The writing style was pretty nice, and I sympathized with the main character, but the americanized perspective that miss Sonnichsen writes from kind of ruined Red Butterfly for me. The author takes liberties that aren't hers to take, cracks jokes that are uncomfortable coming from a white woman, and just generally pervades what should've been a picturesque depiction of a child's life in China with a neon bright, artificial, toxically positive white saviorist atmosphere. 

It's pretentious and uninteresting. The writing style is so bland and unremarkable; I couldn't tell the stupid characters apart. Besides, the author writes from perspectives she can't possibly understand (black men, gay men) as if she understands them perfectly and it gets on my nerves. Girlie pretty much said black identity comes with constantly feeling agressive and "wounded" (sorry for yourself) and implied that it's possible to feel "post-black" (???) because you were raised with money and somehow that cancels out any racism you might experience (??!?!!?) Like wtf. Not to mention the cliches. "he avoided asking because he was afraid of the answers he might hear" COME ON. Honestly it reads like YA but for 30 year olds that never developed past reading YA.

The plot had potential, but Funke's childish writing style made a mess of source material that was too serious for it.