The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba by Chanel Cleeton

What is your favorite book or movie set in Cuba?

 The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba is the story of three revolutionary women in the late 19^th century struggle for Cuban independence. 

 Evangelina Cisneros is eighteen years old and suffering in a notorious prison.  Her father was arrested for being a rebel against Spain and Evangelina was exiled to an island.  While there, the beautiful Evangelina caught the notice of the man in charge of the island.  When she rebuffs his advances, she finds herself thrown into prison.  Her story catches the fancy of William Randolph Hearst who dubs her “the most beautiful girl in Cuba” in his papers and helps to rally a frenzied United States to go to war with Spain over Cuba.  Grace Harrington works for Hearst and struggles to make it as a female reporter in a man’s world.  Marina Perez is estranged from her wealthy family over her choice of husband, but as her husband fights, she works to help the cause in Havana.  Will these three women succeed in their missions?

 I enjoyed this book.  It was told in three different viewpoints for the three different women.  I didn’t know much at all about the Cuban fight for independence and I found it fascinating.  I was even more fascinated to learn that Evangelina Cisneros was a real person, and her story follows what is told in this novel.  I enjoyed all three-story lines, but my only complaint was that I didn’t feel that I really got to know the women as well as I would have liked.  The plot was good, but I think their characters could have been developed a little further. 

 Favorite Quotes:

“There are those who are afraid that the change we seek will leave them pushed to the fringes of a society they have mercilessly dominated for so long.”

 “Our lives are not defined by one thing; we are more than the events that happen to us,”

 Overall, The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba was a captivating look into the Cuban fight for independence and yellow journalism of the late 19^th century.

 Book Source:  Review Copy from Net Galley and Berkley.  Thank-you!

The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleefton

 

Three very different women are forever changed when a hurricane hits the Florida Keys in 1935.  Helen is a native of the islands and is happy to be pregnant with her first child.  Sadly, her husband is abusive, and she longs to break free to start a new life.  At the restaurant she works at, she meets Mirta.  Mirta is a newlywed who has married a rich man from New York to save her Cuban family.  She doesn’t know much about him and is not sure what types of illegal activities he has been a part of to obtain his fortune.  She is hoping the two of them can get to know each other on their honeymoon on the Keys.  Another visitor to Helen’s restaurant is Elizabeth Preston.  She has fled to the Keys to look for her missing brother.  He returned from World War I, not the same and she is sure he is in the camps of veterans that are working on the new highway to link the islands.  When the hurricane strikes, what will happen to these ladies?

 The Last Train to Key West was the FLICKS aka Rogue Book Club pick for November and we had our first virtual meeting. Our book club has had a hard time meeting this year due to COVID.  We had a couple of outdoor meetings, but this was our first virtual meeting.  I think this is how we will be meeting for the time being.  One of our members was quarantined and another sick with COVID for this meeting.  We all enjoyed this novel, although we all agreed that we didn’t like the ending.  It was happy, which is good for these times, buseemed very unrealistic.

 I enjoyed the story of each of the characters and the history that was in the novel.  I had never heard of this hurricane.  I also didn’t know the plight of the World War I veterans that were working on the highway connecting the islands.  I thought it was fascinating and had to look up more about it when I finished the novel.

 Favorite Quotes:

“I’ve imagined my husband’s death a thousand times.”

 “Where I’m from, there’s an advantage to people earing you, to thinking you capable of anything.”

 “The world has expectations of you, of how you are to shoulder your burdens with grace, of the role you play, and as soon as you don’t live up to hose expectations, it’s easier for others to cast you aside rather than change how they view the world.”

 “It’s strange how your life can change so quickly, how one moment you can barely eke by, desperation filling your days, and suddenly, out of the unimaginably horrific, a glimmer of something beautiful can appear like a bud pushing through the hard-formed earth.”

 Overall, The Last Train to Key West was an interesting historical fiction novel with a happy ending that will dismay some and delight others.

 Book Source:  Kewaunee Public Library. Thank-you!