Even though it is a school book, I find it interesting with a great storyline and a lot of hints and symbols in it. The only other book that I am reading besides that book is the school book, Before We Were Free. These days, I haven’t been reading a lot except one book and it is The Shining but I already wrote about it. For me, it just didn't pass the sniff test. I think you'll like this book if you like Newbery honor books, like, say, Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry. Most of the other characters were too stereotypical: kind-hearted father, protective mother, obstinate yet comforting older sister, wise grandma, etc. I wanted to feel bad for her, but she was such a Mary-Sue, I just ended up wanting to yell at her to grow up already. Writing depressingly in a diary in captivity is totally taken.Īnita herself. Most of the book-the excessive dialogue and conversations that bored me to tears. Trujillo's interest in her sister (unlikely, but actually quite grotesquely suspenseful). Whenever there was actually some suspense.not very often.

Especially since Anita spent most of the book dealing with such average teenage problems, envying her sister, talking about puberty, and obsessing over her various crushes. Alvarez tried to make this book a heart-racing drama, but it just didn't cut it.

It wasn't that it was necessarily bad, it was just boring. Her work has garnered wide recognition, including a Latina Leader Award in Literature from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, the Woman of the Year by Latina magazine, and inclusion in the New York Public Library’s program “The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, from John Donne to Julia Alvarez.” In the Time of the Butterflies, with over one million copies in print, was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for its national Big Read program, and in 2013 President Obama awarded Alvarez the National Medal of Arts in recognition of her extraordinary storytelling. She has taught and mentored writers in schools and communities across America and, until her retirement in 2016, was a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College. She is the author of six novels, three books of nonfiction, three collections of poetry, and eleven books for children and young adults.

Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States in 1960 at the age of ten.

Before we were free alvarez