Setting (Appalachia during an unexpected butterfly migration) drives everything about this novel, including the juxtaposition between a community hanging on to routines with faith and the slow destruction of the natural world that has allowed for such routines in the first place. The fact that a community seems awed by something that may very well be a sign of its future undoing is a subject Kingsolver took on full-force, with just a bit of humor to soften the blow. I felt as though the novel's intensity fell off toward the end as I had more of a connection to Dellarobia when she seemed to be searching for something specific, self realization. I'm not sure she got there. The way the butterfly migration was used to display her relative intelligence and extreme sadness was powerful, but alone it was not enough to sustain the character. I wanted something more extreme to happen to her or her family, or for her to take some extreme action. Everything about the ending is subdued and less interesting to me than the characters I wanted to get to know. All that said, I loved the book in that it was thoroughly entertaining and well researched.