The Knife and the Butterfly

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.

“"This is a well-written, compelling story of the lost lives of young gang members. Azael is part of MS-13 and loves to draw graffiti, while Lexi is a member of the Crazy Crew gang. After a brawl, Azael wakes up in a prison cell which is very different from juvie. He is not allowed to associate with other inmates, and spends his time observing Lexi's private conferences with her lawyer or reading her notebook. He begins to sketch as he recovers his memory of the day he was imprisoned, and figures out that Lexi is about to testify at a trial, but doesn't know if it's his trial or hers. The drama of the story propels the reader to find out what happens to these kids. Strong language and graphic sexual content make this a senior high school choice." --Library Media Connection”

"Perez gives the reader sympathetic yet critical insight into the world of gangs in Houston, Texas, and is careful to show the narratives of loss that drive so many young people to join them." --The ALAN Review

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. or find her on Twitter and Instagram: @ashleyhopeperez.

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