Blog Tour: Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala

Title: Arsenic and AdoboAuthor: Mia P. ManansalaPublisher: BerkleyPublication Date: 04 May, 2021Rating: 4/5 starsLinks: Goodreads|Amazon Synopsis: The first book in a new culinary cozy series full of sharp humor and delectable dishes—one that might just be killer…. When Lila Macapagal moves back home to recover from a horrible breakup, her life seems to be following……

Mini Reviews: More Books I’ve Read in April

April was one of the best reading months I’ve had in a long time and I haven’t really the time or the inclination to talk about most of them in full so I’ve decided to make this post where I talk about the books in mini reviews. All in all, I’ll be talking about a……

Stories of Generations: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo

Title: Girl, Woman, Other Author: Bernardine Evaristo Rating: 5/5 stars Links: Goodreads|Amazon Review: Content warnings: Abusive relationships, sexual abuse, rape, victim blaming If I could rate Girl, Woman, Other more than five stars, I would. What an incredible, amazing book. I read this because as I’ve been getting into literary fiction, I wanted to see……

Shadow and Bone Review (From Someone Who Never Read the Books)

So my sister and I binged Shadow and Bone in two days over the weekend and I have some thoughts. Shadow and Bone is a fantasy adaptation of the Grishaverse series by Leigh Bardugo, a bestselling series of YA Fantasy novels. Now, I’ve never read the books and still have no desire to do so,……

Love of Family: A Girl Returned by Donatella Di Pietrantonio

Title: A Girl ReturnedAuthor: Donatella Di PietrantonioTranslator: Ann GoldsteinRating: 4/5 starsLinks: Goodreads|Amazon Review: A Girl Returned is about an unnamed narrator who tells the story of about a year in her childhood twenty years prior, when she was thirteen and returned by her adoptive parents in a seaside city to her birth parents in a……

Let’s Talk About: Human Acts by Han Kang

Translated by: Deborah Smith Content warning/s: Police brutality; state-sponsored violence Contains spoilers. This is one of the most gut-wrenching, yet beautiful books I’ve ever read. It is at once, both familiar and yet so different and in every page, you could feel the weight of history, that sense of loss that permeates every page. What……

Let’s Talk About: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Translated by: Louise and Alymer Maude When I started reading again after a few months of not reading, I decided to go for War and Peace. Three years ago when I got back into reading after a years-long slump, I wanted to start with War and Peace only to drop it because in a way,……

Let’s Talk About: Passing by Nella Larsen

TW: Depictions of racism Passing is a classic from the Harlem Renaissance which details the story of how two childhood friends met again after twelve years. Irene was married to a dark-skinned African-American doctor and became active in civil societies for African-Americans, while Clare married a white man with deep-seated prejudice for African-Americans. Clare, having……

Let’s Talk About: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Translated by: Ginny Tapley Takemori TW/s: Ableism, Aphobia Contains spoilers. Convenience Store Woman is a novella about a woman named Keiko Furukura who works in a convenience store. Actually, it’s a bit more complicated than that. She’s 36 years old and still works in the same convenience store she worked at when she was eighteen.……

On Changing Tastes in Books

A year ago, I talked about outgrowing YA and burning out of the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres. After that, I did read a couple or so fantasy books before falling into a months-long reading slump. Now, I’ve been reading again and I still haven’t come back to fantasy, nor have I read a YA……