21 Feb 2012 No Comments
Blog Tour: The Knife and the Butterfly by Ashley Hope Perez
The Knife and the Butterfly by Ashley Hope Perez
Format: eBook
Publisher: Carolrhoda Books (February 1, 2012)
After a marijuana-addled brawl with a rival gang, 16-year-old Azael wakes up to find himself surrounded by a familiar set of concrete walls and a locked door. Juvie again, he thinks. But he can’t really remember what happened or how he got picked up. He knows his MS13 boys faced off with some punks from Crazy Crew. There were bats, bricks, chains. A knife. But he can’t remember anything between that moment and when he woke behind bars.
Azael knows prison, and something isn’t right about this lockup. No phone call. No lawyer. No news about his brother or his homies. The only thing they make him do is watch some white girl in some cell. Watch her and try to remember.
Lexi Allen would love to forget the brawl, would love for it to disappear back into the Xanax fog it came from. And her mother and her lawyer hope she chooses not to remember too much about the brawl—at least when it’s time to testify.
Lexi knows there’s more at stake in her trial than her life alone, though. She’s connected to him, and he needs the truth. The knife cut, but somehow it also connected.
The Knife and the Butterfly takes readers on a journey with a teenage boy named Azael, who is a member of the MS-13 gang. He awakens in what he believes to be a detention center, with no clue as to how he arrived there. This so-called detention center is unlike anything he has experienced, with no guards or schedules, no meetings with his lawyer, and no phone call. As the days begin to slip by, he is able to leave his cell only to watch a girl named Lexi. Someone thinks he knows more than he’s letting on but Azael is sure he doesn’t. Will Azael remember how they are connected before Lexi’s trial? Or will it be too late?
Perez captures readers’ attention immediately by thrusting you into a world of violence, crime and revenge. The real-world feel of the characters and detailed descriptions are enough to propel you further into this exciting novel. Azael initially came off as a bad guy to me, but after he awakens in his cell with no memory, I quickly changed my tune. He softened up a little, making him more likeable as the story continued.
The language and sexual content was a little more than I cared for but worked very well in this realistic fiction novel. Perez created an emotional and shocking story that you simply can’t get out of your mind. The characters are memorable and realistic, giving a little piece of them with the turn of each page. This is a thrilling read that could easily be enjoyed by teens and adults alike.
About Ashley
When I’m not reading, writing, or teaching, I am hanging out with our little boy, Liam Miguel. He keeps me very, very busy. In the scraps of time that remain, I also like to run (I did the Houston Marathon in 2007 and the Chicago Marathon in 2009), bake (but let’s don’t revive the “Cookie Girl” nickname, please), watch movies, work in my garden, and destroy my mom in long-distance games of Scrabble. My husband is a hard-core Metallica fan who’s also addicted to Vicente Fernández’s soulful ballads, which means I also get plenty of exposure to an eclectic mix of music. Our household also includes a very sweet-natured cat, Sugar Mama, who would like the world to know that she was here before Liam.
