Reading is the key to knowledge. While reading, though not always informational creates a more creative imagination and bring peace and joy to the mind. My favorite book of all time is a book called White Rose:Una Rosa Blanca written by Amy Ephron. I read the book when I was 18 and instantly fell in love with the plot and interesting stories inside it.
Based on a true story, this book revolves around a girl name Evangelina Cisneros and her struggles to be free from the Spanish regime in Cuba in the late 1890s. When her father was arrested for being active to oust the Spanish, she pleads herself to a Spanish general who had fallen in love with her. But when she declines the general's advances, she herself is thrown into jail as trying to do revolutionary activities. Reports of her imprisonment reached the New York papers and became a feminism cause by many society women there. William Hearst, among the New York's newspaper editor seizes the opportunity to reveal the stories in the Spanish regime and send his best reporter, Karl Decker to Cuba to pretend of interviewing her when in fact he is trying to save Evangelina from the prison and back to America. During the process of interviewing and escaping, they fell in love. Back in America, Decker's wife became increasingly suspicious of her husband's absence. After a dangerous escape, Evangelina finally arrives in New York, where they are held as heroes and she can finally tell her part of life under a cruel Spanish regime in Cuba to the world. In the end, Evangelina and Decker sort out their feelings for each other and face the reality of their own worlds.
This book is a part romance and a part spy thriller love story. I cherished this book because it reveals to us the raw effect of war on casual civilians like Evangelina and her family who is wrongly prosecuted for simply disagreeing with the regime. They faced a cruel fate and life and struggle just to survive in just the name or war. Her spirit to survive despite all that has happened to her and her family, amaze me and make me feel as long as there's hope, people will always fight for justice and the right to live. Upon meeting Karl Decker, it is understandable for her to fall in love as the man is endangering his life to bring her free. Even though he is married, they drew closer. To me that shows in the brink of death and danger, humans stills needs compassion, hope and reassurance of safety of another person no matter how strong you are. They both trusted each other with their life while escaping and bonded through the process. What makes the book more interesting is when they actually got back to New York, Evangelina and Decker are forced to come back to reality of safety and the future that has been laid out for them. They can never be together and to accept that fact, even though you care so much of that person takes a lot of strength and courage. In the end, Evangelina got to tell the world about the cruelty she and the people of Cuba has suffered and aware the people of the world how much the country needs their help.
This book is almost perfect in all perspectives given. It inspires the imagination and capture the heart. It also felt real and reality is sometimes not as perfect as we think. For me if I have to give a rate, it will be definitely a 10.
