The Butterfly's Daughter

My mother passed away last July. She had a profound love for Monarch Butterflies. At her funeral we let Monarch Butterflies fly out of boxes. They flew around the casket and to mother's gravesite. My sister gifted me with this book. I found it so heartwarming and brought back so many great memories of my mother's love for Monarchs

Learned about the monarch butterfly and the human spirit. We had a great discussion in my book club about dealing with recovering addicts. The possibilities for discussion are endless as this book has characters that represent different human plights. Fast read and an enjoyable read.

A sweet story that captures the many bonds and roles of women. Not a literary show-piece, but an enjoyable read that prompts a dynamic discussion if you are in a reader's group. Likable characters, but very predictable.

Really interesting connection between generations of Aztec/Mexican American return to the country and scientific info on monarch is wonderful. At times story plods along with what I found to be either predictable or unnecessary happenings between characters...especially in last 100 pages.

It is a well written, interesting, true to life girl road trip story. An added PLUS: the information about the lives and migration of butterflies. Pick up a copy ASAP and enjoy! Then pass it on to a friend...

The themes and information within this book could have been worked with beautifully by a more skilled writer. I found her style lacking in authenticity of speech and depth of character development consistent with real people. Metaphores became trite in her hands.

Luz lives with her grandmother after her mother, Mariposa, dies in Wisconsin. Her grandmother of Mexican descent tries to teach Luz the meaning of life through the folklore of Mexico, but when her grandmother dies suddenly, Luz loses her center and embarks on a trip of a lifetime to take her grandmother's ashes back to Mexico and the sanctuary where the Monarch butterfly winters. The trip is a self discovery for Luz and the three women she meets along the way. Her grandmother has purchased an old orange VW to take a trip to visit relatives, but they always put off because of no money. Now Luz is forced to follow through and the trip ends up being a changing point in her life.

She leaves her boyfriend, Sully, behind and the car breaks down. While it is being fixed, she temps at a restaurant, where she meets Ofelia who is pregnant. When Ofelia is beaten by her boyfriend, Luz convinces her to leave and they go on to visit Ofelia's mother where Ofelia and her dog can stay until the baby is born. When they reach the nursery where Ofelia's mother worked and discover she is gone, Ofelia goes into labor and stays with the nursery owner and Luz picks up a new traveler, Margaret, the uptight nursery manager who always had plans to visit the butterfly sanctuary. Their next stop leads them to a camp ground where they meet Stacie, a free spirit who adds to the mix and directs them to Austin and their next stop.Stacie brings her own kind of magic to Luz's self discovery trip. She teaches both Margaret and Luz that they should enjoy life and take it as it comes.

The final step in Luz's journey is when she meets her mother's family and there a startling discovery is made that makes Luz rethink her whole history. The news Luz receives is a life changing event that you need to read about--sorry no spoiler here! Luz does make the trek to the butterfly sanctuary and grows immensely. I just loved the descriptions and how the author related self discovery to the different stages of a butterfly's life cycle. Each chapter starts with a description of the life cycle and you can just imagine how Luz felt with each step of her journey with some remarkable women that she meets along the way, each of them goddesses like the folklore tales she grew up with.

I live on the western coastal trail of the Monarch's migration and they are just starting their trek home. The day I received this book in the mail, I saw my first Monarch of the season. I had such a amazing feeling of hope that only progressed as I read the book. I have some milkweed plants and I will plant more to see if I can get the Monarchs to stay in my yard, but because the route is also a bird migration route, the eggs don't last long here as the birds gobble them up. This is truly an inspiring tale of new beginnings and wonderful way to look at your own surroundings in that you can be reborn like a butterfly.

Mary Alice Monroe

Although I have finished The Butterfly's Daughter by MARY ALICE MONROE, I will never forget this novel. When I began the novel, I did not know my heart would become intertwined not only with the characters but also with the monarch butterflies' travels. Their journey is long and hazardous. Thankfully, each chapter starts with a heading about the butterflies. Mary Alice Monroe has chosen the most scintillating facts about the butterflies for people like me who are scientifically challenged. Those chapter headings always seemed to relate to the lives of the character: Abuela, Luz, Margaret, Stacie, Mariposa, Sully, Ofelia and even Serena, the chihuahua are on an "epic journey" of metamorphisis like the monarch butterflies. The monarchs have their powerful wings for travel and Luz has her Abuela's El Toro. El Toro is an orange VW. It is picked by Abuela, Luz's grandma. Abuela wants to go back home to the mountains of Mexico with Luz. She wants to take the time to share with Luz the many thoughts in her heart. The problem is can this beaten up orange thing on wheels take them that far.

Luz takes off in El Toro never realizing it would become a wild adventure. Really, no day is the same. No day is the same for the monarch butterflies either. As they travel, a monarch butterfly can become too cold, too hot, tattered and torn. Life is tough not just for humans but also, for these creatures who go through so many stages before becoming a beautiful butterfly. In Tia Maria's house there are aquariums where the caterpillar goes from one stage to the next stage.

I am glad Mary Alice Monroe chose to write about the monarch butterflies. Their life is like my life. I have constantly gone through changes just by living through infancy, the toddler stage, adolescence, young adulthood, middle age and onward. At each stage I have needed to come to grips with a new me. However, now I can think of the monarch. When I am tired from struggling to understand each stage, I can know that somewhere along the way there is a beautiful spiritual me being born. So I really related to Luz as she cried, forgave, laughed, loved and remembered.

"Luz sat in a window seat of the crowded plane and gazed out as she traveled north. It had been a tumultuous season of new relationships and goodbyes."

This is a bittersweet novel. I did not like how all the situations were handled in Luz's life. I did not like all the people. I almost despised Mariposa for something she did up in the mountains of Mexico with the ofrenda made by Luz and her friends. I was afraid that Mary Alice Monroe would just sweep it under the rug by making it just a little misunderstanding between Mariposa and Luz. To my satisfaction the author made the scenes very real. Luz acted just the way I would have acted if Mariposa had done what she did to me. Mariposa has been through many hells in her life. So, she's rough around the edges. Often, her actions seem very selfish. While learning about her and watching how she acted and had acted in life, I realized it is really hard to forgive people. However, life is a circle that must become complete before I can feel complete. Plus, I can never throw away family. Our ancestors, our roots, are what makes me feel more than just a shadow on this earth. My family gives me purpose. So, it is important to work through the rough spots.

I can only end by writing that THE BUTTERFLY'S DAUGHTER is ripe with meaning and very poignant. I do have one new goal for my life's list. I would like to travel to the mountains of Mexico to see the sky "explode in orange glitter" with monarch butterflies.

Luz Avila is devastated when her much beloved Grandmother, or Abuela, dies suddenly. She especially feels bad since they had recently argued about taking a road trip to Mexico to visit family and watch the migration of the Monarch butterflies. Luz declined, saying she couldn't get the time off work and the rusty old car her grandmother bought would never make it. Now Luz feels the need to bring Abuela's ashes back to Mexico no matter how difficult the journey may be. What she doesn't recognize right away is that this will be a journey of self discovery, including meeting new friends along the way and learning deeply hidden family secrets that will test her emotionally.

This was a wonderful book about family and finding yourself, tied in with facts about Monarch butterflies such as their development from caterpillars and the epic migration to Mexico that occurs each fall. Luz is a realistic character that sometimes acts without thinking and it's interesting to see how she becomes more open and tolerant of other opinions during the trip. I loved the descriptions of Mexico and a Mexican family in this novel, the foods and the house decorations were crystal clear in my mind. A heartwarming novel that anyone would enjoy.

Definitely chick lit, this is a nice little story of Hispanic people who are so immersed in the life of the Monarch Butterfly that it is actually a part of their culture.

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty." --Maya Angelou

They plant their gardens to attract the butterfly, gather their eggs and in aquariums, they watch the metamorphosis process. Then when the monarchs are ready they release them. It is a beautiful process and the grandmother teaches all of the neighborhood children these things.

"In all the world, no butterflies migrate like the monarchs of North America. Their migration is more the type we expect from birds or whales. However, unlike birds and whales that make the round-trip, it is the monarch's great-great-grandchildren that return south the following fall."

Luz, a 21 year old who has been raised by her maternal grandmother is unknowingly ready for change. She and her 'Abuela' live in a Northern state and her grandma plans a trip for the two of them to go to Mexico to join the rest of the family for the celebration of The Day of The Dead. She purchases a little rusty orange V.W. bug, brings out what money she has saved for the trip and prepares herself and her young granddaughter to make the journey. But sadness strikes the household the day before the journey is to begin. Abuela passes away during the night.
Luz is devastated but after the cremation decides to make the journey anyway to honor her Abuela and begins the trip. The little bug breaks down a couple of hours away from home and takes several days to wait for the part and be fixed. While she waits, Luz finds a temp job waiting tables at a Mexican restaurant where a very pregnant girl, Ophelia, works. Ophelia's boyfriend likes to get drunk and beat his girlfriend and when the car is ready she begs to be taken along. So the two girls continue on their trip.

"Texas is the funnel through which most migrating monarchs must pass on their way to their overwintering grounds in Mexico. Texas is also the first stop on their northward journey, when they seek out both nectar and host plants for eggs for the next generation. Thus, Texas is of critical importance in the migration of the monarch butterfly."

At a nursery where Ophelia, as a girl, worked alongside her aunt, they stop so that she can go to be with her aunt. Finding out that her aunt has remarried and moved away, the owner of the nursery who remembers Ophelia offers to let her stay and to see to her through the pregnancy and birth. Margaret, who works in the nursery office and at first appears to be a boring prude, ends up coming with Luz. Luz soon realizes that the girl has a background in natural history and wants to study the migration of the Monarch Butterfly. So off they go.
The story gets better and more interesting as the journey continues. Luz gets to meet her huge maternal family and find out about her mother. She gets to travel and hike up to where millions of the Monarchs migrate to each and every year and have for eons.

"Female monarchs are capable of producing and laying more than five hundred eggs in a lifetime. The egg's expected survival rate is as low as 1 percent, which would mean only five of the five hundred eggs survive to become a butterfly."

I liked this story. Not a great deal of depth to it but a very nice story nonetheless. And the material on the monarch butterfly is fascinating. I recommend it for a nice light read, for those interested in the monarch butterfly and it's migration and gave it 4 stars.

The Butterfly's Daughter is a beautifully written novel about family, loss and tradition. Part coming of age story, part tribute to family, and part a celebration of the beauty of nature, this book follows one young woman's search for closure and for a place to belong.

Luz is an only child who has never met her father, does not remember her mother, and has been raised by her grandmother. After Abuela's death, Luz feels alone in the world and gives in to the need to travel to Mexico to find her roots. She takes her grandmother's ashes on a road trip that follows the amazing migration of the monarch butterflies. These magnificent creatures represent Luz's connection to her grandmother and her own metamorphosis into a woman. Ancient myths and modern knowledge about the mariposas (monarch butterflies) are beautifully woven into the narrative.

On the way to Mexico, Luz learns to embrace independence. She makes new friends, meets her extended family, and discovers the truth about her mother. Her transformation from a lonely, grieving girl to a self-confident adult is reminiscent of the changes a butterfly must undergo before her beauty is revealed to the world. By helping others on her journey, Luz finds the strength to deal with her grief and ultimately to forgive her mother.

In this original, beautifully told story of Luz and her journey to deliver her Grandmothers ashes, from Wisconsin via Texas onto Mexico, we also learn a lot about the creation and migration of butterflies, and the miracle that it is. In this character-driven novel we see the analogy in Luz's growth and transformation from a child to a woman. Even the obstacles she encounters bring out her strengths, and we are also witness to the transformation in the people she meets along the way, who are a vital part of this story and who end up being a part of her adventurous experience and her life.

I loved the journey in the old VW bug, affectionately named "El Toro" for it's gutsy durability. The characters all seemed very real and believable, and the reader is drawn into the excitement of experiencing the transformations and new experiences of each character, as well as the beauty of the migration of the Monarch butterfly.

Knowing the Spanish language as I do helped me enjoy it more. I love to read familial stories that revolve around Mexican kitchens (like ours), what's cooking, how the aromas fill up the kitchen with scents of spicy comfort food, making this read all the more yummy. However, I've never heard of anyone making tamales in the oven (they are always steamed). Maybe she was just warming them up :) ' ?

Although I and my family are all American born, our heritage goes back to Mexico several generations ago, and it was interesting to learn about the Day of The Dead, which is something I never knew or cared to know much about. This helped me to understand it better, but I think Monroe may lose some readers interest in this part, since it seems so superstitious, such as myths are. She does make it clear, however, how myths and folklore have thrived for generations in this region and are open to translation and faith in what one wants to believe. Even Abuela (the grandmother) adjusted the myth she told Luz about the "light of the world" to suit her needs. I did find it touching to read about Luz and her traveling companions creating offerings for her Abuela's grave-site on the Day of the Dead. After googling some of these locations she mentions in Michoacan, I found them described as Monroe writes it, and could easily envision the celebration and all of it, even the sanctuaries are shown on Monroe's website and on googling the monarch butterfly.

In my opinion, interest may wane from some of her readers in the scientific details about raising caterpillars/butterflies, short as it is (snippets, not pages) or about the folklore, but I thought it was just enough and well done. I enjoyed it, and found the read satisfying. I've liked all her works. Kudos to Monroe for all the research on this one and for putting us readers in the back seat looking over Luz's shoulder as she takes us on this lovely, purposeful journey in her old, orange VW bug.

I started reading this book just as the monarch butterflies were showing up in my yard. It was perfect timing to read this book. Each chapter begins with a tidbit about the monarch butterflies life and journey to their winter home in Mexico. I found it very interesting as I watched the butterflies make a quick stop in my yard on what I imagine is part of that journey.

At the same time Luz, the main character, is on a journey which coincides with the monarch butterflies journey. She is taking her grandmother's ashes to home in Mexico, which is where the butterflies are also heading. Luz meets some interesting characters along the way. Each plays a roll in Luz's growth and journey along the way as do the butterflies.

I enjoyed this book and found the journey of the butterflies and Luz beautifully written. This was my first Mary Alice Monroe novel but won't be my last. She captured my attention with her wonderful details and great characters.

Written with both powerful lessons of nature and human emotion, THE BUTTERFLY'S DAUGHTER by Mary Alice Monroe takes us into a journey that is not unlike that so many of us find ourselves on. We are introduced to Luz Avila, a woman on her own path of self-discovery, who is trying to make sense of things that have happened around her and ends up on a voyage full of answers but its own share of questions as well. Throughout her adventure she finds not just love but a doorway to her past that may begin to free her and allow her the ability to soar.

With the monarch butterfly as our focal point, the author allows us to see how we are all on our own sense of belonging and becoming, and it is when we feel the most vulnerable that we open ourselves up to a new world that is just beyond the horizon.

I feel this story resonates with anyone who has ever felt that they didn't belong or wondered if their life would ever have any purpose or meaning. In THE BUTTERFLY'S DAUGHTER we can see that men and women have the ability to stretch our their wings and soar.

I really liked reading this book. Twenty-one year old Luz begins a journey to return her grandmother's (abuela's) ashes to her ancestral village in Mexico. Luz had been raised by her abuela, who told her that her mother died when Luz was only five years old. Her abuela taught Luz all about the monarch butterflies; how they are born, live and fly to Mexico every year.
As Luz departs Milwaukee in an old, orange VW nicknamed El Toro, she begins an incredible journey. She is also under a time frame so she can arrive in Mexico along with the returning monarch butterflies. Along the way she encounters some amazing women who help guide her towards her destination.
I loved that this book suggests that their is a reason about the people and situations that you may encounter. That life is not just a series of random coincidences. The book was very uplifting and full of hope. A great read. I have never read this author before, but want to check out her other books now.

Generally, I love this author's books, and buy them as soon as they come out, then passing them on to my daughter. So I figured this would be another wonderful read. But it wasn't, at least for me. There are many wonderful characters, but difficult circumstances are sorted out too predictably, and apart from Abuela's sudden death, all obstacles are overcome and loose ends wrapped up neatly. It is possible that this book suffered from my recent reading of Barabara Kingsolver's Flight Behavior, which is a far superior treatment of the life cycle and plight of the Monarchs and the science thereof, as well as better written. I am not sorry I took the time to finish the book, but was disappointed. And still, however, looking forward to Monroe's next novel.