Before We Were Free

From all the awards she has won, it is obvious Julia Alvarez is an acclaimed writer and thus is very much worth reading. I read her non-fiction book about quinceaneras, the Hispanic fifteenth birthday celebration for girls, and I was fascinated by Alvarez’s story telling. Now, I have had the pleasure to read her book for young adults, Before We Were Free. It is a wonder. Alvarez sets her story in the 1960s regime of dictator Trujillo in her native Dominican Republic. Her protagonist is twelve-year-old Anita who is just a normal school girl whose life starts changing much too quickly for one so young. Being a young adult novel writer myself, I would never attempt to tackle the extremely adult subjects Alvarez works with here. Anita comes of age while going through a life that includes a brutal dictatorship, loss of friends, murder, and deaths of those she knows intimately. It is a story that is very hard to structure for young readers to understand and enjoy. But children have these extreme experiences every day throughout the world, and Alvarez herself lived through similar experiences in the Dominican Republic, so it is good for children to read about these matters and good for them to have Julia Alvarez’s beautiful and sensitive writing to get them through so that they come out with hope for a better world. Before We Were Free deserves its awards and the accolades it has no doubt received. I feel privileged to have discovered the book.

I adore her writing and recommend her books. Fell in love with her writing when I read “In the Time of the Butterflies”.

Would you risk your family's safety for freedom? Anita's father was a part of the Underground and was trying to come up with a way to assassin the dictator of the Dominican Republic, Trujillo. The theme of this story is to fight for your freedom, regardless the difficulties that come with that. Anita's family is all moving to the United States and she doesn't understand why. The SIM (secret police) came to the family compound and searched for evidence of the family's involvement with the Underground. The novel then branches out and stems in many different directions. Throughout the book you constantly wonder, will the family ever be free? Julia Alvarez puts this story together in chronological order and uses many different writing techniques. This book achieves its goal of showing how fighting for your freedom may come with tragedy and hardships, but in the end, being free is worth the fight. In the novel Mami states, "At first, your father didn't want to endanger his family. But sometimes life without freedom is no life at all." Freedom, for many people, is one of the most important things in life. The difficulties of Anita's family, with Trujillo and having her entire family moving to the United States really makes readers able to connect to the Dominicans of this time. This was a heartfelt and inspiring novel that I would recommend to all.

Great author - and a great book gifted to one of my friend's middle school students. I hear she enjoyed :)

I have adhd and in my experience it is hard to focus however this book was so good that I pulled an all nighter to read (which is something I’ve never done)

The book was a perfect read for my 10 year olds. It gave them an age appropriate glimpse of the Trujillo era and opened up the conversation of the Butterflies.My daughters absolutely loved the book and learning about my country.

I liked the story and characters. Good for ages 9-14

Found it a bit slow at times when characters were wating to know the fate of their family members.It would probably be more suited to high school age readers as it told from the perspective of a young girl and lets us know about the history of the Dominican Republic during the reign of their dictator.

This book is a rollercoaster of emotions , great for all ages, a story I will never forget

I really loved this book it is the perfect combination of love and emotions and facts and nonfiction. Love it

This story is a little bit different, it describes a time of terror during the dictatorship of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. As we read about the secret police and the number of "disappeared" citizens, one can't help but marvel at the strength and bravery of those who opposed the dictatorship. The story of Anita and her family being hidden from the secret police; and, "will" they be found during the searches makes for a very gripping story.The descriptions of the characters and their surroundings makes the book even more interesting. Who can possibly forget Chucha and her many sayings.For those readers who are unfamiliar with Ms. Alvarez and her writing, in the Time of the Butterflies and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents are two wonderful accompaniments to this book.