Category: News

A Book Review from Reader's Favorites:

In The Boy with the Butterfly Mind by Lorelei Brush, readers meet Julie, a math teacher juggling her job, marriage, and the nonstop energy of her four-year-old son, Patrick. She feels deeply proud of him, but also worried. His moods range from exuberant curiosity to explosive meltdowns. As a result, Julie struggles to find safe childcare, create a structured home life, and advocate for him. Her husband, Luke, battles depression, has work struggles, and has a growing dependence on alcohol. All of this complicates his relationship with his son and deepens the distance between him and his wife. They must navigate tense play dates, family visits, and therapy sessions while also working on their marriage. Will Luke be able to confront his struggles? Will he and Julie be able to heal their relationship? And will Patrick finally get the help he so desperately needs?

The Boy with the Butterfly Mind by Lorelei Brush really drew me in with its honest look at parenting, marriage, and the reality of raising a child who doesn’t fit neatly into school expectations. As an educator, I was frustrated with the teachers and administrators the family had to deal with; I understand the pressures they face, but most schools exhaust all avenues to help a child in need. At the same time, I appreciated getting the other side of the scenario firsthand, since I’m usually the one sitting at the table as the educator, not the parent. I especially liked how Julie had an early sense of her child’s diagnosis and needs; that rang true, and it contrasted sharply with Luke’s discomfort with labels and his reluctance to see Patrick through that lens. The writing was natural and conversational. The pages move quickly, even when the subject matter is heavy. Fans looking for stories about neurodivergent children, families navigating mental illness, or realistic portrayals of modern parenting will want to read this deeply personal tale.

This book review was written by Jennifer Senick. To learn more about The Boy with the Butterfly Mind or to purchase your copy, please click here.

A Midwest Book Review:

At work, Julie is a high school math teacher who requires her students to solve complex problems. But faced with an unsafe daycare home and no other daycare openings, a husband who hates the idea of labeling their son as a "problem", and a supervisor who's angry at the amount of time she's taking off school, she's at a loss for how to come up with a solution to this particular dilemma.

Julie's struggle to help her son ultimately demands a number of mindset shifts: a willingness to become a student and ask for help, a humble acceptance of her errors, a burgeoning strength to reckon with a dominant father and retreating husband -- and the self-confidence to trust her instincts when it comes to deciding on the best next steps for her son.

Critique: With her original, exceptional, and deftly crafted novel, The Boy with the Butterfly Mind, author Lorelei Brush demonstrates a truly impressive, eloquent, character and narrative driven storytelling style that is ideal for engaging her readers in this quiet saga of a novel of a mother's dilemma with the pressures of a job, a special needs (ADA) son, and a clinically depressed husband. An inherently fascinating story that is both emotionally resonant and intellectually engaging from start to finish, The Boy with the Butterfly Mind is especially and unreservedly recommended for community library Contemporary General Fiction collections. It should be noted that this paperback edition of The Boy with the Butterfly Mind from She Writes Press is also readily available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $12.99).

Editorial Note: Lorelei Brush is a college mathematics major, a former assistant professor of child development, and the parent of a neurodivergent child. The story in her novel, "The Boy with the Butterfly Mind" deftly mixes elements of all three life experiences to describe the struggles and triumph of a young family dealing with neurodivergence. Her previous novels include Uncovering, about the trials of a nurse practitioner in northwest Pakistan, and Chasing the American Dream, about the quest of a disappointed WWII spy to be a hero in 1950s Cleveland.

Chasing the American Dream has the kind of premise that could have easily collapsed into a familiar Nazi-hunting thriller, but Lorelei Brush steers it somewhere far more uncomfortable. The novel isn’t really interested in revenge fantasy or tidy justice. It’s interesting in what happens after history supposedly ends, when the war is over, the headlines move on, and ordinary people are left carrying memories that refuse to settle into the past. Brush takes the polished nostalgia of 1950s America and scratches at it until the whole thing starts to look cracked, nervous, and morally exhausted.

What gives the novel its bite is how personal it feels. Brush spent months researching her own father’s connection to the Office of Strategic Services at the National Archives, and you can feel that obsession underneath the pages. There’s anger in this book, but also disappointment. Not just disappointment in governments or institutions, but in the stories people tell themselves about heroism. That emotional undercurrent keeps the novel from becoming a cold historical exercise.

David Svehla is not introduced as some fearless crusader. He’s a Cleveland family man trying to perform normalcy while clearly failing at it internally. The war never really released him. When he unexpectedly spots Dr. Gerhardt Adler, a former SS officer he personally escorted to Nuremberg years earlier, casually walking down an American street, the moment lands like a punch to the chest. Brush handles the scene without melodrama. No giant cinematic reveal. Just the sickening realization that history did not end the way David believed it did.

From there, the novel tightens gradually rather than exploding outward. David begins to follow Adler almost compulsively, slipping back into the instincts of his OSS years, and what starts as a private mission turns darker once the U.S. government’s role becomes impossible to ignore. Brush digs directly into the moral filth surrounding Operation Paperclip and America’s willingness to absorb Nazi scientists for political advantage during the Cold War. The novel never screams its outrage, which honestly makes it more effective. The hypocrisy simply sits there in plain sight.

What stayed with me most wasn’t the conspiracy itself but the effect David’s obsession has on the people around him. His pursuit of justice slowly mutates into something selfish, even destructive. Brush understands that the desire to feel heroic can become its own kind of addiction. There’s a sadness running through the domestic scenes, conversations with his wife, moments with family, where you can feel a man drifting away from the life he claims to be protecting. That emotional erosion gives the story its weight.

The 1950s setting also feels disturbingly current. Brush folds in McCarthy-era paranoia, sensationalist media, anti-communist hysteria, and institutional secrecy without making the novel sound like a lecture. The parallels emerge naturally. Everybody is terrified of appearing disloyal. Everybody is performing certainty while hiding compromise underneath it.

Stylistically, the writing moves fast but never feels thin. Brush doesn’t drown scenes in decorative prose. She keeps things lean, sharp, and emotionally direct. The result is a historical novel that feels less like revisiting the past and more like uncovering something people worked very hard to bury.

By the end, Chasing the American Dream stops asking whether justice is possible and starts asking what happens to people who build their entire identity around chasing it. That shift gives the novel its real sting.

Chasing the American Dream: A Novel by Lorelei Brush offers a compelling look at hope, resilience, and the pursuit of a better future. The novel is available for readers to purchase.

Note: This Book Review first appeared in The New York Weekly.

The Boy with the Butterfly Mind by Lorelei Brush is the story of a mother navigating the complexities of raising her neurodivergent son. Julie Crawford is a dedicated wife, mother, and high school math teacher. When her four-year-old son, Patrick, displays signs of ADHD with his behavior at home and at day care, Julie seeks a proper medical diagnosis. However, her husband, Luke, is hesitant to put a label on Patrick's neurodivergence. Their clash of opinions soon threatens to drive a wedge between them. Meanwhile, Julie struggles to teach her students, and her relationship with the principal is strained. As Patrick's ADHD worsens, Luke turns to alcohol, and it adds more tension in the household. Can Julie find a way to treat her child and mend her marriage?

The Boy with the Butterfly Mind is a heartfelt slice-of-life story. Author Lorelei Brush tells a captivating tale that illustrates the struggles of a couple with a neurodivergent child and a mother who does everything to keep her family intact. The book highlights some key social issues that many families suffer from in the real world today. Brush paces the narrative very well, and it makes for an easy read. The characters feel like actual people living their lives in small-town America. ADHD is portrayed in a very nuanced and informative manner in this book. It's easy to sympathize with Julie's circumstances. As you're further into the story, you start rooting for her to overcome her struggles. All in all, I highly recommend this novel.

-Pikasho Deka, Reader's Favorite