I loved this book.It made me miss Mexico very much.I have not visited since the early nineties.It also made me homesick for California and the chicano population there!I love the all the references to the folklorico dancing and other things Mexican.I especially enjoyed the way the author gave you a view point of three different women and their many similarities inspite of their different circumstances.I will be looking for this authors first book!

Thanks to my daughter Katie for giving me this book. I am going to suggest it for our book club next year. I enjoyed it. I learned about illegal immigrants & about Mexican Folk Dancing and the story line & characters seemed believable. For a young author, she seemed to have a lot of insight. I'm ready to read more of her work.

4.5 ⭐️ It’s my second book by Reyna Grande. Definitely, not the last one. Her writing make me feel closer to her culture and experiences. Dancing with Butterflies is a book enriched in culture (music, dance, food, traditional clothing, festivities, traditions...). It was like opening a box full of mexican culture. I loved how real each character feels, without exaggerations or deep descriptions.

I really enjoyed this book. It was interesting how the lives of four women intertwined through dance. They all have their individual struggles and although they try, they don't fully understand the struggles of the others. The book is written from the perspective of all four women. It is easy to see yourself and your friends in these four women as they strive to find love, beauty, a true home and overcoming the loss of a child. It isn't a "sappy" book, but rather a book that reflects reality. I

Excellent read! This folklorista can vouch for it's accuracy. Would love a sequel about Adriana!

Dancing with Butterflies is one of the best books I've read. I simply could not put it down. The novel is written from the point of view of four different characters: Adriana, Elena, Yesenia, and Soledad. Each character is struggling with an epic problem related both to her age and to her culture. All of the action of the novel unfolds in front of the backdrop of Folklorico, a style of dance I was made aware of (in my gringa ignorance) just a short while ago.The content of the novel is graphic,

I dance Mexican folkloric, and if there was this much drama going on in the studio we'd never perform. While it was nice reading about some of the dances and costumes and hearing terms and events common to the folkloric world (in California at least), a lot of the story was WAY over done. There were too many name brands thrown out and too many UCs mentioned. While I'm sure the author's intent was to make the novel feel more personable, the effect was more kitschy and trendy (and slightly annoyin...

BOOK REVIEW:Dancing with ButterfliesBy Reyna Grande http://www.reynagrande.com/ Reviewed by:Zulmara Cline Dancing With Butterflies Reading Reyna’s newest book Dancing with Butterflies” is to truly immerse yourself in an artistic experience, the sights, the sounds, the images, the poetry in motion bring together a cacophony of artistic experiences that will take you on a journey through the many regions of Mexico, as well as the hearts and soul of 4 powerful women and the men that shape their liv...

I read this for my book club this month. I really wanted to like it and it had some redeeming qualities. I loved learning about the dance, the cultural, the costumes. That part of it was so interesting.However, the stories were mind-numbing. The ladies were terrible, the stories were terrible. The writing was wonderful, but I really felt the author did a disservice to those of that are just learning about what Folklorico is. It deserved some really good, really strong stories to surround the cul...

I really like this book it was fun to read. At some part I would get confused because I would forget who she is taking about, but that Just takes a matter of paying close attention to the book. Reyna is a great author, I find is hard to believe, but I noticed a lot of literary devices in her writings, which also made it more fun to read. Since I also dance folklorico, in a group, I felt that the four main characters related to me and my three other "sisters'" who also dance folklorico, with me.

***SPOILER ALERT***Ok, so here are my thoughts/things I want to discuss from the book: Yesenia - Do you think that we judge her actions more harshly because she is a woman? Do you believe that society still goes easier on men when they cheat? In regards to the surgeries, I couldn't help but think that she got what she deserved with the misshapen panza.Elena - This was a tough one, she falls in love with one of her students and I couldn't get all the real-life stories about female teachers having...

This story told the stories of four Mexican-American women whose lives intertwined through a dance company. The story stayed basic and the writing simple, but to good effect.

This book took me through so many emotions; from pride in my heritage, nostalgia as a former folklorico dancer, anger and rage at racism and prejudice exhibited by ignorant people, to sadness at the very real and too-often ocurring stories of being satisfied with just getting by. These four women went through so much, yet persevered in their own way without every really thinking of themselves as victims.This book is an interesting read for those who don't identify with the culture, and it well m...

The story of four women in a Mexican folkloric dance group whose lives are intertwined by their love of dance and heritage but who are also dealing with such issues as ageism, domestic violence, death, relationship problems and of course immigration. I liked how this book was told from the points of view of each woman. I thought it was interesting how they made bad choices and saw the solutions to the problems in each others lives but not in their own. I think I would have given this story four

There is nothing in this world (or probably the next) quite like Mexican Folkloric dance -- the Aztec dances are strong and tell the story of the times with strength and grace and understanding. The more modern regional dances each has it's own set of costumes -- from the fluffy lace-ruffled Vera Cruz dress with the black apron covered with embroidered flowers to the wonderful black velvet straight dresses embossed with a rainbow of huge splashy flowers to the Vestida de listones -- the beribbon...

I enjoyed The Distance Between Us that I wanted to read Reyna’s other books.This book is about Mexican folklore dancing. It is about 4 women involved with the group, Alegria. Alegria means happiness in Spanish.The characters are well developed. The plot is believable. What I did not like is the cursing. While cursing is more prevalent, I do not appreciate it or find it necessary in books that I read. I also did not like the sex scenes. Thankfully there are not too many but I would just read ahea...

I truly loved this book. What impressed me the most was that I never felt like there was an "author" - this story moved seamlessly along in a very natural way. It centers on women in a folklorico dance troupe, and we are exposed to the sometimes gut-wrenching personal missteps of each character. We learn that folklorico requires much discipline, passion and dedication and each character's commitment to the craft is put to the test, forcing them to fully embrace it or walk away.It's an emotionall...

Unlike a lot of books, this doesn't leave you with every problem wrapped up neatly and fixed magically within the last 10 pages of the book, and I appreciate that. I won't say what is or is not fixed, only that the ending of this book is more true to life in that some things are fixed - and some are not. I hate when stories make a last ditch effort to create an unrealistic "happy ending" in the last 10 pages, throwing everything together like it's a miracle, because it's just so unrealistic and

Reyna Grande is one of my favorite authors. Her writing has broadened my perspective and helped me have more compassion for people, especially the immigrant community. This book had more language than I would have preferred, and some of the situations the women characters got themselves into were difficult to read, but her writing makes the characters so real. I kept wanting to reach out to each character and share the love of Jesus with them, but then I had to remind myself these were fictional...

The author made the four main characters in this book come alive for me. I felt like I was sharing their experiences with them--their experiences with family, friends, dreams, heartbreaks, etc. My only criticism of the book was that there was too much crude language, and I sometimes felt that it was used only for effect...and didn't even fit. There were also some sexual descriptions that were a little too detailed for my taste. Yet, the book was hard to put down because I so wanted all four wome...