Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Bookworm9

Its so unfair to have to live in a country where you have to do stuff you feel bad about to save your life. . . . But what if your leader is evil and rapes young girls and kills loads of innocent people and makes your country a place where not even butterflies are safe? (75). This is the question that haunts Anita de la Torre, whose peaceful world is quickly changing in the fall of 1960, when the last of her extended family flees the Dominican Republic for safety in the United States. Anitaa father is determined that his own family stay, but Anita soon learns that he and her fugitive uncle are part of a revolutionary movement against the Dominican dictator, General Trujillo. As things at home become more and more tense, Anita becomes quieter and quieter, and fears she is losing her capacity to speak. However, after the revolution fails and Anita and her mother must seek refuge in a neighbors closet, Anita regains her voice by writing in her diary, and gathers strength for the hard times ahead.