Hello again! It's almost four weeks into the semester as I am writing this and man, sometimes I regret going to college (I'm only half serious, please don't kick me out of the Honors College). Between classes and homework and my job, sometimes it feels like I have one brain cell and that brain cell only worries about productivity. It takes serious effort for me to do non-school related reading, but doing this, in my opinion, is more important than ever in this busy season of life. After all, burn out is real, folks. It's good to have a book with which you can sit down, turn off your phone and your laptop, and just let the outside world fall momentarily away as you read.
With that said, today I'm reviewing Julia Alvarez's In The Time of the Butterflies. I read this back in December, and I can honestly say that this was one of the best books I read last year. The book is based on the true story of the four Mirabal sisters, who join an underground organization fighting against the Dominican Republic's dictator Rafael Trujillo (who you may know if you've ever read Rita Dove's "Parsley"). Three of the sisters ultimately die in a "car accident" that was planned by the DR's government, while the fourth, Dedé, survives to tell the story.
The only thing I seriously dislike about this book is the cover...it looks like the cover for a romance novel from the early 2000s.
I know that sounds like a major spoiler, but you learn about what happens to them just by reading the book's blurb. The real beauty of this book is witnessing the Mirabal sisters grow from tweens learning about their country's totalitarianism for the first time to women who risk their lives in order to help fight tyranny. The story is much more about their lives than their deaths.
It's not like the Mirabals were saints or anything, though. They have valid fears of being caught, they experience bouts of depression and loneliness, they worry about the safety of their husbands and children, and they grieve their loss of their wealth and their loved ones' lives even as they press forward with the underground movement. In other words, they always are very human in the book, which makes the story that more powerful.
Indeed, their flaws and worries prompt us to ask ourselves what we are doing in the face of injustice.
How often do we witness wrongdoings but turn away, feeling like we can't
do anything? The Mirabals, too, were in many ways unlikely heroines in
the DR's story. They were married mothers with children and, with the exception of Minerva, they had no military or political training. Nevertheless, they still found the courage to contribute to the cause they held dead. Like them, we can choose, in small and big ways, not to stand by.
On the literary side of things, Alvarez's writing is action-packed and reflective. The beginning of the book is admittedly slow, but once the Mirabals become more actively involved in the political situation, the story takes wings and keeps you turning pages, even though you already know the ending. The characters, too, are themselves intriguing, from the high-minded Minerva to the guilt-ridden Dedé to the spirited and lively Mate. All of the women command your attention in different ways, and by the time the book ends, their deaths are all the more tragic because you've gotten to know them well.
To summarize, In the Time of the Butterflies will slowly win your heart. It is both a beautiful story and a beautiful example of heroism, with all the moves of a simply absorbing book. I give it 5/5 stars.
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