellent. My only complaint, and it is a big one, is the resolution of the story. It reduces what is a complex navigation of teen hierarchy and weight to an after-school special.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5So, Butter. An interesting one. I want to put this out there from the get go: Lange can write. And the premise is incredibly fascinating.
But I had some problems: when JP is in the hospital after trying to kill himself with food, he is weighed and realizes he's lost a lot of weight. The reason he lost the weight? He was STARVING himself while he hung out with the popular kids. Luckily, he acknowledges the fact this is a really, really bad and unhealthy way to lose weight. But it's that initial starved weight loss that encourages him to continue. SUCH a mixed message. Do not like. At all.
Also - and this is the thing that got me REALLY fired up - JP is friends-with-a-possibility-of-more with Anna online. When he gets popular, Butter also becomes friends with Anna - but never tells Anna he and JP are one in the same. However, Anna finds out (which leads to other things I will not spoil) and, unsurprisingly is upset. BUT. At the end of the book, she let's him off the hook! She tells him that she's mad (at him, but not the online him - shwha?), but that they can continue to possibly pursue something! What?!? He gets what he wants even though he lied and deceived to get it? Because he's a nice guy? That is NOT the definition of nice I would use! Ugh. Anger.
So, yeah. I had problems with Butter. But it was a highly thought-provoking book. Would lead to some interesting discussions in a book club, I would think. It certainly exposes some scary truths about high school.
So, read it for yourself and see what you think! - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I rated this as 4 stars on Goodreads, because while engrossing and consuming, Butter is not without its flaws. But I just could not put it down, and it has a fresh, exciting premise that I just could not say no to.
Butter is a character unlike any that I've ever read about before. In the land of YA literature, all the boys are god-like immortal creatures with chiseled abs, strong jaw lines, and finesse like that of whatshisface from How I Met Your Mother. But Butter has an overeating problem, and he is now morbidly obese: a junior in high school weighing in at over 400 pounds. He is socially inept and is bullied. (Like the incident that lead to him being called Butter - sickening. Real bullying, and it made my stomach turn, not just because it was gross, but the behavior of the boys in question was just disgusting.) Butter is so much more than his weight and his social status, though. He is remarkably funny and a talented musician; but his insecurities hinder him from exploring his talents further than his own bedroom.
He is also a little creepy. He has created a fake online persona which he uses to talk to a girl from his class that he is to afraid to talk to in real life. He lures her in with this created personality and makes her fall for him, all the while she has no idea that it's Butter who is doing this to her. And he creeps at her in class, too, which weirded me out a little. But with all the Edwardian characters out there, maybe he thinks that's what girls want. Shrug.
Because of Butter's complexities, and in spite of his weirdness, he is a sympathetic character, and I couldn't help but want to read on with his story. And when he announces to the world that he'll be eating himself to death on camera the night of New Year's eve, his story takes a turn for the twisted that is in turns irresistible and scary.
There is a dramatic flip with Butter's social status. Suddenly girls are noticing him, and he is being included in activities hosted by the popular kids. He finds himself out at parties on the weekends, and is slowly slacking on his other priorities, like his friendships outside of school and his homework. As the date looms closer, the anticipation builds and I found myself frantically flipping the pages. I was one of those popular kids: fixated on Butter's demise, rooting for him at the same time, and wondering if he was actually going to do it.
The ending did and did not satisfy me. On one hand, we do find out whether or not he follows through with his threats. On the other, I found his classmates' reactions to his behavior grossly inaccurate. In the end, there were many people who Butter wronged, and I don't believe they would have given that forgiveness as quickly and freely as they did in the book. Plus there was the anti-bullying message in the book which I agree with, but ended up as a sort of lecture, which I think is the easiest way to make a teen's eyes glaze over and turn them into a zombie. But that's just me.
In all, I think Butter was definitely an enjoyable, entertaining read. Butter is unlike any other book I've read before in many ways, from the characterization to the themes it deals with. I really commend Lange for creating this character as well as the book itself. It's important and I hope it reaches many people. I totally recommend it to readers looking for something different and engrossing. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I didn't mind that the main character was built on a stereotype because he was fleshed-out enough to feel like a real person, and because overeating doesn't make anyone any less deserving of understanding and basic human empathy or any more deserving of judgment and ridicule. I do mind that the author relied on the same stereotype in the portrayal of the main character's uncle (though, to be fair, she does at least give him strong arms, in contrast to Butter's complete lack of athletic abilities). I wasn't expecting this to be an FA(fat acceptance)/BA(body acceptance/positivity)/HAES(health at every size) themed after-school special of a book--too much preachiness would be annoying, in fact--but a little diversity in its portrayal of fat people would have been welcome. People who think all fat people are only fat because they sit around stuffing their faces with junk food all day will not find anything to challenge that misconception in this book.
That minor criticism aside, it was an interesting book and a good read. And I give it props for not falling into the "fat character loses weight and then lives happily ever after now that they're normal" trope. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Morbidly obese teen creates a website, on a lark, announcing that he's going to eat himself to death on New Year's Eve, with a live web feed. There's a sudden uptick in his popularity, and he kinda likes it. Do his new friends really like him, or just being close to the drama? Are they encouraging, or egging him on? Is there a difference?
I have a very complicated response to this--on the one hand, I like Butter's voice, and he's very realistic--he knows he's not going to drop 200 pounds overnight; he knows that his weight is not Everyone Else's Fault and he takes responsibility for himself. But... I dunno. I'm just not sure how I feel about the Fat Kid wanting to be the center of attention and get the pretty girl, or being afraid of breaking chairs, or.. I dunno. I don't feel like his backstory with the bullies was well woven into the narrative, and some of Butter's situations seemed a little stereotypical and contrived.
Didn't love it, didn't hate it. It's older than I thought, though; for some reason I thought this was a middle-school book. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lange's debut novel works with a profound mixture of crucial topics: obesity, bullying, the power of the internet, parenting woes, and the power of music. If you suspect this book is a mess because it attempts to work all of these ingredients together, you suspect wrong. (Also, that's my only food related metaphor for this review. I promise. Oh wait, Promise is a non-dairy spread. argh!)
Back on target.
Butter, the protagonist, walks a fine line of being sympathetic and unsympathetic. He's obese and relatively okay with it, though plenty of things in his life cause him to question his lifestyle. It's not difficult to see why he's complacent, since his mother obsesses over his eating habits but seems incapable of controlling his diet in a meaningful way (aside from cutting out sugar at one point). I could see a version of this book wherein Butter drives readers away, but there's something about him that's vulnerable without being forced. Butter doesn't begin to change his behavior until he finds an online forum featuring comments from his friends at school, who vote him Most Likely to Die of a Heart Attack. He's forced to see himself through the eyes of his peers -- and the internet certainly can make that feeling sharp and profound. He doesn't like what he sees (and reads). So he decides to give up.
Now, it's never completely clear whether Butter truly meant to kill himself live on New Year's Eve or if he meant to just create another buffer around himself by showing people he knew what they said/thought about him. Butter goes back and forth, which means I go back and forth as well. In the end, it doesn't matter what his INITIAL intention is, just what he ultimately chooses to do. I think the book succeeds because of Butter's ambivalence to his own decision. The threat to kill himself, though, needs to feel possible, and Butter gathers information that suggests he is planning his suicide, though, he's more than willing to back off when something positive happens in his life (weight loss, cute girl is nice to him, etc).
In many ways, the specter of death is one of the most crucial aspects of life's meaning. Without death, life carries on endlessly. Death forces us to ponder meaning, purpose, morality, and more, simply because we know we'll run out of time eventually. (Anyone who's read any Modernist literature knows the importance of death to literary characters. It's the fuel for much philosophizing.)
Here, Butter decides to eat himself over the edge and it causes him to change his behavior. He gains popularity, gains access to the girl he's had a crush on from afar (and a relationship over the internet), he gains a sense of worth. All because he decided his life had no worth.
As the plot progresses, Lange rightly focuses on Butter and his struggle as opposed to the various social issues the novel threads together. I found his complexity and hypocrisy very satisfying more so because Lange does not obsess on certain aspects of the story -- the power of the internet, as well as parenting woes. In lesser hands, a certain amount of moralizing and demonizing would occur to be sure the reader understood that the internet is bad or that parents are just "doing their best." While I can't answer for other readers, I never felt Butter's parents were simply good or bad, just frustrated (and, for me, frustrating in their believable behaviors). Nor did I find Butter's experience on the internet to be a judgment of the internet itself, (though it plays a huge role in Butter's self-esteem issues, Lange is clear that the internet both enhances and harms his self-worth).
I think Butter is a fantastic addition to books about suicide and bullying because it doesn't pander and it allows its characters to be real, especially towards the climax when Butter and Anna have a few key conversations. While the ending might feel a little too happy, I believe Lange earns the feelings because she wasn't afraid to let Butter be real in the rest of the novel. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I rated this as 4 stars on Goodreads, because while engrossing and consuming, Butter is not without its flaws. But I just could not put it down, and it has a fresh, exciting premise that I just could not say no to.
Butter is a character unlike any that I've ever read about before. In the land of YA literature, all the boys are god-like immortal creatures with chiseled abs, strong jaw lines, and finesse like that of whatshisface from How I Met Your Mother. But Butter has an overeating problem, and he is now morbidly obese: a junior in high school weighing in at over 400 pounds. He is socially inept and is bullied. (Like the incident that lead to him being called Butter - sickening. Real bullying, and it made my stomach turn, not just because it was gross, but the behavior of the boys in question was just disgusting.) Butter is so much more than his weight and his social status, though. He is remarkably funny and a talented musician; but his insecurities hinder him from exploring his talents further than his own bedroom.
He is also a little creepy. He has created a fake online persona which he uses to talk to a girl from his class that he is to afraid to talk to in real life. He lures her in with this created personality and makes her fall for him, all the while she has no idea that it's Butter who is doing this to her. And he creeps at her in class, too, which weirded me out a little. But with all the Edwardian characters out there, maybe he thinks that's what girls want. Shrug.
Because of Butter's complexities, and in spite of his weirdness, he is a sympathetic character, and I couldn't help but want to read on with his story. And when he announces to the world that he'll be eating himself to death on camera the night of New Year's eve, his story takes a turn for the twisted that is in turns irresistible and scary.
There is a dramatic flip with Butter's social status. Suddenly girls are noticing him, and he is being included in activities hosted by the popular kids. He finds himself out at parties on the weekends, and is slowly slacking on his other priorities, like his friendships outside of school and his homework. As the date looms closer, the anticipation builds and I found myself frantically flipping the pages. I was one of those popular kids: fixated on Butter's demise, rooting for him at the same time, and wondering if he was actually going to do it.
The ending did and did not satisfy me. On one hand, we do find out whether or not he follows through with his threats. On the other, I found his classmates' reactions to his behavior grossly inaccurate. In the end, there were many people who Butter wronged, and I don't believe they would have given that forgiveness as quickly and freely as they did in the book. Plus there was the anti-bullying message in the book which I agree with, but ended up as a sort of lecture, which I think is the easiest way to make a teen's eyes glaze over and turn them into a zombie. But that's just me.
In all, I think Butter was definitely an enjoyable, entertaining read. Butter is unlike any other book I've read before in many ways, from the characterization to the themes it deals with. I really commend Lange for creating this character as well as the book itself. It's important and I hope it reaches many people. I totally recommend it to readers looking for something different and engrossing. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I don't think I have the proper words to express exactly how I felt while reading this book. It definitely tackles some serious subject matter and it does it so well. Throughout the whole book I felt like I was really inside the head of a teenager. First, while Butter is dealing with being ignored and really only having the company of his mother and one of his teachers. Then there was the shift, once he announced his plan, and suddenly the popular kids wanted to be friends with him. With he new "friends" Butter started to developing, or maybe showing is a better way to describe it, a bigger personality. He was enjoying his new life and was almost able to forget that it was all because he was planning to kill himself, almost. This book is so important, because it highlights so many different aspects of bullying. You've got the kid who is the target, but he doesn't completely feel like one, because he is sort of being accepted. You've got the cool kids who want to be friends with him because he's going to do something so horrific, and he's going to do it publicly. You've got the kids who think he's full of crap, have never liked him, and still don't. And you've got the kids who know what's going on, and aren't necessarily comfortable with it, but because of fear or just not knowing what to do, they stand by and wait. I think we always identify bullying as physical or verbal abuse, but in reality there is so much gray area and Butter's story helps bring some light to teenage behavior.I absolutely felt for Butter and he was the main draw throughout the whole book, but I really like the way the author wrote his mother. At turns I was so mad at her, for letting things continue the way they did at home and for enabling her son, but then my heart also broke for her, because it was very obvious that she didn't really know how to fix things. Like any mother, she just wanted her child to be happy, but from what she could see in his life, the thing that made him most happy was food. I couldn't really judge her, because even though I didn't agree with the way she handled everything, she was always just trying to do everything she could for her son.I absolutely recommend this book to everyone. People need to read about stories like this one, to better understand things that might really be going on with teenagers, so that there aren't so many blind eyes.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Perfect tension-building made this an edge-of-my-seat book.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Butter follows the titular character on a quest to commit suicide by gluttony online after being bullied into this breaking point, but he finds his morbid goal gives him a newfound popularity and friendships that are ironically tied to his willingness to die in such a spectacular fashion. Butter is about the new wave of bullies. Sure, it has old school bullies that give the fat kid his nickname of Butter, but it is too easy to demonize bullies who use physical intimidation. Lange doesn't make this book easy.What about the bullies who terrorize with fake friendship? With social pressure to engage in risky behavior? How proactive does a bully need to be for it to "count" as bullying? Is it bullying if you've enabled people to pick on you? If you let yourself be bullied?See - already - my language about the whole situation is skewed. BE bullied.It's ridiculous to think any victim of any crime should be blamed for it and damn (and praise!) the author for putting me in the uncomfortable position of being the very type of person the book criticizes. The type of person who would watch someone self-destruct with morbid fascination. The type of person who somewhere, in the dark recesses of their brain, wants to see whether Butter goes through with it.Am I a bully even if I don't participate? If I just stand by silent?While Butter isn't groundbreaking (the characters have shades of good and bad but nothing beyond what you'd expect), it's the most accessible book I've read which forces you to consider whether you're guilty of the same sins you'll judge the other characters for.As to whether Butter manages to kill himself, if you're wondering, you've already taken the first step into this book. :)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Butter tells the story of an obese teenage boy who's nicknamed Butter not only because of his size, but because he was hazed and forced to eat a stick of butter by a group of fellow classmates, and unfortunatley the name kinda stuck. I knew this was sure to be an emotional read, I myself am overweight and have dealt with it my entire life. I understand the self-loathing and the comfort that can be found in food. The well "i'm already big, what can this really do to me" mentality. I felt horrible for him, but probably related to him in a way that not everyone could. I was never teased the way Butter was in High School, I was friends with everyone, and was outgoing so I was always the "friend" while everyone swooned over my best friends. I felt his pain and his need to be accepted, and when he finds solice in Anna after she falls for his faux-persona via the internet, I understood his motive and his hope that she had fell for the person and could see past his size. Erin Jade Lange made Butter's character come to life, and honestly I think he's the most well-developed character i've read all year. My heart broke for Butter, and the devastating turn his live took in this book. This book is unique and powerful, and if your looking for a book to open your mind and your heart, give butter a try!!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You know as much as I have read, I have never had a book make me gag. This is a good thing. Why, you might ask? Well, for one this book is so well written with great descriptions that I fell immediately into the book, taking everything in. There are many parts in this book that throw me in emotional overload. The reader meets Butter, an over- weight young boy who wants a change. The deep feelings his has for wanting to lose the weight, for not wanting to eat so much, for others to stop making fun of him. I can tell immediately how hard it is for him everyday. Next, the bullies. UGH! I swear I wanting to slap every single one of them. How can a person loose weight when you make fun of them so much! Not to mention the disgusting and vile things they to do Butter. When I got to this part in the book, I wanted to cry. I was filled with so much anger, I could totally understand why Butter wanted to take his life. I would too if that was happening to me everyday.There was friendship in this book but I am disappointed in it. Butter needed a friend. A good friend who was willing to stand by him and help. Not add to the problem or turn around when his is failing. Still, the way the author writes these characters adds to who Butter is. In the end, Butter figures of what he needs to do.Butter is an unfortunate story of young man who is struggling. The extreme emotions and ugly people in the book make me so mad. The story delivers a good insight to a life of someone who faces that every single day!! Butter will shock the reader. An wonderful achievement in bringing such an emotional story to light, Butter is well-crafted.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5His nickname is Butter, he tips the scale at over 400 pounds, and he’s had enough of the social minefield that is high school when a fat kid tries to cross it: he’s going to eat himself to death over a live webcam. But when Butter encounters newfound notoriety after his impulsive declaration, and he finds himself closer than he’s ever been before to things he’s always dreamed of having—friends, acceptance, a girlfriend—the less Butter looks forward to following through on his word. The trouble is, if he doesn’t go through with his suicide plan, he will lose all of his new popularity. How will Butter be able to get out of the mess he has created?Oh, but this book had so much potential! Unfortunately, BUTTER’s casual treatment of its characters’ actions and motivations lessened the quality of what could have been a thought-provoking YA contemporary novel on the highly relevant issues of bullying, obesity, and body image.The main character, Butter, is a likable guy. Any reader, male or female, who has experienced adolescent insecurities in any form will want to reach out to him, to let him know that he is not alone. Deep down he really is a gentle soul with a heart of gold, one who has unfortunately been the victim of a narrow-minded and apathetic society.Unfortunately, reader sympathy or empathy for the main character is not enough to pull the story out of the quagmire of shallowness that is BUTTER. The characters in this book are actors playing out the roles assigned to them: concerned but clueless mother, “bromantic” popular guys at school, etc. The dialogue in this book has the hollow ring of artificiality with its high school stereotypes, and this overreliance on stock characters leads to BUTTER’s biggest problem: the unbelievability of events as natural offshoots of characters’ motivations.Take, for instance, Butter’s newfound popularity in the wake of his announcement that he is going to commit suicide by overeating. I totally get how society would make people who make outrageous statements or do outrageous things famous—or, more likely, infamous. We latch onto celebrity gossip as if we’d die if we don’t know who’s dating who or what hijinks the latest child star-turned-rehab fixture has gotten into. But as much as we’ll read about their exploits, would we really want to be friends with people like Nadya Suleman or Kate Gosselin or Levi What’s-His-Name? Would we even want to call them our acquaintances? While Butter may be seeking attention on a different level than these “celebrities,” there are some similarities to their situations and mindsets. Which is why Butter’s popular schoolmates’ acts of pulling him into their group felt somehow off to me. What was their motivation for befriending him? Is that really how people would act toward an (in)famous “celebrity”?The more I think about it, the more I suspect that Butter, too, did not escape the novel’s inattention to characters’ motivations. Butter is likable, but I also found it difficult to fully understand the train of logic that took him from lonely and overlooked outsider to posting a dramatic suicide plan on the Internet. Then, as Butter’s overnight fame drew him ever more into his own mess, I continued to have trouble believing his explanations for why he continued to keep the pretense up. Butter’s emotions and actions zigzagged back and forth in dizzyingly quick turns that I found difficult to keep up with. Eventually, I kind of just sat back and skimmed the rest of the book, resigned to the fact that I would never fully understand Butter and thus be unable to ever fully empathize with him. And when the conclusion finally came, rushed and ambiguous and contrived, I was left confused, astonished at how cleanly things were realized and tied up with a pretty little bow. There was so much potential in the number of complex layers this book could have explored, but instead, it decided to flatten it into the shape of a typical YA tale, of mistakes and poor decisions made and cleanly resolved at the end.BUTTER took a great concept and made it a victim of amateur writing and a seeming lack of understanding of human motivations. It left a minimal impression on me, and its mixed messages will probably be forgotten completely in a few weeks, quickly collecting dust.
Book preview
Butter - Erin Jade Lange
For Mom and Dad,
my first readers and my very best friends
Contents
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Part 2
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Part 3
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Erin Jade Lange
Part 1
One stick of butter
Chapter 1
You think I eat a lot now? That’s nothing. Tune in December 31st, when I will stream a live webcast of my last meal. Death row inmates get one. Why shouldn’t I? I can’t take another year in this fat suit, but I can end this year with a bang. If you can stomach it, you’re invited to watch . . . as I eat myself to death.
—Butter
Most people would say the website is where this wild ride began. But for me it started two days earlier, on a Tuesday night in front of the TV in my living room. I was watching the news, because that’s what my mom had on when she got up to make dinner, and she left the remote all the way across the room on the entertainment center, right next to the TV.
Why do people do that—put the remote by the TV? What’s the point?
She probably did it to force me to get up and get some exercise, as if a couple steps across the room would make any difference.
Anyway, there was this story on the news about airlines charging obese people for two airplane seats.
Look, I get it. It sucks to be next to the fat guy on the plane. Maybe he’s taking up too much of your armrest or crowding you into the window, but trust me, nobody’s more uncomfortable than that guy, having to squish into that tiny seat and knowing nobody wants to sit next to him. The humiliation is payment enough, let alone an extra charge.
This chick with one of the airlines was in the story, saying the double billing would start January 1 and trying to play it off like it was for the benefit of the big people, like they’d be more comfortable with two seats and it was only fair to charge them. Well, I call bullshit on that, lady. I knew there was nothing—including cramming my ass into one of those itty-bitty lame excuses for an airline seat—nothing worse than being the guy taking up two seats so everyone on the plane sees you and thinks, Oh! So that’s how big you have to be to pay double.
No thanks.
I was getting riled up watching the story, when I looked down and remembered two airline seats were the least of my worries. Right then, I was taking up two cushions on the couch.
My eyes slid from the cushions to the coffee table. An empty candy dish with crumbles of peanut M&Ms, a half-melted tub of ice cream, and a bag of Doritos were just a few of the spoils before me.
A single Dorito was balanced precariously on the edge of the bag. I rescued it before it fell out and transferred it to my mouth. The flavors exploded over my tongue—salty, sweet, spicy—everything I liked all rolled into one. God, I love Doritos. As an added bonus, the crunch filled my ears, drowning out the sound of the hated story. But as soon as I swallowed, I heard the final line, delivered by some traveler at the airport—a girl so anorexic thin and bleach blond, she could have easily been one of my classmates at Scottsdale High.
Yeah, I think it’s fair!
She popped her gum. "Why should the rest of us have to share the seats we paid for with people who can’t lay off the snacks before dinner?"
I froze with a meatball sub halfway to my mouth. Damn! Can’t a guy enjoy a little sandwich in his own living room without feeling like he’s being judged? But it was too late to be defensive. Suddenly that sub didn’t look good at all, and the smell of it made me sick. In fact, everything in front of me instantly looked revolting. I hated every brightly colored candy, every salt-coated chip.
I quickly scooped it all off the table and picked up the tidbits that had slipped between the sofa cushions. I’d experienced this before, these waves of resolve. They never lasted and usually ended in an epic binge. But when they came on, they came on powerful, and I was convinced I’d never eat another bite.
I padded out to the kitchen with my armload of snacks and dropped everything in the trash without a word to my mother, who had her back to me, humming away at the stove. Then I headed to my room to wrap my lips around the only thing that tasted good during one of these episodes—my saxophone.
• • •
I lost myself in a melody for about twenty minutes before I got winded. Sometimes just standing too long wore me out, and the way I moved when I played was more exercise than my body could handle these days.
That’s beautiful, baby.
My mom was in the doorway, leaning against the frame with that dreamy expression she always gets when I blow. I stopped abruptly and lowered the sax to punish her for sneaking up on me, something I’d told her repeatedly to knock off.
What is that tune? Is that something new?
No, Ma, it’s ‘Parker’s Mood.’ You’ve heard me play it a hundred times.
Mmm. You do like your Charlie Parker.
Yeah, I guess.
Well, I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just wanted to tell you dinner’s in about ten minutes.
I’m not hungry.
Mom’s mouth twitched in a sad smile, but she didn’t say anything. Somewhere around the time I turned eleven, she’d stopped talking to me about food or exercise or anything to do with my weight. And the bigger I grew, the more she pretended not to see it. I used to think she was embarrassed by me, but I eventually figured she just felt guilty—like she was a bad mother for letting me get so big.
Okay,
she said. We’ll start without you.
She moved to leave, then turned back with one hand on the doorjamb and that sad smile still plastered on her face. Really, baby . . . just beautiful.
I cringed. I hated it when she called me baby. I was sixteen years old and a hell of a lot bigger than a baby. But it was better than Butter, which is what all the kids at school called me. I loathed that nickname, but at least most of them had forgotten how I earned it.
I lifted the sax to my lips to start again, but the movement made me feel tired, so I returned the instrument to its cradle. I didn’t need the practice anyway. I was no child prodigy or anything, but I’d picked up my first sax when I was eight years old and hadn’t missed a single day playing it since. Pathetic. Nothing better to do than sit at home alone playing music.
Of course, that wasn’t entirely the case. There was one other nightly distraction.
I switched on my laptop and settled into the extra-large armchair next to my bed. I logged on to the Internet under my handle, SaxMan,
and held my breath, waiting to see if she was online.
She was. My friends list popped up on the right-hand side of the screen—a few kids from fat camp, a couple brass players I used to jam with . . . and Anna. Perfect, sweet, sexy Anna.
I had stalked Anna online for months before I finally got up the courage to send her a message. I contacted her through one of the few social media sites that didn’t demand photos, and of course, I didn’t tell her who I was. Hey, I’m that guy with the specially built oversize desk in the back of your composition class! Want to chat? Yeah, right.
I told Anna I went to private school and that I wholeheartedly agreed with her posts about the band RatsKill being so over. She’d loved that. And now, three months later, I was pretty sure Anna loved me. Even now, it was like she’d been online just waiting for me to show up. The second I signed on, a message popped up from Anna.
Hey handsome! What are you up to?
I smiled. I loved that Anna didn’t use lame shorthand or smiley faces to communicate. But my grin didn’t last. Handsome.
Right. There was no way she could know that. I’d certainly never sent her a picture, and I refused to send her a fake photo, because I just couldn’t lie that blatantly to her. And truthfully, I didn’t want her falling in love with some other guy’s mug. She had asked me for a picture over and over again, but I’d finally convinced her the mystery was more romantic.
Hey beautiful. I just got done playing your song.
Okay, that wasn’t true, but even when I was playing Charlie Parker, Anna’s song was always running through the back of my mind. It was a careful, sultry solo I’d come up with after an all-night Internet session with Anna—the only song I’d ever written myself. Anna was over the moon when I sent her a recording of me playing it.
Aw! You know I fall asleep listening to that every night, right?
My grin returned.
I know.
When am I going to hear you play it in person?
Anna was getting increasingly pushy about meeting up in real life,
but that obviously wasn’t an option—not yet, anyway. I just needed to lose some weight—okay, a lot of weight—before I revealed my true identity.
Soon babe. Very soon.
God, I could not stop lying to her tonight. Soon? Who was I kidding? When I first started chatting with Anna, I had delusions of shedding enough pounds to tell her who I was in just a matter of months. But Doc Bean convinced me it would take years to get down to a normal size. He was always preaching the value of patience. Well, patience was something I didn’t have. In fact, the news that I had years of hard work ahead of me had sent me into a binge, and in the three months since I’d been talking to Anna, I’d put on another nine pounds.
I stared at the laptop screen, waiting for Anna’s response. I knew her silence meant she was pouting. She wanted something more specific than soon.
Oh well, what did I have to lose? At this rate, I would never tell her who I was anyway. What’s one more lie tonight? I placed my fingers on the keyboard.
New Year’s Eve.
Her response was almost instantaneous.
But that’s a month away!
It’ll be here sooner than you think.
I waited while she thought it over. Finally, she responded.
I guess a New Year’s meeting is pretty romantic.
I smiled at the thought, imagining the moment—locking eyes with Anna across the room of a crowded New Year’s Eve party, approaching her with a bundle of two dozen roses while a twelve-piece band begins to play her song—a moment that would never happen.
An ache filled my chest, and I knew I had to end the conversation before I told any more lies.
Okay babe, I just signed on to say hi. I gotta run.
I waited long enough to see her signature signoff—
Okay, sweet dreams!
—then closed the laptop.
The ache in my chest threatened to rise up as a lump in my throat and turn into tears. I forced it down, trying to shove the knot into my stomach. That’s when I realized I was hungry.
I tossed my laptop aside and headed down to dinner.
Like I said, the resolve never lasted.
Chapter 2
Breakfast the next morning was the usual fare: egg-white omelets and turkey sausage for Mom and Dad; pecan waffles, Canadian bacon, and poached eggs for me. No syrup for the waffles this morning, though. I didn’t ask why because I could guess the answer. Mom was trying to sneak the sugar out of my diet again.
When it came to feeding me, Mom bounced between whole grain and whole fat, vegetables and cupcakes, hope and resignation, the way I bounced between binging and purging.
I shoveled the dry waffles into my mouth and tried to catch my dad’s attention over his newspaper. What’s the word, Dad? Anything interesting in there?
I poked the back of his paper.
Dad directed the answer at Mom. The Cardinals are never going back to the Super Bowl if they keep playing like this.
Mom, who could not have been less interested in sports, merely hummed.
I tried again. Do they have anything about the jazz fest in there? They’re supposed to announce the lineup this week.
Dad grumbled something to himself about preferring the Beatles and lifted his paper higher in front of his face.
Mom may have stopped talking to me about my weight, but around the time I tipped over four hundred pounds, Dad stopped talking to me altogether.
When I was growing up, he said my big frame was built for playing football. When I started growing out, he just didn’t know what to do with me. He tried to get me into the gym, shove his nasty egg-white omelets down my throat, and tell me I wasn’t a lost cause. But all that led to was a bunch of shouting matches.
I was actually pretty relieved when I hit four hundred pounds and he finally just shut the fuck up.
I still tried to talk to him at breakfast sometimes, though, just to see if I could trip him up and get him to say something directly to me. It was a little game I liked to play.
I finished my plate and stood up to kiss Mom on the cheek. She handed me my backpack and waved me out the door, humming under her breath, as always. I smiled. I bet she had no idea the song she was humming was Parker’s Mood.
• • •
Ten minutes later, I parked my BMW in a handicapped spot in the school parking lot. Yeah, BMW—my BMW. I know. Poor little rich kid. Maybe he’s big, but at least he drives a Beemer. And look, if I lived anywhere else, I’d agree, but where I’m from—Scottsdale, Arizona—seeing a teenager driving a BMW is about as common as seeing a one-armed cactus. We’re everywhere.
When I got my driver’s license sophomore year, I got called down to the school nurse’s office, where they gave me something I didn’t ask for—a handicapped sticker for my car. Apparently, my mom had requested it. I didn’t even think to be embarrassed or offended. I just remember thinking there was no way I would tarnish the Beemer with that ugly blue sticker, so I refused to park in the handicapped spots.
That only lasted through a few episodes of me running late for school and having to park at the far end of the lot and huff and puff half a mile to the building. One time I nearly collapsed right there in the parking lot. That was almost twenty pounds ago. So junior year I started using the spots.
The stall I always picked was right on the edge of the student lot where it spilled over into the faculty lot, so the first person to greet me when I got out of my car was the Professor. Professor Dunn, that is, but everyone just called him the Professor,
because if you spread out his credentials, side by side, they would stretch around the world twice or something like that.
The guy had played with the Boston, Philadelphia, and New York symphonies, among others. He had the highest degrees from Juilliard and honorary degrees from every other impressive musical school you could imagine. But he’d come back to his roots in Arizona to settle into semiretirement as the Scottsdale High band director. I wondered if he’d gotten more gray hairs from his years of performing or from the teenagers he now taught.
He waved. Morning, Butter!
He was the only teacher who called me Butter, and I didn’t mind it coming from him. I think he suspected how I really got the name, but he always told people it was because I made the alto sax sound as smooth as butter.
You pick your classes for next semester yet?
he asked, falling into step with me.
Everything but those electives. I’m still trying to decide between underwater basket weaving and leprechaun hunting.
I grinned. I knew exactly which elective the Professor wanted me to take, but I had to have a little fun with him first.
If only your comedy were as impressive as your music.
The Professor sighed. At least the comedy you are willing to share.
Hey! You make it sound like I’m being selfish. I told you, Prof, I’ll come jam with you and your Brass Boys anytime. But the school band? That’s just not my style.
Mom had forced me to join band freshman year. Both she and the Professor acted like it was the sinking of the Titanic when I dropped out after one semester. I think the Professor started letting me crash Brass Boys rehearsals in hopes of luring me back in, but all it did was introduce me to jazz and cement my decision that school band was not for me.
We reached the east entrance to the school, the one the teachers used, and the Professor stopped with his hand on the door. I only ask that you think about it, Butter. You could help me make the selections; we could pull some solos you like. Maybe a little Charlie Parker, huh?
He nudged me, then opened the door with a wink. After you, big guy.
• • •
First period. Composition. Anna.
I loved that my day started out with a perfect view of her long, straight blond hair and her lean tan legs. That day she was crossing and uncrossing those legs impatiently. She kept tapping her pen on the edge of her desk and glancing up at the clock. What’s the hurry? School’s just begun. I was so focused on Anna and wondering what had her so pent up, I didn’t even hear the teacher call on me.
Huh?
The teacher repeated the question with more patience than she would have offered any other student. Teachers pitied me and apparently thought I had enough to worry about without getting in trouble at school. I answered automatically—and correctly. I was practically a straight-A student; I aced everything but math. That kept the teachers off my back too.
I wanted to follow Anna after class, but whatever was on her mind caused her to put on her running shoes. She bolted out the door the second the teacher dismissed us, and I just couldn’t keep up with her in the hallway. Besides, I felt like a stalker. It’s not like Anna and I had ever talked in person, so I couldn’t very well ask what was wrong. I sucked it up, deciding I could make it through algebra and chemistry before seeing Anna again at lunch.
No classes ever passed so slowly. By the end of two hours, I had algebraic proofs in my chem lab book and chemical equations doodled all over my algebra spiral. I couldn’t have cared less. At eleven thirty, both notebooks tucked securely in my backpack, I trudged off to the cafeteria.
She should have been hard to spot. The Scottsdale High cafeteria was a sea of tall, tan, and blond. But I could always pick Anna out of a crowd. Her smile stuck out among the faces of other girls trying hard to look bored or annoyed. And her genuine laugh sounded like a melody while other girls’ cackles struck sour notes. She was as fake blond and fake tan as the rest of them, but something real still shone through.
I scanned the pale bobbing heads of giggling girls clustered at tables and knew in an instant Anna wasn’t there. I felt an irrational surge of anger at her, like we’d had a lunch date and she’d stood me up.
Or maybe she was just late, I reasoned. With that thought as comfort, I began skirting the cafeteria, headed for my usual table in the back. Most of the tables in the cafeteria were round, surrounded by slim plastic chairs that made those airline seats look downright roomy. But in the back there were a