Breaking Butterflies by M. Anjelais

Goodreads summary:

Sphinxie and Cadence. Promised to each other in childhood. Drawn together again as teens. Sphinxie is sweet, compassionate, and plain. Cadence is brilliant, charismatic. Damaged. And diseased. When they were kids, he scarred her with a knife. Now, as his illness progresses, he becomes increasingly demanding. She wants to be loyal--but fears for her life. Only the ultimate sacrifice will give this love an ending.

Sphinxie--”I always felt stupid when I was around him.  I was simply too ordinary, while he was this vision of talent and good looks, whirling through life and dazzling everyone with his greatness.  I never really hated him for making me feel less than him; I was just in awe of him, ….” (p 13)

Cadence--”Everyone loved Cadence’s eyes, people were always saying how beautiful they were, how unusual.  How completely out of the ordinary.  Sometimes, I thought, ordinary is better.  It was the first time in my life that I realized something could be so unusual that it was broke, so out of the ordinary that something was wrong with it.” (p 16)

All through this book I was worried about Sphinx.  She was so much under Cadence’s spell, the seemed to lose herself to him.  I don’t see this book having wide appeal, unless one is interested in stories with sociopaths as characters.  But it doesn't get into the person's head  as much as one might like.