Julia Alvarez
...ook, Alvarez writes about four sisters from the Dominican Republic who are forced to flee to New York City. Once they are in America these four sisters try to forget their heritage. I don’t know how the book turns out yet, but I can’t wait to read it and find out. The next book that I started to read was In the Time of the Butterflies. This book is about the Mirabal sisters – 4 sisters from the Dominican Republic, 3 of which were murdered due to being members of an underground plot. This book is fictional based on historical facts about the Mirabal sisters. Alvarez states in her book that these are the Mirabals of her creation. The book starts off very interesting and is very captivating. Another book that I started to read was ¡Yo!. This is a fictional book about a woman named Yolanda Garcia – a writer who uses her family as characters and plots for her writings. USA today calls this book “Charming and funny…mesmerizing…wonderful.” The beginning of this book really is all that. This book also contains 4 sisters. Next I moved on to one of Alvarez’s poetry books. It is titled The Other Side/El Otro Lado. Her poetry is not much different from her novels. It is very easy to read and understand. Her poems are very easy to relate to. The last thing that I read parts of were a book of essays entitled Something to Declare. This is Alvarez’s non-fiction book. It is a collection of her essays talking about her experiences. It also contains some great storytelling. I noticed that Alvarez uses a lot of her own personal experiences in her writing. She also likes to use the theme of four sisters. She does not target her writing to a specific ethnic population; rather, she recognizes the similarities among all people and focuses her work in those commonalties. "I am a Dominican, hyphen, American," she comments. "As a fiction writer, I find ...