The Knife and the Butterfly

February 1, 2012

Gr 9 Up-Martin "Azael" Aravelo wakes up one day and finds himself locked in a jail cell. The 15-year-old struggles to recount the still-hazy last few days: "I've got no memory of being brought in here... it's like my brain's a jacked-up DVD player that skips back again and again." There was a fight between Azael's MS13 boys and some punks from rival Houston gang Crazy Crew, but Azael can remember only a few details-his brother Eddie's blue shirt, a flash of red clothing, someone's hands covered in blood. So why is he behind bars? And what is the connection between the girl he is being made to observe-some white girl he has never seen before-and him? Short chapters alternate between "Now" and "Then," doling out clues in small bursts and generating a fast pace. Azael is a dynamic and sympathetic main character with an authentic voice. On the other hand, Lexi-the object of Azael's study-is not wholly believable. The author's choice to have Azael (and readers) digest large chunks of plot through her journal hinders the pacing at times, while the trite way in which Lexi often writes fails to match up with her character's streetwise persona. Still, Perez sets up the mystery well enough in the story's first act to overcome any inconsistency in character, making this hard-hitting novel an assured success in libraries serving high school students.-Sam Bloom, Groesbeck Branch Library, Cincinnati, OH

Copyright 2012 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2012
The lives of two teens become inexplicably intertwined in this gritty novel with a paranormal twist. Fifteen-year-old Salvadoran Martín "Azael" Arevalo awakens in a cell remembering bits and pieces of a fight in a Houston park between his gang, Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13, and Crazy Crew. Yet he cannot recall how the fight ended or why he is behind bars again. Azael narrates his life in chapters set alternatively in the present and at various points in his past, giving readers glimpses of a childhood of love and loss. In the present, Azael finds himself assigned to the secret observation of a white 17-year-old girl named Alexis "Lexi" Allen, although he fails to see any connection the two might have had on the outside. While Azael hates Lexi at the beginning, he finds himself beginning to empathize with the struggles she has faced over her life. Pérez creates two nuanced characters in Azael and Lexi, both of whom could have easily become caricatures. The use of profanity and descriptions of violence add realism to the novel, although the backmatter could have benefitted from a Spanish glossary. The author demonstrates why gangs appeal to many teens with family problems without glorifying the violence that often accompanies their activities. An unflinching portrait with an ending that begs for another reading. (author's note) (Fiction. 14 & up)

(COPYRIGHT (2012) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 1, 2012
Grades 10-1 The last thing gangbanger Azael remembers is he and his Salvadorian MS-13 brothers brutally kicking the asses of a rival Houston gang called the Crazy Crew. Then he wakes up in a strange jail where his charges are not explained and the only punishmentif you want to call it thatis observing through a one-way window a girl he doesn't know named Lexi, who is preparing for some kind of trial of her own. Any reader who has been around the block is going to see this novel's final twist coming right from the start. But that's a minor issue, as P'rez's concerns are centered around the gritty day-to-day struggles of both hardened, cynical, uncooperative teens to break through their respective emotional walls. Half the book is spent in flashback to Azael's former life, and it's an unvarnished, unsentimental portrait of a vulgar, sex-obsessed, drug-using, paint-tagging gang member whose inkling to go straight revolves around the girlfriend to whom he can't quite commit. An uncompromising look at two characters most readers would otherwise look away from.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)