Book Review Song Of The Mango And Other New Myths by Vida Cruz-Borja
Book Corner, Adult, Diverse Books, Home, Own Voices, Retellings, Reviews, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Book Review: Song Of The Mango And Other New Myths by Vida Cruz-Borja

If you have been here for a while, then you must know about my love for fairy tales, folklore and fantasy. When I picked up Song of the Mango And Other New Myths, I was expecting a collection of fantastical, whimsical stories rooted in Filipino folklore and mythology, that would sweep me off my feet and take me to places that could only exist in my imagination.

Book Cover Song Of The Mango And Other New Myths by Vida Cruz Borja

I got all of that and so. Much. More. 

At times enchanting and captivating, at times unnerving, Song of the Mango by Vida Cruz-Borja is an anthology like no other. With stories that openly and joyfully celebrate Filipino culture and heritage, Song of the Mango And Other New Myths is an epic collection of fantastical stories written with great, vivid imagery, along with elements of Filipino folklore as well as modern and contemporary themes. 

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Review: Someone In Time by Jonathan Strahan
Adult, Book Corner, Home, sci-fi

Review: Someone In Time by Jonathan Strahan

The older I grow, the more fondness I seem to have for romance novels. And the love stories that resonate with me the most are usually the ones where two people need to overcome impossible challenges to find their way back to each other.

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Adult, Home

Review: The Keeper Of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

With a charming premise, a stunning cover design, and praises from top publications in the industry, The Keeper Of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan promises an enchanting tale of love and healing. But does the story live up to its praises?

Review: The Keeper Of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan

In my opinion, that would be a BIG NO. Here’s my review of The Keeper Of Lost Things; I forced my way through all 336 pages of this disappointing novel so that you don’t have to.

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Adult, Home, Mystery & Thriller, Thriller

Review: The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters

The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters has been on my most anticipated July release list, and I am so happy that I got the chance to finally dive into this amazing, sapphic horror fantasy last month. It was everything the blurb promised: full of magic, a heaping of gothic horror, and an irresistible thriller/mystery to bind it all together.

Review: The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters
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Adult, Book Corner, Home, Mental Health, Reviews

Book Review: The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo By Taylor Jenkins Reid

Book Review: The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo By Taylor Jenkins Reid

This is my third time re-reading The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and once again I find myself completely awestruck by this beautiful gem of a story.

The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo tells the mesmerizing, gripping and heart wrenching story of a global super star named Evelyn Hugo, as she fights tooth and nail to pull herself out of poverty and become one of the highest paid actresses of Hollywood. The real mystery though, is her seven marriages, and her insistence in doing an interview with an obscure journalist.

Shocking, scandalous and riveting, The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo is a gripping novel that explores themes of feminine sexuality from the glittering lens of Old Hollywood. Each time I finished this book, I was left a sobbing, weeping mess.

Read on below for my full review, or see the quick version here.

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Adult, Book Corner, Home, Reviews

Review: The Rape Trial Of Medusa By Michael Kasenow

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I am going to keep this review short, or else this review will end up becoming a 1500+ words rant about how male authors need to practice nuance and sensitivity when writing books about women and issues regarding women. At the very least, they should hire female sensitivity readers who can point out some of the problems I will mention here and how to write them better.

The Rape Trial Of Medusa tells us the story of a very well-known Greek mythology, but with a twist. Set in modern times, we witness the trial of Medusa who was raped and blamed for her beauty, and unfairly punished by Athena.
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Adult, Book Corner, Home, Young Adult

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: Food For Thought

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery: Food For Thought

If there is any book that I can say have made a profound impact on my life, then it would be The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Misunderstood to be a children’s book by a surprisingly large number of people, The Little Prince is actually a book for young adults, providing us with thoughtful guidance and insights as we learn to navigate through life and all the complications and messes it brings us.

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Adult, Book Corner, Calendar Girls, Other Bookish Stuff, Retellings, Uncategorized

Review: The Secret Diary Of Lizzie Bennet

 

Twenty‑four‑year‑old grad student Lizzie Bennet is saddled with student loan debt and still living at home along with her two sisters—beautiful Jane and reckless Lydia. When she records her reflections on life for her thesis project and posts them on YouTube, she has no idea The Lizzie Bennet Diaries will soon take on a life of their own, turning the Bennet sisters into internet celebrities seemingly overnight.

When rich and handsome Bing Lee comes to town, along with his stuck‑up friend William Darcy, things really start to get interesting for the Bennets—and for Lizzie’s viewers. But not everything happens on‑screen. Lucky for us, Lizzie has a secret diary.

5 out of 5

This review is part of The Calendar Girls monthly blog event, hosted by the lovelies at Darque Dreamer Reads and Never Not Reading. To know more about The Calendar Girls, click here

I have always been a lover of classics, but Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice holds a very, very special place in my heart. With a main character who is as witty, charming, and yet flawed as Elizabeth Bennet, the complicated yet strangely relatable family relationships (relatable only if you are a young adult female from a Southeast Asian country such as myself), and Austen’s viciously funny narration style, it’s hard not to love Pride and Prejudice.

And it’s equally hard not to love it’s very clever, very funny and extremely endearing modern-day retelling: The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet by Bernie Su and Kate Noble.

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Adult, Home, Mystery & Thriller, Thriller

Review: You by Caroline Kepnes

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When a beautiful, aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card.
There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.
As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way—even if it means murder

3 out of 5

 

 

Trigger warnings: extremely sexual content, violence and stalking

I gotta hand it to Caroline Kepnes–for a debut novel, You is very, very, well-written, especially when considering the subject matter. The narration is the best part about this book–despite the unbelievably and disturbingly sexual language that Joe uses, despite the way he blames everybody but himself for his actions and his choices, despite the cold and calculating way he makes his plans without any thought to who he is harming, there were many instances throughout the story when I forgot that he was the bad guy. I am not gonna say that I ever rooted for him or supported his thoughts, but there were times when I found myself reading the book and thinking of him as just another regular male protagonist who is madly in love with a woman who does not love him back. That is not the story here though, and Joe’s obsession with Beck was something that will probably haunt me for a long time. I also loved the unreliability of Joe’s narration. Because of the way he perceives others and the world itself, and because we are reading the story from his perspective, I often had to figure out myself what the reality really was because Joe’s reality is extremely deluded.

However, despite the strong narration, the plot was flimsy at best. Everything was too easy for Joe–from stalking Beck to being able to interfere in her life the way he did–he was able to do all of it because of the carelessness of both Beck and the other supportive characters. I truly do not mean to blame the victim, but there are certain things you know not to do no matter how screwed up you are or how safe you feel in your neighborhood, especially when you are a twenty-something adult living all by yourself. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that it wasn’t really that much of a challenge for Joe to do the things that he does in this novel, because all the characters are so incredibly stupid and reckless about their own personal safety.

In fact, this book has a plot simply because the characters lack common sense and intelligence. If the characters here did not make the mistakes that they did, the plot really would not have progressed very far.

Speaking of the plot, although Joe’s narration made it really easy for me to fly through the book, halfway in to the story I became extremely bored because of how repetitive and predictable everything was. I feel like this book should have been shorter, and several chapters here should have been simply cut, because they just were not necessary. The predictability and repetitiveness of the story made it difficult for me to finish this book, because after the 50% mark, every time I picked up the book I put it down again thinking “meh I know what’s gonna happen.” And I did. There really was no element of surprise after the 50% mark.

All in all, this was a good read, but not good enough that I would recommend it to anyone.

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Have you ever read a book that gave you nightmares? Or haunted you for a long time? Which one was it and what made you want to read it?

Adult, Home, Mental Health

Review: It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

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Ratings: ☕☕☕☕☕ (5/5)

Trigger warning: abusive relationship, domestic violence, sexual assault

SOMETIMES THE ONE WHO LOVES YOU IS THE ONE WHO HURTS YOU THE MOST

Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up – she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, and maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily, but Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing.

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan – her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.

“Shouldn’t there be more distaste in our mouths for the abusers than for those who continue to love the abusers?”

It Ends With Us isn’t a book that changed me, nor is it a book that taught me things that I didn’t already know. But it is a special book, nonetheless, not just because it is incredibly well-written, has complex characters who are painfully imperfect, and a plot that is–to quote Hoover herself–brave and bold. This book is special, because this book is important.

Abusive relationships is a subject that needs to be discussed more often, especially considering that even now, though we do hate and condemn abusers, almost all of us have asked this question at least once: “Why didn’t she leave him the first time he hit her? Why did she give him a second chance? Why didn’t she walk away?”

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