Review of “The Secret Rites of Social Butterflies,” by Lizabeth Zindel
“The Secret Rites of Social Butterflies,” by Lizabeth Zindel is the story of a teenage girl who becomes part of a secret clique at her ritzy private school.
When Maggie and her Mom move to New York City, Maggie is both slightly thrilled and slightly afraid. On the one hand she has a chance to start over completely at Berkeley Prep, a fancy private school just for girls. But the only problem is that she is entering the school as a senior, and all her new classmates have already formed their cliques and friendships. It seems as if Maggie won’t have a chance to find any friends at all.
However, when Maggie crashes an exclusive back-to-school party it’s the start of a chain of events that leads to her being accepted into the Revelers, a small, secretive group of girls at the top of Berkeley Prep society. The Revelers have a strange and dangerous goal: to collect the secrets of today’s teenagers and keep track of them on The Wall, a huge mural that contains information about everyone at school.
At first Maggie is happy to be a part of her new group of friends, but before long she realizes that these girls are using the information they find for their own benefit. And what’s more, some of Maggie’s secrets are already up on the Wall!
I felt that “The Secret Rites of Social Butterflies” was a very well balanced book. Lizabeth Zindel’s characters are realistic and the plot is interesting and meaningful. The plot shows Maggie’s experiences through to the very dramatic end, showing consequences in an admirably mature manner. One aspect of “The Secret Rites of Social Butterflies” that I found especially interesting was Lizabeth Zindel’s use of brief passages about the butterfly life cycle. These facts are used at the start of every chapter to reflect developments in Maggie’s life.
I enjoyed reading “The Secret Rites of Social Butterflies” and would definitely recommend it to all teenage readers.
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