Rubí

Image: Google

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.