Robert M. (shotokanchef) reviewed on 3/16/2012 + 813 more book reviews

It is a fictionalized memoir about the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic and the several sisters (the Butterflies) who defied him. For another side you should read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Alvarezs work is referenced at least twice in his book. Butterflies is by far the best book (read it first), but there are some interesting parallels. If you read Oscar Wao, it is replete with street-level Spanish, and there are numerous colloquialisms in his native tongue. Keep a Spanish-English dictionary handy, or go to the Internet at www.annotated-oscar-wao.com. Also, as Cole Porter tells us to brush up your Shakespeare, you should brush up your Sci-Fi genre all the way back to Edgar Rice Burroughs as the protagonist is a nerdy, trekki, kind of a game-playing, bookish misfit.

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