The ButterflyFree Project

In this inspirational book, The ButterflyFree Project, one can read many good affirmations. The author does an excellent job of showing, through these affirmations, that everyone, regardless of their past experiences, is special to the “Wholly” God.

The main idea of The Butterfly Free Project seemed to be that if we get rid of all of emotional baggage in our lives of past experiences and get through the cocoon of death, then we will emerge to be the best of who we can be. Hence, the symbolism of the life cycle of the butterfly and the title of this book. Let’s face it, our human lives are projects that we work on everyday. Two other aspects of this book stood out for me, which were based on the author’s creativity.

Jim Talentino did a fantastic job of utilizing his personal experiences. He did not hold back, which led to much wisdom being shared. It is through Talentino’s personal stories and life experiences that the reader can see that “poo” does happen to everyone, even to someone who, at one time in their life, was an ordained clergy person.

Also utilized creatively was the language of The ButterflyFree Project. The written words on the page were not over my head, which was good. He explained his story and concepts in a way that everyone will be able to understand. This also leads me to one of the two slight negatives of this book. As demonstrated above, the author chose certain words, of which some were made up, for emphasis. At times I found the use of words such as “Womin” and “Fluttiness” to be confusing, and had to go back to the front of the book to re-read why such words were used by the author. All of the words utilized appear in bold italics in the book. There are many more creative words utilized throughout the book than the examples I gave above.

The other slight negativity for me was that there seemed to be, at times, a repetition of the author’s ideas. Perhaps if the book length was slightly shorter, there wouldn’t have been the repetition of the author’s thoughts. Then again, for some readers, this repetition might be needed so that an affirmation can be felt.

Overall, this was a good book to be enjoyed by many. The ButterflyFree Project does not discriminate against anyone’s circumstances in life. It can easily be read in its entirety, or as a devotional, where one or two contents of a section can be read and then picked up again at a later time. Saying yes to ourselves is just one of the important themes and ideas of this book. By saying yes, our butterfly self can emerge. Say yes to yourself and see if reading this book can make a difference in your life, and help you emerge into a beautiful butterfly.