Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Knife and the Butterfly
    The Knife and the Butterfly
    The Knife and the Butterfly
    Ebook181 pages4 hours

    The Knife and the Butterfly

    By Ashley Hope Pérez

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLerner Publishing
    Release dateAug 1, 2013
    ISBN9781467731751
    The Knife and the Butterfly
    Author

    Ashley Hope Pérez

    Ashley Hope Pérez is the author of award-winning books for young adults, including What Can’t Wait, The Knife and the Butterfly, and Out of Darkness. Out of Darkness was described by The New York Times as a “layered tale of color lines, love and struggle” and was named one of Booklist’s “50 Best YA Books of All Time.” It also won the 2016 Tomás Rivera Book Award, the 2016 Américas Award, and a 2016 Printz honor for excellence in young adult literature from the American Library Association. When she’s not writing or hanging out with her two beautiful sons, Liam Miguel and Ethan Andrés, Ashley teaches world literature at The Ohio State University. Visit her online at www.ashleyperez.com or find her on Twitter and Instagram: @ashleyhopeperez.

    Read more from Ashley Hope Pérez

    Related to The Knife and the Butterfly

    Related ebooks

    YA Paranormal, Occult & Supernatural For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      White People, Black Authors Are Not Your Medicine | Yaa Gyasi

      Mar 20, 2021

      In 2018, two other novelists and I were being driven back from a reception in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, to our hotel in downtown Detroit, when we saw a black man getting arrested on the side of the road. The driver of our car, a white woman who had sp

      6 min read

    • Article

      'Dread Nation' Is A Rollicking 'Gone With The Wind + Zombies' Adventure

      Apr 20, 2018

      But don't underestimate the latest YA novel by activist Justina Ireland – it's also a biting commentary on contemporary race relations in America.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Shame Is Ever-Present When You’re Sitting in a Cell

      Oct 23, 2020

      Between a strained relationship with my family and the death of a good friend, I’ve struggled to feel like I’m worth something.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Joshua Mohr: The Time I Robbed a Liquor Store

      Mar 10, 2017

      Our alibi was a sandy blanket in the back of my truck, an acoustic guitar, a knockout brunette in the passenger seat. Our alibi was a night picnic at the beach. When we got pulled over—if we got pulled over—the cop would peer in the cab and he’d thin

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Space Between Us

      Oct 9, 2019

      The Space Between Us
      8 min read

    • Article

      A Good Samaritan

      Dec 6, 2022

      It was hot that day, hot for the morning and hot for April and with a stickiness in the air that suggested something had to break. I was headed up the street to ask my neighbor Meech to give me a jump when I heard a scream come from the fourplex next

      10 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reads

      Dec 30, 2019

      Summer Reads
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Temporary Arrangement

      Oct 2, 2023

      A Temporary Arrangement
      19 min read

    • Article

      It Happened to Me…

      Nov 4, 2021

      When my son was around one, many items of his clothing began to inexplicably disappear. I can’t over-emphasise the inexplicable nature of what occurred – all the items unquestionably disappeared in my house. The house is always secure, and there is n

      8 min read

    • Article

      Come with Me

      Dec 1, 2022

      Come with Me
      12 min read

    • Article

      Exodus

      Sep 15, 2018

      My exodus occurred after years wandering the wilderness of my hometown. For bread to live, for bread to leave, I worked a part-time gig at the Oregonian’s downtown insert facility, stacking pallet after pallet of inky-ass newspapers. The day in quest

      15 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Knife and the Butterfly

    4/5

    12 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      There are a lot of heart-wrenching books out there. But there's something special about THE KNIFE AND THE BUTTERFLY. The latest by Ashley Hope Perez, this novel is artfully written, with a voice that reads so authentic the story feels horrifically real. Horrifically because the narrator is a young boy in jail, awaiting sentencing, and knowing something terrible has gone down. Something that cost a life.Azael isn't a bad kid. At least, he doesn't think he is. At 16 he's found himself kinda homeless, abandoned by family other than his brother, and running with a gang. The gang is his family, his brother has recently been brought into the fold, he's a wonderful artist and he has a great girl. But his girl, Becca, wishes things were different. She wants Az to go straight, to do right by her. And Az swears he's trying -- he just can't seem to get his head on straight. This is what Azael remembers anyway. In his nearly-bare cell, he only has some partially blacked-out police records and a contraband sketchbook hidden under his mattress to fill in the blanks.On the other side, there's Lexi. She's also being held, and she's trying not to remember the brawl that got her here. These are two teens that normally wouldn't cross each others paths. And it takes Azael a few "observation" to realize it, but now he knows she knows something. He thinks she's the key to his memory...and possibly his freedom.THE KNIFE AND THE BUTTERFLY is a striking, surprising novel, one to watch later this year during award season. Its a novel that really shook me, and one that I'm excited to have experienced.

    Book preview

    The Knife and the Butterfly - Ashley Hope Pérez

    2^book_preview_excerpt.htmlu[KGJ(z4Vidݬ6Rh dI9Dof9A7{#Ydڌ]C7?Són.a[Րj*L'ϋ{H6&~Vm[To/7EKHJl݌޻.MOo=3 1.wWʺ^O0|7Nmg^˛pӑ+!<f'eX7t.޷ty$M΅9ݎ¾7&0OW'Kgw™ߛ[ŏƝG*GKTқphW)J ]9! CT<>o^Vq;& aQ.[㈆Mӫ7-^{ۻwos03]K;h𨱀Ќi~ .DxYGgmZ{0g~f춍rv(\z9}7Si3`4z`s]ִ;U cb٬ ٷEPʏst'*s p#0R0@{/a5{L|CkI'Y8OV/Y?SD%D4u5 7YU Ej`*òrehx1[000ѸT2F)H+YUvaAtzәw"e׹,M{bԖUhF:FLťs0SL\ s ]ED^UUov߰)n`?FgtapĎkɄ1\FU6ūs&CR@> "l`9~A,)5} $N4H`㖔keT0C>$Z>+5NgcNafoR͂,KHXXC 6IUHeb 1nǤ&5R7)P!DN,^Cuc$}DrT/!1'3Q-+p Yl w*rQ쐊DCo]Z٬h۝@O+o+z\\؁FvN|I[͕`WI7־ CuITp,`72y lO>TU_BW[̭:8G}zKF|Z} d]3I{""[/2B~s(/)^\]>ꕋ}]]@'7JX ArVI qiS(NCѓn(n+{/>м;oq&C{Vt&R_E}%.d=z R*D#Sأ,ajL'XI|^5}{$2Qz!0,qlR`4, ;ClQDmz@H~k 7D ՟bgʈꡂ* |B7wa7ĸ3$T+jQB{k#)Ta_dּjcR誱U(O1[!n>)ߤe .XJRLq霽j4ޘ,TŻ iM2mGW>eZ2t?;iaӥ7PzZFڐbaa*NX3 HGZbl-vF!ʐg.ƣL ,5\K;u;|ڵIu|vKM`lX5;C s&~eNP 9; ։Lܢ5(Q4 1ڣ?V&Pwtn۩%/ơmhydm,D}/Q BeR?FcƘG´z㊷`#޻)̤%{" 1L0)fNB+sj mчq<j%ʒœNCIO]izoVRşM3QAd;$K6?>W:+>FEUU"G<15# z4 Y_h9-#/Txw6@Ho$]Zuй4ǵ<6R/fF ~7N#ѥy>ʣmֿ=fO1j32qj5Q׹Ė4 b8)9x:o/RC nUc)6cKچ u$m\tJ|A6RR:?ѭ:ָpBT\B=7tSN>u&e-W> S%ަEP``xJn{7THׁ}M5c-enU9I TyЉŎ\,mvX*1CHͰ]aVьR(@\.AL]sTҕlY/# ~f:pua5r HS\ /a}S,œJ OI~i}@H>2tQeX#IKqNqA隫դ懿_yռ5ߙOZhٟjt<Ԙѝ-EZu|7ZC?aZ*U!a$ht 3On18;ZP-[Et{\-|Pe75=vﭷD\i mKǑ/=-K)'5Ը -5bk~tZu\51Ȝ:up,)
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1