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    In the Time of the Butterflies
    In the Time of the Butterflies
    In the Time of the Butterflies
    Audiobook13 hours

    In the Time of the Butterflies

    Written by Julia Alvarez

    Narrated by Noemi De La Puente, Alma Cuervo, Blanca Camacho and Melanie Martinez

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    It is November 25, 1960, and the bodies of three beautiful, convent-educated sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. El Caribe, the official newspaper, reports their deaths as an accident. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of Gen. Raphael Leonidas Trujillo's dictatorship. It doesn't have to. Everyone knows of Las Mariposas - "The Butterflies." Now, three decades later, Julia Alvarez, also a daughter of the Dominican Republic and long haunted by these sisters, immerses us in a tangled and dangerous moment in Hispanic Caribbean history to tell their story in the only way it can truly be understood - through fiction. In this brilliantly characterized novel, the voices of all four sisters - Minerva, Patria, Maria Teresa, and Dede - speak across the decades, to tell their own stories - from hair ribbons to gunrunning to prison torture - and to describe the everyday horrors of life under Trujillo's rule.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJul 18, 2007
    ISBN9781436112260
    In the Time of the Butterflies
    Author

    Julia Alvarez

    Born in New York City in 1950, Julia Alvarez’s parents took her back to their native country, the Dominican Republic, shortly after her birth. Ten years later, the family was forced to flee to the US because of her father’s involvement in a plot to overthrow the dictator Rafael Trujillo. Alvarez has written many bestselling novels including: How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, In the Time of the Butterflies, ¡Yo!, In the Name of Salomé, and Afterlife. She has also written collections of poems, non-fiction, and numerous books for young readers. The Cemetery of Untold Stories is her most recent novel. Her awards and recognitions include the Pura Belpré and Américas Awards for her books for young readers, the Hispanic Heritage Award, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award. In 2013, she received the National Medal of Arts from President Obama.

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    Reviews for In the Time of the Butterflies

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    • 3/5
      Read this for high school English class. I remember enjoying it for a "school book" :-P I suspect I would get a lot more out of it if I were to reread it now.
    • 4/5
      An amazingly well-done novelization of the lives of the Mirabel sisters, 3 of whom were murdered by the Trujillo regime near the end of that regime. The fourth and surviving sister was on of Alvarez's sources, as was a daughter of one of the murdered sisters, and others.I rarely enjoy "novelizations", but this is excellent. Of course, her sources were great, and in the front of the novel Alvarez refers readers to the back, where she explains her interest in the topic and how/why the book itself came to be. And, nearly 30 years out, we know this book has influenced the international knowledge of and reputation of the Mirabal sisters.The novel itself is very readable and interesting. It is well paced and the organization works. I wouldn't say it is YA, but it is definitely high school friendly (violence and sex are implied, not graphic). As someone who does not love graphic violence in books, I found this well done and I appreciated the craftsmanship.
    • 5/5
      In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez is a historical fiction novel about the Mirabal sisters during the time of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. While their parents try desperately to live their lives and ignore politics, each of these smart and lovely sisters eventually becomes involved in the quest for freedom. Minerva Mirabal, perhaps the boldest of the sisters gets involved in the revolution first, two others, Patria, and Maria Teresa soon join in while the last sister, Dede, while in sympathy with them, was discouraged by her husband from actively taking part. Known as the “Maraposas” or “Butterflies” all the sisters showed great courage in their actions. The story covers the sister’s lives from childhood through to their marriages and having children. The author doesn’t just tell the reader what was happening, instead through the events in the lives of the sisters we experience the uncertainty and fear. Trujillo had a stranglehold on the country and even the slightest hint of opposition was stamped out. By the end of the book, three of the sisters had spent time in prison, were under house arrest and their husbands were still in prison.In the Time of the Butterflies is a book that totally engulfed me. I was drawn into the lives of these sisters, from their girlhood during the 1940s on into their lives as young women, wives and mothers. The story is all the more poignant as it is based on true events and although the author didn’t personally know the Mirabal family this novel is an ode to both their courage and their dedication to each other.
    • 5/5
      Julia Alvarez framed In the Time of Butterflies around one truth: On November 25th, 1960 three sisters, known as "las mariposas," died under very suspicious circumstances in the Dominican Republic. While their Jeep was found at the bottom of a steep cliff, their injuries told of a much different and violent death. Before their murders these courageous women were no ordinary citizens of the Republic. After being radicalized at University three of the four sisters defiantly joined an underground movement to overthrow the country's tyrannical leader, Rafael Leonides Trujillo. Imprisoned for their activities, the women failed to see the warning signs when they are suddenly freed without fanfare. They don't think anything amiss when their imprisoned husbands are moved to a more remote prison, forcing the sisters to travel a deserted mountain road to visit them. The story begins with Dede, the surviving Mirabal sister, who feels almost a sideshow freak. Every year on the anniversary of her sisters' murders, some reporter comes calling to hear the sad tale. Because the narration of In the Time of Butterflies is told from the perspective of each sister, character development happens seamlessly. They take turns releasing their passions and convictions, sometimes in first person, sometimes in third.In the Time of Butterflies is an extremely exquisite and tragic tale. As Dede says, "If you multiply by zero, you still get zero, and a thousand heartaches."
    • 4/5
      Historical fiction based on a real event, the four Mirabal sisters, known collectively as las mariposas ("the Butterflies"), grew up in the Dominican Republic during a time of political unrest and dictatorship. When three of the sisters become involved in an underground political uprising and eventually are discovered dead under questionable circumstances, they become martyrs for generations to come. I suspect not a lot of people are familiar with the story that this book is based upon, and prior to reading this, I wasn't either. If not for book club, I doubt that I would've happened upon this title. But it's one of those stories that pulls you in and after reading, you want to know more. At the beginning of the book, the reader knows that the story is going to end tragically, but the story traces the journey: the early years of the sisters growing up, their educational background, their emergence into adulthood, and eventually the paths they choose as adults that lead to the inevitable, tragic ending of their lives. Like a train wreck, the story is sad, but the reader wants to know the details leading up to the tragic ending. This book was educational for me, as my knowledge of anything related to the Dominican Republic is very limited (other than its penchant for churning out good baseball players), and it's always good when a book can pique your interest in a new, unfamiliar topic.
    • 5/5
      In 1960, the three Mirabal, sisters, Minerva, Patria and Maria Theresa (Mate) were murdered by members of the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. Their sister Dede survived mostly because she was not a political activist in the same vein as her sisters. This book by Julia Alvarez tells their story and it's so very well done, really just excellent historical fiction.Last year I read Mario Vargas Llosa's [The Feast of the Goat], another excellent historical fiction, which revealed a lot more about the horrors of Trujillo, who was a truly evil man. Alvarez kind of took it for granted that the reader already knew a lot about this despicable man and his regime and concentrated on the well known Mirabal sisters who are martyrs in their country now. And Dede, as the survivor comes across as such a sympathetic character that she's the natural to end the story with her grieving because she has to go on, alone. So on that level it was a much more personal book and to me, more enjoyable. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      In 1960, the three Mirabel sisters, Patria, Minerva, & María Theresa, we ambushed by the secret police of Rafael Trujillo and murdered. Only the fourth sister, Dedé lived to tell their tale and keep the memory of the “mariposas”, or butterflies, alive.Alvarez follows the sisters from their early childhood, through their school days and then to their radical action at University. These brave women fought against Trijillo’s regime, endured horrific time in prison, and never abandoned their ideals. They are role models for all of us.
    • 5/5
      I’m sure every reader has had a slump where they pick up a book and even though it’s their favorite genre, had an interesting plot, and is written by an amazing writer, they can’t bring themselves to finish the book. Then every book after is one disappointment after another. It takes one book to bring them back from the slump to reawaken that love for reading. Once upon a time a few months ago I entered that slump. I’m glad to say a few weeks ago when I started In the Time of the Butterflies I haven’t gone a day without reading one chapter a night even though I was tempted to spend a full night to consume it all.The Mirabal sisters are four young women raised in the Dominican Republic during Trujillo or El Jefe’s dictatorship. It’s heartbreaking to read the first pages to find that only one of the four will survive those times. Yet it made the story much more compelling. Through memories and diary passages, Alvarez writes each sister’s point of view to share their growth and love for each other. From teenagers to married women, we get to read along as their lives unfold only making the reading fall in love with them more and more. Patria, Dedé, Minerva, and María Teresa share their stories one after another bringing us closer to the end of the Butterfly sisters.It’s a timeless love story. The familial love between parents and their daughters, young women falling in love with their spouses, an oppressed people fighting because of their love of the country they want liberated. It was hard seeing it all build up to the gut wrenching end but the stories in between made it all worth it. I can’t wait to read more from the same author.
    • 5/5
      In the Time of the Butterflies is just too perfect of a book. It is a story based on the Mirabal sisters, three of them were killed by the Dominican Republic dictator Trujillo for being part of the resistance against him. The book is told from the surviving sister's point of view, Dede, recalling the events that took place to a interviewer from the US and also told from each of the sisters, Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa telling their childhood and their role in the resistance leading up to their deaths. The author explains that their personalities, some events and dates were created to make the story. This book teaches an important part of Dominican history while being a very captivating story about the real women who stood up to a dictator.
    • 5/5
      Even tho I didn't track very well which sister was "speaking" in the various chapters, this was a strong story to read, and a vital teaching of world history, other cultures.The imagined life of 4 sisters in the Dominican Republic under a dictatorship, the various ways they do or don't struggle for freedom, as well as a depiction of daily life for a middle class family.
    • 4/5
      Book Description: 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.”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 political oppression. My Take: I enjoyed this story once I got into it, but I found it slow going at first. The book switches points of view from one sister to another and at first the overall story ine was vague. I enjoyed the parts told by the youngest sister the most. I was also very unfamiliar with the historical events it was depicting so it took me a while to pick up on who Trujillo was and what the political situation was like. I did enjoy learning a little bit more about that and once I got into it the struggles of the sisters began to resonate with me.I'd say this is a good book for people who like history, learning about new places, and getting a slow, in depth look at one particular family.
    • 4/5
      September 8th, 2013I really enjoyed this. It is the story of the Mirabal sisters Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa, otherwise known in the Dominican Republic as Las Mariposas, describes their suffering and martyrdom in the last days of the Trujillo dictatorship. I was unfamiliar with the story.The author did a good job of giving each sister her own voice and personality. It did help to have a different narrator for each sister.
    • 4/5
      I found this book to be very interesting. My granddaughters used to watch a Barbie Video when they were visiting about Mariposa. I never realized at the time that there were real mariposa's and that they were four sisters who were revolutionaries. The author tells you at the book that this is just a work of fiction, that she is not a biographer and had difficulty finding information and that she used license with time. The time period covered was 1930 to 1961. The story is told by a surviving sister about the past so it jumps back and forth. I learned a lot. The author came to the US with her family in 1960 as exiles.
    • 4/5
      This book is a page turning, heart-felt tribute to the Mirabal sisters, the martyred Mariposas of the Revolution which ultimately led to the end of the Trujillo dictatorship in The Dominican Republic. Alvarez divides the story between the four sisters, including Dede, the one who survived and raised her sisters' children. Very good book, not great. Some parts the narrative rang the tiniest bit false. Not sure why. Still it is a captivating story and one that should be better known since dictatorship and all its trappings and horrors never seem to go out of style.
    • 5/5
      This account of the Mirabal sisters during the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic is a moving fictionalized telling that focuses on the humanity of the sisters more so than the politics. The abuses of the regime are certainly front and center but the story is more about how people who may be quite different, as the sisters were, can come to have the courage to stand against tyranny.I would love to also have more factual accounts or memoirs to help round out the "real" story but Alvarez has captured, I believe, the spirit of the real story. Each sister's voice was distinctive which added to the distinct reason each had for becoming a revolutionary.Powerful yet beautiful prose, some of the most breathtaking descriptions of both locations and inner thoughts, especially in the early sections of the book.Highly recommended for lovers of historical fiction and character-driven novels.
    • 5/5
      In the time of butterflies is a fictional story about four real persons, the Mirabal sisters. They are harassed and persecuted all while their families suffer retaliation from the military intelligence service in the Dominican Republic. The author is well know for her sayings on most of her books and this book its not an exception. For example, one of the chapters is called “voz del pueblo, voz del cielo”, this means, "Talk of the people, voice of God," and it is an old proverb. Dede says it to Minerva as she tries to convince her that the rumors that Trujillo wants her dead are not silly. She takes it to mean that popular opinion is always right, and in this case, it is. Minerva refuses to listen to her sister, calling the talk "silly rumors," but this is a mistake and she is killed. Mama also uses this proverb to warn Minerva about traveling to visit Puerto Plata. This phrase also is the title of the last section of the last chapter of the novel, told from Minerva's point of view. It is as if this section serves as proof that rumors are usually true, that the people have a certain wisdom, and that one should take warnings seriously. This book is perfect for students in middle grades and high school. I would definitely recommend this book.
    • 5/5
      A beautiful novel about the Mirabal sisters, who were brutally murdered by the waning Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. It is told in chapters narrated in the very different voices of the four sisters: Ded̩ who survives, Patria the oldest and most Christian, Minerva the activist revolutionary from a young age, and Maria Teresa the baby of the family whose chapters are her diary.

      It is also one of the great novels of a semi-totalitarian government and what it means for a group of young women growing up outside the capital. It makes for an interesting pairing with Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat, which covers much of the same period, has some of the same events, but does it all from a different perspective. The difference is that In the Time of the Butterflies is much more subtle. It has the same torture, de facto child rape by Trujillo and other horrors, but all of it is more understated and seen through the eyes of the girls in the story. That all makes the one episode where torture is more directly described that much more powerful.
    • 5/5
      In her Postscript, Alvarez wrote that she wanted the book to "immerse my readers in an epoch in the life of the Dominican Republic." I think she succeeded magnificently. She tells the story of the Trujillo era, when the small island republic was under the heel of one of the more notorious dictators of Latin America. She tells it by giving us a fictionalized account of the Mirabel sisters, known as the "Mariposas" (butterflies) who are national heroes. If you'd have described this book to me, I'd have thought this would not likely be a book I'd like, let alone love. A book centered on a cell of communist revolutionaries involved in bomb-making who name their children after Che Guevera? NO! And this has these little quirks of literary fiction that often seem so artificial to me: shifts in narrative from present to past tense, from first to third person, portions in diary format, jumps in time. And I'm suspicious of works of "creative non-fiction" that blur the distinction between fact and fiction. Well, to take these things in reverse order, this isn't creative non-fiction. As Alvarez wrote in her postscript, the Mirabel sisters of this story are her invention, her creation. This is a novel, not fictionalized non-fiction--that's apparent from the start and I think made the story all the more powerful--she's not afraid to entirely inhabit her characters. Second, she's a master storyteller who kept me riveted from beginning to end--and this despite that she opens the novel with the surviving sister being visited by someone researching the story of the Mirabel sisters--so we know they're doomed from the start. Which lends only poignancy--and strangely suspense--to what follows. I was never jarred by the shifts in time, tense, point-of-view and narrative technique--Alvarez is that good.And yes, I did care about the sisters. I didn't care for the one novel by Isabel Allende I'd tried, a celebrated Latin American author--Allende's novel seemed such naked Marxist propaganda to me. I never felt that way about In the Time of the Butterflies. Alvarez's novel is not polemic. It's a very personal, intimate story of four sisters and she's great at making them all very different from each other. I never had a problem keeping Patria, Dede, Minerva, and Maria Teresa apart--they all had such different voices, dreams and motivations. It was easy to identify with them and understand their choices. And it probably helped that I felt at home with her characters. My mother is Puerto Rican--it's not so different in culture to the Dominican Republic, and there were little phrases and details throughout where I felt a little shock of recognition. Alvarez evoked her time and place so well I felt I had visited there. It's hard to think of a higher compliment to give a novelist.
    • 5/5
      As I was reading this book, I thought a good 4 stars... Now that I am finished, I will give it 5 and the reason is certainly the account of the surviving sister, Dede, at the end. Of the four sisters, she is the most interesting and captivating, as her almost indifference to the revolution yet her dedication and love towards her sisters sets her up to be perhaps the most complicated and conflicted character in the book. In the end, her feelings about having to receive the accounts of those who almost witnessed the death of her sisters (this is not a spoiler, as form the very beginning we know this will happen, one way or another), those who shared their final moments of peace before they went on their way back from visiting their husbands in prison, the questions that floats in her head as she listens to people who offer condolences, and her search for a purpose for herself in the grand scheme of things, in this revolution that took too long to achieve anything, made up the most intriguing part of the book.
      Overall, the book is well-written in Spanish, and the four voices of the sisters are distinct and each one is presented with a narrative that fleshes out their differences in character and in motivation as well as giving the historical account of what might have happened throughout their lives. The author's disclaimer at the end about the half-based-on-fact and half-imaginary nature of the historical narrative was also enlightening (I am not sure if this included in all editions...)
    • 4/5
      I can’t rate this book with 5 stars because its fiction/non-fiction format drove me crazy. I’d rather have had a non-fiction book about the Mirabal sisters. Given that there is one surviving sister I’d hope that wasn’t an impossible feat. If it really was, however, then I’d rather this historical fiction story have had entirely fictional characters as the main characters. The pertinent real people could have taken on more minor roles in the story, and then I wouldn’t have minded their fictionalization. But this book really grabbed me. I ended up having actual nightmares because of and relating to this book. I thought the author did a tremendous job of giving an accurate feeling for what it might feel like to live under a dictatorship regime, and of being public, oppositional figures in such a situation. I enjoyed the writing style much more than I’d expected. I’d like to read other books by this author. I’ve heard her speak a couple times, and I’ve always come away favorably impressed.I loved the humor in the book. I learned a lot about the time and place. I enjoyed the different voices, although I had to occasionally look back to see who was narrating.I really enjoyed the characters Maria Teresa, and Minerva, but Patria less so. Maria Teresa struck me as somewhat shallow but very funny, Minerva as passionate and generous, and at times infuriating. Dede felt like a bit of a blur for much of the book; she’s the one who survived and who was available for providing some factual content. Perhaps it was her privacy that needed to be protected. There weren’t many, but I enjoyed the little drawings in the story; some were like maps, though of small places.My paperback copy had fascinating extras. The author talks a bit about herself; she was a refuge from Trujillo’s regime because of her father’s activism. I feel her passion coming through in her storytelling. There are discussion questions. And she explains about her choice to write this as a historical fiction novel. I’d love to know how all the children and grandchildren and other descendents are doing now. I did get from this material how hard it must be to be a survivor of those who were and are martyred and revered. And I’d like to read more about this period in this place. I’m embarrassed that I knew nothing of it, even though I was alive (albeit young) during these atrocities. I’m always astounded and perturbed to read about horrific events that took or are taking place during my lifetime. I always think about what I was doing at the time, and how different my life was, and how ignorant I was.I read this for my real world book club, and I finished it late, a first for me, but not because I wasn’t enjoying my reading experience.
    • 4/5
      This is a wonderful novel. Although it is a fictionalized account of the lives of the Mirabal sisters during Trujillo's rule, and although the ideology that motivated the sisters is not emphasized, the novel succeeds in bringing to life the passion the sisters felt for their cause, the strength that they had, and the struggles they must have gone through in order to rid their country of a brutal dictatorship.
    • 5/5
      A beautiful novel about the Mirabal sisters, who were brutally murdered by the waning Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. It is told in chapters narrated in the very different voices of the four sisters: Dedé who survives, Patria the oldest and most Christian, Minerva the activist revolutionary from a young age, and Maria Teresa the baby of the family whose chapters are her diary.It is also one of the great novels of a semi-totalitarian government and what it means for a group of young women growing up outside the capital. It makes for an interesting pairing with Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat, which covers much of the same period, has some of the same events, but does it all from a different perspective. The difference is that In the Time of the Butterflies is much more subtle. It has the same torture, de facto child rape by Trujillo and other horrors, but all of it is more understated and seen through the eyes of the girls in the story. That all makes the one episode where torture is more directly described that much more powerful.
    • 3/5
      On November 25, 1960 three sisters were found dead at the bottom of a cliff in the Dominican Republic. They were Minerva, Maria Teresa and Patria Maribel- leaders in the revolt against the cruel dictator, General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. They were more popularly known to the citizens of the Dominican Republic as “The Butterflies.” Their deaths were covered up by the government as an accident – but the truth is, they were murdered. One sister, Dede, survived to tell their story…but Julia Alvarez gives the dead women voice in her novel. Narrated in alternating chapters by each woman and beginning in the early 1940s, the book brings the reader up to the day of the murders.There are no surprises in this novel. Right from the beginning, we know how the story ends. Dede begins the narration in 1994 as she is interviewed by a journalist, and she takes the reader back to the beginning, nearly two decades before the murders. Dede is suffering from survivor’s guilt…she needs to tell her story…and really, the book is as much about this lone surviving sister as it is about the actual historical events.Trujillo’s crimes against his people are revealed through the voices of Minerva, Maria Teresa and Patria Maribel. Minerva was the most feisty and politically motivated of the three, and it was her voice which I thought Alvarez did a good job capturing. Even still, I found it hard to fully empathize with any of the characters who felt mostly flat to me.Prior to reading this book, I had no knowledge of what happened in the Dominican Republic in the 1940s through the 1960s…and I did learn quite a bit. But, because of the structure of the novel, there was very little tension developed. We know the end result. We know Trujillo is a monster. We wait for Alvarez to amp up the tension, to tell us something new or illuminating. But it does not happen. Despite Alvarez’s beautiful writing, and some lovely passages, In the Time of the Butterflies never felt compelling to me.Readers who wish to learn more about the history of the Domincan Republic may find this historical novel interesting. But for me, it was just a so-so read.
    • 5/5
      This historical novel tells the story of the Mirabal sisters. They lived in the Dominican Republic during the rule of the dictator Trujillo. At the beginning of the book we know that 3 of the sisters were killed in 1960 for opposing the dictatorship and that the fourth sister, Dedé survived. We hear the story from each of their points-of-view as they grow up and become the famous women whose assassinations resonated throughout the world. The book hit me at a very visceral level. By the end of the novel I felt close to the sisters and even though I knew from the start how it would end, losing them was still painful. Patria, the eldest sister, had a gentle heart and incredible courage. María Teresa, the youngest, was sweet and devoted. Minerva was incredibly headstrong and brave and it was her story that hit me the hardest. She blazed the path to the revolution for her sisters and I wonder if she ever felt responsible for their safety. I loved how the book unfolds each sister’s story separately. Each one is interwoven with the others, but they all came to join the revolution in very different ways; for political reasons, for love or because they want to be a protective mother to the revolutionaries. Each one has such a beautiful voice and you grow to feel for each of them separately. You share their frustrations with their sisters, and then when you read the next sister’s section you love that one’s story just as much. I was surprised that I identified with different sisters at different points in their lives. I had very little in common with some of them, but it was written in such an intimate way that you felt as though you were there, living their passion and frustration and joy right alongside them. Trujillo regime is not one we hear about very often, but it was horrific. He ruled for 30 years and managed to kill more than 50,000 people during that time. He was an advocate of genetic cleansing and killing black people who make up a huge part of the population in the in Dominican Republic. It reminded me a bit of Hitler’s reign in Germany. People had to say "Viva Trujillo," just like Europeans had to say "Heil Hitler" to show their loyalty and support. It reminded me that if no one stands up against tyrants the world becomes a dark place. It’s easy to say the sisters should have sat back and done nothing, but in the end their deaths brought more worldwide attention to what was happening and who knows how many lives were saved.BOTTOM LINE: It’s difficult for a book to balance a history lesson and an emotional story arch, especially when it’s being told from multiple points of view. I felt like this book did all of those things so well. It’s an important subject matter to be aware of and I loved it. “How people romanticized other people’s terror.” 
    • 4/5
      This story weaves the narrations of four sisters from the Dominican Republic in the 1950's and 1960's. This historical piece of fiction was inspired by the Mirabel sisters who opposed their tyrannical government and paid the ultimate price. This story touches upon issues of culture, politics, history, and gender. There is some Spanish infused into the text, which can be challenging. There are also good literary devices used.
    • 4/5
      An historical novel about the Mirabal sisters (Las Mariposas) who were murdered in 1960 in the Dominican Republic for their "subversive" activities against Rafael Trujillo, the dictator from 1930-1961. I am always leery of historical novels: I have enough interest in history to want to be sure of my facts, and frequently an historical novel will take liberties. From what I have read after finishing this book (I had to find the real history first), I believe the only reason this is a novel is because it takes a first person account of the years leading up the sisters' deaths. A fascinating, well-researched, touching, sad but ultimately heroic story of a family that stood up for what they believed in.
    • 5/5
      An unforgettable account of the courage of a Dominican family during the dictatorship of Trujillo.
    • 5/5
      Once four sisters - Patria, Dede, Minerva, and Mate - lived in the Dominican Republic. They grew up during the rule of Trujillo, a ruthless dictator. Each of them became involved with revolutionaries seeking to end his reign. At the beginning of their story, we meet the living sister, Dede, and soon learn that the other three have been murdered by Trujillo. The narration, however, is made up of all four sisters' points of view, to show their lives, their motivations, and especially their hearts.This is an incredible piece of historical fiction that absolutely floored me. As I got towards the end, I didn't want to finish the story - I had grown to care so much about the four women that I didn't want them to be dead. Alvarez, whose family fled to the United States to escape Trujillo's rule when she was ten, has crafted a truly powerful story that will stay with me for a long time.
    • 4/5
      This book details the lives of the Mirabal sisters, Minerva, Patria, Maria Teresa and Dede, who lived during the time that Trujillo ruled the Dominican Republic. They were opposed to the regime, but, according to the book, reluctantly in the cases of Maria Teresa and Patria. The book depicts what family life was like under an extreme dictatorship. The first three sisters were eventually killed by Trujillo's henchmen in 1960, just a few months before Turjillo himself was assassinated.I listened to the audio version, but did not catch the names of the narrators. The book was told from the first person perspective of each sister in turn, and each one had a different narrator. All the narrators did a fantastic job with their part.The book could get a bit melodramatic at times, but all in all, it was a very insightful work.
    • 5/5
      I was recently required to read this book to see if it would be a good fit in high school curriculum, and honestly I kept putting it off, and putting it off, because it looked boring and depressing. I guess I just learned that I can’t judge a book by its BACK cover and synopsis…The book was amazing! Once I actually opened the pages and began reading, I became a part of the book, interested in all the sisters and their adventures, mainly against the tyrannical regime of Trujillo in the Dominican. I stayed up late reading as I just couldn’t put it down. Although I knew the ending from reading that back cover of the book, it didn’t lessen my enthusiasm, even though I knew it would end badly. This book is a great read, and explores a time and culture most high school students, and even adults, never hear about, BUT they should! I highly recommend this book, especially if you are interested in history. While this book is fictional, it is based on the true story of the Mirabal sisters who fought for their rights and beliefs against a tyrannical dictatorship, and paid the highest price for what they believed was right.