In the Time of the Butterflies

325 pages

English language

Published Oct. 7, 1999 by Tandem Library.

ISBN:
978-0-613-02389-4
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4 stars (5 reviews)

It is November 25, 1960, and three beautiful sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. The official state newspaper reports their deaths as accidental. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Rafael Leonidas Trujillo’s dictatorship. It doesn’t have to. Everybody knows of Las Mariposas―“The Butterflies.”

In this extraordinary novel, the voices of all four sisters―Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and the survivor, Dedé―speak across the decades to tell their own stories, from hair ribbons and secret crushes to gunrunning and prison torture, and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo’s rule. Through the art and magic of Julia Alvarez’s imagination, the martyred Butterflies live again in this novel of courage and love, and the human cost of …

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My review as posted on Goodreads

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I read this book for National Hispanic Heritage Month. I had previously read How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and I enjoyed both books. I always hesitate starting about book about the Domincan Republic during the Trujillo era. It was such a dark and brutal period and I don't want to get mired in books about torture. Yet this book is not about torture. It is about four sisters trying to make sense and meaning in a difficult time. It is a book about resilience and hardship. It is a book about faith and love and how we live our lives. It is a book we can all learn from even today

Review of 'In the Time of the Butterflies' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I read this book for National Hispanic Heritage Month. I had previously read How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and I enjoyed both books. I always hesitate starting about book about the Domincan Republic during the Trujillo era. It was such a dark and brutal period and I don't want to get mired in books about torture. Yet this book is not about torture. It is about four sisters trying to make sense and meaning in a difficult time. It is a book about resilience and hardship. It is a book about faith and love and how we live our lives. It is a book we can all learn from even today.

Review of 'In the Time of the Butterflies' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

As Banned Books Week ends, I have just finished reading Julia Alvarez's "In the Time of the Butterflies." Alvarez tells of the Mirabal sisters in the Dominican Republic during the time of ruthless dictator Rafael Trujillo. Las mariposas, the butterflies, each in her own way, find the courage to oppose the brutalities of this despot, and three of them are murdered for their refusal to yield. The work is a historical fiction that develops a haunting and beautiful portrait each of the three murdered sisters and of the sister, Dede, who survives to tell their story. Alvarez weaves a remarkable story that is still compelling, even as the sisters draw toward their inevitable end. But the soul of the book is the celebration of their lives, and not a mordant fascination with their deaths.

The book has been banned for various reasons. It includes a crude diagram of a bomb …

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