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Searching... Monmouth Public Library | Fic Monroe, M. 2011 | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Four very different women embark on a transformational journey that follows the migrating monarchs across the United States to Mexico. The story begins when Luz Avila's grandmother, the local butterfly lady, purchases an old, orange VW bug for a road trip home to Mexico. When she unexpectedly dies, Luz is inspired to take her grandmother's ashes home. In the manner of the Aztec myth of the goddess who brings light to the world, Luz attracts a collection of lost women, each seeking change in their lives. The Mexican people believe the monarchs are the spirits of the recently departed and Luz taps into ancient rituals and myths as she follows the spectacular, glittering river of orange monarchs in the sky to home.
Author Notes
Mary Alice Monroe began her writing career studying journalism and writing nonfiction and for newspapers for hire. She began studying Asian culture after a trip to Japan with her husband and was later awarded a fellowship, became bilingual in Japanese and earned her master's degree. She has helped establish a government-funded English as a Second Language program for Southeast Asian refugees. Monroe has also co-authored an English-language survival text.
Monroe wrote her first novel while confined to bed rest for her final months of pregnancy. Her book The Long Road Home made the New York Times bestseller list for 2010. She is now known primarily for her fiction work which is heavily influenced by her move to South Carolina's Lowcountry. Monroe enjoys nature and is involved with several environmental groups, including the board of the South Carolina Aquarium.
Monroe lives with her family on a barrier island off South Carolina.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Luz Avila's mother abandoned her when she was a very young child to be raised by her grandmother, who she calls Abuela. When Luz is a grown woman, Abuela insists on making a trip to her home village, Angangueo, in Mexico, where the monarch butterflies migrate each year, but Luz is reluctant to interrupt her life. Abuela dies before they can make the trip, and Luz, tormented by regrets, decides to make the journey with Abuela's ashes, driving from Milwaukee to Mexico, following the path of the butterflies. Along the way, Luz meets extraordinary women who transform her: a tough but gentle young girl scarred by life; a free-spirited wanderer; a prim and proper woman who has lost opportunities. Arriving in San Antonio, Tex., to find her aunt, Luz meets her mother, who she had always believed dead. Now Luz must face her mother's reappearance in her life and get her grandmother's ashes to Mexico for the Day of the Dead. Monroe (Time Is a River) has succeeded, in her third novel, in taking a straightforward coming-of-age story and adding a Mexican twist to it, but the characters are stock and the outcome predictable, though readers who take comfort in knowing what comes next will not be disappointed. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A young woman follows the path of the monarch butterflies in their autumnal migration to Mexico.Luz Avila, a factory worker in Milwaukee, lives with her Abuela (grandmother) Esperanza. Abuela raised her when her mother Mariposa, named after the monarch butterflies Abuela loves, disappeared. Both Abuela and Luz believe Mariposa died long ago. But when Abuela receives an unsettling phone call from her other daughter in Texas, she plans a trip to Mexico with Luz, to visit the mountain sanctuary where monarch butterflies are already beginning to trickle in from their northern feeding and mating grounds. It is an Avila family tradition for mothers and daughters to visit a precipice overlooking the canyon groves where the monarchs gather en masse, and to recall the Aztec goddess who sacrificed herself so that creation could begin. After Abuela's sudden death from a heart attack, Luz vows to make the trip on her own. Ignoring warnings from her mechanic boyfriend Sully, Luz drives away in her grandmother's rusted Volkswagen with a cardboard box containing Abuela's ashes in the backseat. After her car dies in Chicago, Luz works at a taqueria to pay for repairs, then continues her journey, this time with a very pregnant new friend, Ofelia, who's fleeing her abusive lover, and Ofelia's chihuahua Serena. There's a stop in Kansas where Ofelia is taken in by her former employers at a nursery, and Luz meets a field entomologist, Billy, who teaches her how to tag monarchs. Luz continues on her journey, now accompanied by Margaret, a buttoned-down botanist who wants to escape her stultifying life. The POV shifts abruptly to Mariposa, alive after all and slowly recovering from multiple addictions and a vaguely unsavory past with the help of a Native American equestrian healer. She is agonizing over why a message left for her mother in Milwaukee has gone unanswered. Slowed by a plethora of preachy maxims, the story creeps to a predictable close.The butterflies are the most colorful characters here.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Monroe (Sweetgrass, 2005; Last Light Over Carolina, 2009) continues to offer a lyrically entertaining brand of literature. When her beloved abuela dies, Luz Avila is determined to return her grandmother's ashes to her native village in the beautifully lush mountains of Mexico in time for the annual migration of the monarch butterflies. Although reaching Angangueo via a convoluted car trip from Milwaukee is the goal, Luz eventually realizes that the journey is just as, if not more, important. Along the way, she joins forces with three different women, each on her own tentative voyage of self-discovery. Although a long-kept family secret threatens to shatter her new-found confidence, Luz rises to the occasion, reconciling past and present as she scatters her abuela's ashes in the Sacred Circle high in the Sierra Madres, among thousands of butterflies dancing in the wind. Monroe invigorates her characters with a spiritual energy that effectively drives the inspiring narrative.--Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Esperanza Avila worries about her 21-year-old granddaughter. Luz doesn't know her family traditions, doesn't speak her native Spanish, and is trapped in a foundry job in Milwaukee. After Luz's mother disappeared, the abuela raised the girl on Aztec myths along with stories of the monarch butterflies in the mountains of Mexico. One phone call changes everything. Esperanza buys a VW and tells Luz they must drive to her home village by November 1, the Day of the Dead, to be there when the migrating monarchs return. But her death leaves Luz to make the pilgrimage alone. Following the path of the butterflies, she finds herself on a journey of discovery, seeking her inner courage and the secrets of a vanished mother. VERDICT Monroe, known for her environmental fiction (The Beach House; Sweetgrass), skillfully incorporates lore about the monarch butterflies into a rich novel about generations and tradition. This book, filled with unusual female characters, is highly recommended for book clubs and readers of women's fiction. [Author tour; feature title at ALA.]-Lesa Holstine, Glendale P.L., AZ (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.