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With the fall of the Berlin Wall, regimes behind the Iron Curtain crumbled peacefully, yet there was one collapse that brought about the sole bloody revolution in the Eastern Bloc, ending in the swift execution of one of the worst dictators of the time. On Christmas Day, 1989, Romania was forever liberated from the megalomaniac, oppressive, often deadly embrace of Nicolae Ceaușescu's 25-year reign. Stories of resilience, survival, tragedy, and attempts to flee the communist regime abound, exposing the harsh and sad realities of various former Eastern Bloc countries. But this is a different kind of story. Told from the perspective of a child who knows no other universe and sees her Bucharest home with eyes of wonder, this is a story of growing up in a world that, to this child, seems as infused with magic as it is brutal. In the midst of persecution she discovers the realm of opera that becomes an oasis of resistance and hope for her and her mother while they wait for permission to leave Romania and reunite with the girl's father in New York. When she arrives in the U.S., the culture shock is immense, but the girl finds her own way through teenagehood in American public schools, even drawing on the vampire lore associated with her native country, while staying true to her dream of becoming an opera singer.
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