Before We Were Free

  The book Before We Were Free is a story told by 12 year old Anita de la Torre. Anita lived in Dominican Republic in the 1960s, during a time of dictatorship. At first, she didn't know what was going on until Anita's best friend, who is also Anita's cousin, Carla left with her family to the United States, and her Tio Toni was missing. She always thought that Dominican Republic was a safe place, and that it was the best country in the world. Until her parents told her about the dictator, Trujillo. After Anita find out about the dictatorship everything starts to get more complicated, her dad starts having secret meetings, everyone starts talking in whispers, the secret police randomly starts searching Anita's house, and a family from New York moves into Anita's compound. Then when everything starts to get back to normal, Anita's older sister has to move to the United States. I think that even though this all might be too much for Anita to handle she will be able to get through this because she has promised herself that she will always be strong and she will never cry.
    Afterwards Anita realizes that her father is having meetings to get rid of Trujillo, then Anita's father is taken away from her, and Anita and her mother have to live in a closet. This is one of the hardest things that Anita had to deal with since Carla left but even though Anita was very scared of what could be happening to her father she was always hopeful and very brave. An even harder part for Anita was when she had to move to the United States without even knowing where or how her father was, Anita and her family couldn't help but be sad everyday Wondering how Anita's father was. But I think that Anita will be able to get through this part because she has made it so far, and she was always very careful with what she said around certain people, and she was always strong no matter what was going on so Anita will be able to get over this at some point and just move on.