In the Time of the Butterflies in Read a book from each country

Nov 13, 2021 Jo Reason rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-the-world

Country 48 Dominican Republic
Quote “‘It’s about time we women had a voice in running our country.’”
I learned of some of the horrors from the Trujillo regime in the country.

I remember the last book that I read for the world challenge that I did not finish Wild Swans by Jung Chang my choice from China, and that was not as bad as this one. This gave me moments when I wanted to give up reading…. So I stopped reading this book. I got about 25 % in.

I started reading the Spanish version (432 pages) b Country 48 Dominican Republic
Quote “‘It’s about time we women had a voice in running our country.’”
I learned of some of the horrors from the Trujillo regime in the country.

I remember the last book that I read for the world challenge that I did not finish Wild Swans by Jung Chang my choice from China, and that was not as bad as this one. This gave me moments when I wanted to give up reading…. So I stopped reading this book. I got about 25 % in.

I started reading the Spanish version (432 pages) because as the country has Spanish as its main language, I thought it would be the best choice for language but I decided it was not a good fit for me and swapped to the English version, (337 pages) and as you can see from the different page counts there is almost a 100 pages difference. Sure Spanish uses more words than English but that is a lot of difference. If someone has read both versions, can you let me know if the Spanish version has something added that the English version doesn't?

I totally understand the reason of telling the story, I understand it is important for others to read and learn about dictatorships, and hopefully there will not be any more, after all I have read some… here is one example Human Acts by Han Kang (South Korea) but this was not so much about the dictatorship as I thought but about the life of the Mirabal sisters, which in itself is the idea of the book as I found out, but to write about their schooling in a convent school was actually very slow and not necessary for the novel. This is one of the many parts that could have been shortened and maybe it would have made the novel more interesting.

I got confused at times, the timeline was confusing, it jumped around too much and also each chapter had a different sister as a main character and a different style of writing, which totally put me off. I was unable to connect to any of the main characters.

The idea of the book is great, to write about the past of the country, one which has a dictatorship, but it is fictionalized, so I don't actually know how much is true and how much is fiction. Remember I am criticizing the novel, not the Mirabal sisters, who had more courage than most people in a time of dictatorship. 25th of November, the anniversary of their deaths, especially in many Latin American countries is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

I wanted to learn a little more about the country and the dictatorship but was disappointed.
Although I didn't enjoy the book, I appreciated the story, I probably won't look at a butterfly the same again.

Can I give this novel 0 stars, probably not, because after all the amount of investigation was huge and that alone gives the book 1 star.
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