Personal Rating: Note: This review might contain some vague spoilers. “The words used to describe it – despair, fear, anxiety, obsession – do so little to communicate it. Maybe we invented metaphor as a response to pain. Maybe we needed to give shape to the opaque, deep-down pain that evades both sense and senses.” At some […]
The Lonely Islands We Create: All My Lonely Islands by VJ Campilan
“Words. Depending on what you believe, they’re either empty air or a prophecy that shall come to pass.” My Personal Rating: It’s no wonder why Filipino author VJ Campilan’s debut novel All My Lonely Islands won the Grand Prize in the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature in 2015. Here, we follow Crisanta and Ferdinand […]
The World of Magic: Shadow and Bone Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo
Personal Rating: A fascinating world of magical element-wielding people, saints, and mythical creatures is what the Shadow and Bone Trilogy is all about. Set on the country of Ravka, we are introduced to a fantastical universe shaped by Leigh Bardugo in her first-ever book series, debuting with “Shadow and Bone” in 2012, followed by “Siege […]
Womanhood and Resilience: The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
The Four Winds is a gripping tale of a woman’s strength, familial ties, and people’s resilience. From start to finish, author Kristin Hannah delivers a heavily charged page-turner through Elsa Martinelli’s narration and her daughter Loreda. Set in the 1930s United States of America, they tell us the strength and double standards that women have […]
The Silent Lives of Manila’s Inhabitants: The Quiet Ones by Glenn Diaz
My Personal Rating: Some novels are just a hit, a miss, or one that you were way too ahead or too late to read. This review on The Quiet Ones by Glenn Diaz doesn’t necessarily agree with many of the acclaims and high praises it has received through the years. But this isn’t a negative […]
The Choices That We Make: Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness
I had the 10th-anniversary edition copy of the Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness as soon as it was released in 2018, but I left them shelved for years. If you look at the back, you’ll see a quote from the Guardian saying, “I would press the Chaos Walking Trilogy on anyone, anyone at all.” […]
The Comic Parable: Twice Blessed by Ninotchka Rosca
My Personal Rating: Only an author hailing from your own country is capable of accurately describing intergenerational cultural diversities, the striking realities that we live in, and capturing emotions that only we could truly understand. That’s what Twice Blessed by Filipina feminist Ninotchka Rosca evoked, a book published in 1992 and 1993 American Book Award […]
