Butterfly Yellow (2019) is a young adult historical novel penned by Thanhhà Lai. The story follows 18-year-old Hằng from Vietnam, who arrives in the United States, where her brother, Linh, was taken six years ago during Operation Babylift. With the help of LeeRoy, an 18-year-old aspiring cowboy, she travels through Texas in search of Linh. The book explores themes of language and communication, the gap between dreams and reality, and the experiences of “the horrid and the sublime.”

Thanhhà Lai is a Vietnamese-American author who writes middle grade and young adult novels. Her first novel, Inside Out & Back Again (2011), is based on her own childhood experiences as a refugee in the United States and received the National Book Award and a Newbery Honor. Butterfly Yellow is her first YA novel, and it received the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. Another work by Lai is Listen, Slowly (2015).

This guide is based on the HarperCollins Kindle Edition.

Content Warning: This book contains mentions and descriptions of violence, sexual assault, and trauma.

Plot Summary

Although the book begins in Hằng’s present, the story unfolds through the use of flashbacks and multiple points of view. This structure contributes to a non-linear reading experience in which past and present are told alongside one another, and narrative focus shifts among the characters. 

In 1975, during the final months of the Vietnam War, the United States government begins to evacuate Vietnamese children deemed to be orphans to America. Hằng, a 12-year-old girl whose father was killed in the war, attempts to escape with her brother, Linh, this way. However, she is separated from Linh at the airport, as she is considered too old, and Linh is taken away by an American volunteer. The man slips Hằng an address, the only clue to her brother’s new whereabouts.

Hằng is unable to confess the truth of her brother’s disappearance to her mother and grandmother, Bà, and the latter assumes Linh was kidnapped. For six years, Bà plans on ways to retrieve Linh from the address in Texas. When Hằng is 18, she finally leaves Vietnam with Mother. Bà is unable to leave with them due to a tumor in her leg. Mother and Hằng escape aboard a fishing boat disguised as monks, but the boat is attacked and raided by pirates. Mother is killed in the process, but Hằng manages to escape and is washed up on an island, where she is rescued and cared for by the people there. She survives yet another pirate attack on the island, as well as a painful infestation of hookworms, before a UNHRC helicopter finally flies her out to a refugee camp in the Philippines. Her “Extreme Trauma” status fast-tracks her relocation to the United States.

When Hằng arrives in Texas, she is received by her father’s younger brother, who has been living and working in the US as a doctor for many years. She learns that Bà has passed away since Hằng’s leaving Vietnam; her brother is also missing, as her uncle was unable to track him down at the address in Amarillo. Nevertheless, Hằng convinces her cousin, Angie, to help her board a bus to Amarillo, as Hằng wants to attempt finding Linh herself. On the way, however, Hằng spends too long at a rest stop, and the bus departs without her. She approaches an elderly couple for help, who thrust her upon LeeRoy, an 18-year-old aspiring cowboy from Austin who is driving across the state hoping to meet his idol, Bruce Ford.

LeeRoy reluctantly drives Hằng to the address in Amarillo, only to discover a burnt down church at the location. A neighboring old woman reveals that Linh was renamed David and the man who adopted him died in a car accident, after which David was unofficially adopted by the man’s sister. Hằng and LeeRoy set off toward the new address, a ranch in Canyon, Texas; when they arrive, however, they discover that Linh/David does not remember Hằng. Hằng’s uncle catches up with her and tries to take her back; LeeRoy attempts to stop him on Hằng’s request and damages his truck in the process.

Hằng is determined to stay close to Linh now that she has found him, and LeeRoy is in need of a job for money to repair his truck. They are both hired as summer help by a neighboring cowboy despite Linh/David’s adoptive mother, Cora’s displeasure. Mr. Morgan, Hằng and LeeRoy’s new employer, has them tending to his horses and melons for room, board, meals, and a lump sum by the end of the summer.

Hằng attempts to get close to her brother, but Linh avoids her, even as he strikes up an easy relationship with LeeRoy. He promises to talk to Hằng every day at lunch in exchange for joining LeeRoy at a midnight rodeo; Hằng joins, too, by sneaking into LeeRoy’s truck. At the rodeo, an eager LeeRoy is hustled and ends up injuring himself when the local cowboys purposely set him up to get bucked off of a horse. As punishment for sneaking out, Mr. Morgan works all three of them extra hard, and they spend the rest of the summer doing chores together. LeeRoy and Hằng experience changing feelings for each other, though neither of them acknowledges it out loud. Linh continues to ignore Hằng, even as she regales him with stories from their childhood and hints of memories begin to return.

Hằng’s uncle continues to visit, trying to pressure Hằng into testifying in front of a judge that Linh was kidnapped, despite Cora’s vehement objections. Feeling increasingly guilty, Hằng finally confesses the truth about what happened at the airport, and her uncle is forced to abandon legal recourse, while Cora begins the process to officially adopt Linh as David.

Toward the end of summer, while the group is packing melons to be sold at the fair, it begins to rain; Hằng slips and falls, and while LeeRoy attempts to help her clean up and get dry, he accidentally exposes the hookworm scars that cover Hằng’s body. Ashamed, she runs away, with LeeRoy in pursuit. He finally catches up with her, and they sit together. Hằng urges him to talk while she silently replays her traumatic memories of her escape from Vietnam, and she is soothed by LeeRoy’s voice in the background. She finally releases some of her pain.

Cora takes Hằng in and bathes and pampers her, cleaning her up for the fair the next day. After the melons are sold out, Hằng, LeeRoy, and David wander around. They ride the Ferris wheel together, and when Hằng sings what used to be her brother’s favorite song, “Butterfly Yellow,” the words and gestures slowly come back to him. Hằng realizes that despite her stories, Linh is happy in his new life and will never leave it; she resolves to stay close to him, instead of dragging him away.

At the end of the summer, Hằng is offered a job as a gardener by Mr. Morgan, and Cora gives her accommodation in return for Hằng’s cooking. LeeRoy collects enough money to have his truck repaired and prepares to return home. He promises David and Hằng to come back on his way to a rodeo championship and take them along with him. The book ends with Hằng looking out the window of her new room, through which she will be able to see LeeRoy when he drives back up in December.