Rubí

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Sheila Jauriga

Language: Spanish

Title: Rubí

Author: Yolanda Vargas Dulche

Year: 1968

Publisher: Debolsillo

Summary

In this book, Rubi, the author Yolanda Vargas Dulche shows how a poor college girl wants to be a rich girl.  Rubi lives with her mom and her older sister in a humble neighborhood. She knows very well that she is stunningly beautiful and deserving of an elegant life and a rich husband. During school, she met a nice millionaire girl and she decided to be her best friend. Her best friend met a rich guy on internet and both went on a date. After that, the millionaire girl and the rich guy decided to get married. Rubi was jealous because her best friend will get married with a rich guy instead of her. The rich guy has a good friend and he introduced him to Rubi. Rubi fell in love with him and she thought he was a rich guy, but he wasn’t wealthy at all. His rich friend helped him to pay for his college. Rubi was sad and disappointed that she had fallen for a poor guy. That’s why she decided to take her best friend’s boyfriend. Ruby’s mother heard about she betrayed her best friend. As a result, her mother becomes terribly ill, which caused her to die. Moreover, Rubi gets married to her boyfriend. During her marriage, they lost a lot of money and had many problems. Rubi heard that her ex-boyfriend became a millionaire, and so she left her husband. Ruby and the millionaire get together in some fashion show, and they start seeing each other more and more. Ruby then gets pregnant from her true love. However, her ex-boyfriend doesn’t love her anymore because she caused him a lot of trouble. What's more, Rubi and her husband had a car accident and that’s when he died and she lost her baby. She took all the money from her rich deceased husband for investment but eventually she lost everything. Therefore, she is poor again. Later, Rubi went looking for her ex-boyfriend and she told him that she lost their baby and she wants to be with him again. However, he asked her to stop bothering him, and never to come back. They both were arguing and when she was leaving from his apartment. Rubi slipped from the railing and fell on a glass table. As result, her face became horribly disfigured, her infamous beauty is gone. Now she lives alone, abandoned, without money, and without her true love and family. Subsequently, Ruby deeply regrets about what she did.

Recommendation

Ruby is a very interesting and dramatic story based on the novel by Yolanda Vargas Dulche featured in “Lagrimas Y risas” magazine in Mexico in the 1960s. It has previously been adapted for a soap opera (telenovela) in 1968. This amazingly written narrative shows that love is more important than money, and that we should respect people by being honest with them. It also helps prove that a person’s inner beauty is far more important than his or her outer beauty. It is evident that without true loyalty, friendship can be truly worthless and even destructive. The most valuable lesson from this story is that being a selfish person, who desires to have more of something, can destroy many innocent lives. Thus, the essential message from this story is that you should not place too much importance on money and beauty, but rather on the real things in life.

The Good Conscience

Image:  http://www.raptisrarebooks.com/pages/books/502/carlos-fuentes/the-good-conscience

Veronica Rivera

Language : Spanish

Title: Las Buenas Conciencias (The Good Conscience)

 Author: Carlos Fuentes

Year: 2011

Publisher: Punto de Lectura

Summary

The title of this book, The Good Conscience, means hypocrisy and selfishness. This book is based on the life of Jaime Cevallos, who is at the end of his adolescence. He has to decide what to do with his life. He was undecided which way he had to take, his own religious values or his family’s moral values. Cevallos lived in Guanajuato, Mexico. He was a child of a rich family, which helped him to attend a distinguished school. He was a very simple person in contrast to other children in his school. He preferred, his friend Juan Manuel, who was very poor but he went to the same school as because of receiving a scholarship.. Jaime hated the customs of his family because he thought they are wrong. His family appeared to be Christians, but they were doing the immoral things. His aunt was having sinful desires for his nephew, and his uncle was going to brothels. However, Cevallos was in a battle with his family for trying to steal the love of his mother for selfish and immoral reasons. At the end, he analyzed his own behavior that he was exactly the same as his devious family because he ''appeared to be what he is not''.

Recommendation

I recommend this book because I think it is addressed to the adolescents like Jaime Cevallos, who was an adolescent too. The author, Cevallos relates some of own experiences from which we can learn something meaningful and apply it to our own lives. Also, we can learn about the lifestyle and the customs of that time period. This book is very interesting in how the author relates in the passage his experiences that seems similar to ours own lives nowadays.

     

Pack Your Bag and Go

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Thuy Thi Ngoc Pham

Language : Vietnamese

Title :  Xách ba lô lên và Đi (Pack Your Bag and Go)

Author : Huyền Chip

Year: 2012

Summary

Huyen Chip, the author of the book Pack Your Bag and Go is a personal travel diary of her extraordinary life experiences. She also intends to show, from this book, her future children what great things she has done when she was very young. Furthermore, Huyen Chip traveled by herself without a cell phone to 27 countries from Asia to Africa, starting out at the young age of  20 years and with only $700 in her wallet.  Her book shares Huyen Chip's feelings, challenges, and failures during her the trips. There are 2 parts: “Asia is home. "Don’t cry" and “Never die in Africa”. 

Everything happened when she was working in Malaysia. Huyen Chip was stressed with her job, so she decided to get out of the rut by traveling to Brunei. Her money wasn't enough for traveling too far, so she had to find a job in every country she visited.  She used to be tour guide, and share a small room with a man. Huyen Chip went hiking in Kuching. What's more, she ate worm for the very first time in her life. 

Moreover, in Africa, she underwent extreme loneliness, physical collapse, starvation, and abandonment. Huyen Chip was also haunted with a disease. She said that: “I never intended to teach anyone any commandments, and critics do not expect to read my book. Please see me as the writer and are recounted the journey that I went through."

Recommendation

Pack Your Bag and Go is a travel diary of Huyen Chip's amazing adventure. The first book of her travel  diary was published in September 2012 and became an instant bestseller in Vietnam. Huyen Chip also hosts a column about her travels on Tien Phong - a Vietnam's national newspaper. Her experiences are very bona fide and quite realistic. Huyen Chip's narrative also shares about what she had learned from her journey. She isn’t good at writing; she just writes what inspired her to write. When I read it, I learned that everyone have to have a dream. Even though it is crazy and impossible, we should give it a try.

Chí Phèo

Thao Vu

Language : Vietnamese

Title : Chí Phèo

Author : Nam Cao

Publisher: New Life

Year: 1941

Summary

One day, Chi Pheo was adopted by a man and was brought up by Vu Dai village (where he lived). At the first time, he was a kind famer and a tenant of Ba Kien. The young third wife of Bá Kiến often asked Chí Phèo to massage her legs.Thus, Bá Kiến was jealous of him, so he found any ways to imprison Chi Pheo. After 7 or 8 years, Chi Pheo came out and turned into a different person. He became a terrible monster of Vu Dai village. Firstly, he become to Ba Kien's house to slit his face for what Ba Kien had done. However, Ba Kien tried to seduce Chi Pheo to be his henchman. After that, Chi Pheo became crueler and was always drunk.

One afternoon, as usual, Chi Pheo was wandering and abusing, but no one noticed him. Thus, He was very angry, so he always destroyed something in any of the houses in this village. Everybody in village was scared of him. After drinking, he went to a river bank. He suddenly saw Thi No, a silly, ugly woman, who comes to take water. They spent the night with each other. When Chi Pheo woke up, he felt tired out. Miraculously, he listened to sounds of daily life outside that he never heard before.  He thought about the past, the present and the future and felt sad. He knew he was old but still lonely.  At that moment, Thi No came in with a pot of hot onion soup. Chi Pheo was very surprised because it was the first time he was given something by a woman. Thus, He wanted Thi No become his wife.

However, because of her aunt’s disapproval, Thi No declined Chi Pheo’s love. He was broken-hearted. He drank a lot. He depressed for his life. After that, Chi Pheo realized who destroyed his life. He took a knife to Bá Kiến’s house, killed him then put an end to his own life.

Recommendation

Chí Phèo is one of the most famous short stories written by Nam Cao. The author Nam Cao worked as a clerk and as a teacher. In 1946 he joined the War of Resistance. His prerevolutionary works realistically depicted the tragedy of the “little man” and the spiritual searching of the intelligentsia living in the oppressive atmosphere of colonial Vietnam. Such works included in this amazing novel Chí Phèo.

The Prohibited Histories About The Little Thumb

 

Rudy Villatoro Herrera

Language: Spanish

Title: Las Historias Prohibidas Del Pulgarcito (The Prohibited Histories About The Little Thumb)

Author: Roque Dalton

Publisher: Siglo Veintiuno

Year: 1974

Summary

Roque Dalton Garcia was born on May 14, 1935, Quezaltepeque, El Salvador. He was a Salvadorean poet and journalist. Garcia is considered one Latin America's most compelling poets. He wrote emotionally strong, sometimes sarcastic and image-loaded works dealing with life, death, and politics.

Garcia published some books. One of them is Prohibited Histories about the Little Thumb. It was published in 1974. This book talks about texts and poems that form a poem-collage. It gives us a revolutionary view about the history of El Salvador from Spanish conquest to the tragic war with Honduras.

This book has a little biography of some important people like Jose Matias Delgado who was one of the founding fathers of El Salvador. The book explains when he lived, and how he wanted to lift the economy with the working class.

Other important character was Anastasio Aquino who leads the guerrilla in El Salvador against the wealthy people whose were exploiting the poorer ones.

Recommendation

I recommend this book because people can learn about a little of history of El Salvador. They will learn about culture of Salvadorean people and their style of live. If you are a person who wants to know, learn, and read something different, you can't miss this opportunity to meet this book.

You will learn about the lives of some important characters in the history of El Salvador. The way how they lead and live among the working class.

The Golden Age

Ricardo Herrera

Language: Spanish
Title: La Edad De Oro (The Golden Age)

Author: José Martí.

Publisher: Biblioteca Nacional

Year: 2009

Summary

La Edad De Oro, or 'The Golden Age', was a book written by famous Cuban poet José Martí. During his long life in New York, and in the process of preparing a revolution to free Cuba from the abuses suffered by the Spanish Empire, Martí never forgot about the "hope of the world." He managed, with a remarkable effort, to publish his work of literature for the prosperity of America. In this book, Martí teaches the children  how to be real men, who can speak clear and wise words. Marti’s work demonstrates to the American children how people lived before their time, and how  they lived today in America and in other countries. 

Not only Marti teaches about how things are made of glass, steel, and electricity  but  how bridges hang in suspension. He shows the children how everything is done in the workshops. He explains that these things are more interesting and creative than what you know about magical tales. Martí's story educates the children’s hope in the world, in becoming better men later in their lives; hence, the future  is in their hands.

Recommendation

I suggest to everyone to read this book, La Edad De Oro or “The Golden Age.” This book can serve as an important lesson to all of us, especially children. Furthermore, ‘The Golden Age” should be read by all parents to their children because it consists of wonderful and very educating stories. Lastly, this book also teaches good values that we all should have in order to live in peace and harmony.