Author Archives: Tina

What I Read (1): Monique

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So I thought after two years of blogging about books and writing reviews and posting stuff about books and basically talking about myself over and over again, it’s time to start opening the floor blog to some guests! Introducing my first semi-regular blog feature, What I Read.

What I Read

In What I Read, I invite a guest to talk about the books they read. Yes, yes, I know everyone does that in their own blogs, but I want to be specific this time. I believe all readers have very different tastes, and what might work for one might not work for another. There are certain things in certain books that could make us extremely happy or piss us off. There are also times when readers ventured out of their comfort zones and found something they really like or something they didn’t like and will mostly likely never revisit again. And I also know every reader has a guilty pleasure in the books they read — that too! :) I want to know all of that. This is a venue to talk just about that – to be as specific or as general as you want to be and not be judged for any of those little quirks that make us readers so different from each other.

The truth is, I’ve been really wanting to write something like this on my blog, but I never had the time until now, and then I thought: why not ask other readers about their own tastes, too? :)

So for the first installment of this feature, I would like to welcome one of my good friends in our Goodreads book club, Monique of Bookish Little Me. We call her Atty. Monique online because she’s a lawyer by profession, and she’s also a mom to a very, very adorable girl, Allie. Monique and I met online first, and she kindly sent me a copy of Ender’s Game when I complained about not finding a copy anywhere (interestingly, after I got what she sent me, I found copies of that book in so many bookstores). We often chat/gossip over Twitter about random things, and we push books to each other a lot. Not all our book tastes match 100%, but I like how varied her library is and how willing she is to try new books even if they’re not her usual picks. :)

Bookish Little MeIn ten words or less, what kind of books do you usually read?

I am a diverse reader; I read anything.

In your most favorite genre, what are the things you like to read about? Any pet peeves?

Right off the bat, I have to say that I really don’t have a most favorite genre because I read practically everything, although I enjoy fiction much more than non-fiction. Majority of what I read, however, can be categorized into general contemporary fiction, which includes paranormal (Anne Rice, Deborah Harkness, Charlaine Harris), legal thrillers (John Grisham, Stieg Larsson) and, if you will allow me to sub-categorize, general-general fiction (Kazuo Ishiguro, Yann Martel, Neil Gaiman, Carlos Ruiz Zafon).

Some of Monique's favorite books

Some of Monique's favorite books - "Notice the diversity in genre. ;)"

As for pet peeves, I can’t really say I have any. If I like a book, then well and good; if I don’t, then maybe I’ll rant about how it was a waste of time, and that’s the end of it. Most of the books I pick up, however, come recommended by friends and bestsellers lists (and recently, by Goodreads people), so I’m happy to report that the batting average for the books that I like (as opposed to those I don’t) is pretty high. :)

List the shelves you look at when visiting a bookstore in chronological order.

When I go to a bookstore, it’s not usually to browse; more often than not, I have a specific title or author in mind that I want to check out, and that’s the shelf I head over to first.

However, if I do visit a bookstore just to browse, which is almost always the case when I’m at FullyBooked BHS, I always head over first to the bestsellers section/shelves. Since my taste in books is diverse, I tend to check out the top-selling titles over a specific period, and see which ones catch my fancy (depending, of course, on my mood).

I do, however, loiter around the fiction shelves more than the non-fiction ones.

What’s one genre you’ve never really ventured into? Would you ever try reading it?

The advantage of having diverse reading habits is that there isn’t a genre that you wouldn’t try venturing into. I’ve read YA, high fantasy, romance/chicklit, science fiction, historical fiction, classics, memoirs, children’s books, graphic novels, and yes, even erotica. So I guess it would be safe to say that there isn’t a genre that I haven’t read yet, and if there’s any that I’ve yet to discover, then I would gladly welcome the chance to read it.

Have you ever tried reading a book recommended to you that is outside of your comfort zone? Did you like it or not?

Yes, I have. For me, the most complicated genre – you know, the books that take a while for me to get into, or plots that take a while to get me engaged because of all the seeming peculiarities in the story – is dystopia, and I mean dystopia in general. So for purposes of “comfort zones” and going outside of it, I would consider dystopia as one genre that’s well far from the perimeter of my comfort zone, which is everything else.It doesn’t mean, though, that I don’t try to read dytopian-themed books, and there are in fact books from the genre that I’ve enjoyed, like 1984 and The Giver, to name a couple.

What’s your reading guilty pleasure? Come on, I know you have one. :P

Monique's shelves -- some of them, anyway. :)

Okay, I have to confess: there’s more than one. :D

There are days when I just feel that urge – the need! – to splurge on books, and I usually give in to these urges. Amazon, FullyBooked, Book Sale. Oh thank goodness for these stores. :)) I’ve been trying my best to remedy my book-hoarding ways because I always feel guilty not being able to have enough time to read all the books that collect dust at home (and even in the office), but there are just times that I couldn’t help it; it’s like bingeing on chocolates when you know you’re on a diet. You do know what I’m talking about, right? :D

Another guilty pleasure: buying brand-new copies of books of my favorite authors, even if I know I could get them secondhand.

Another one: I can’t not cover my print books with plastic before reading them, and write/stamp my name on the inside covers, too. Haha. :)

—

Thanks for your time, Monique! Last time I saw her was last weekend during our discussion of George Orwell’s 1984. I liked hearing her insights on the book, and I was impressed that she actually wrote notes on her Kindle copy and they weren’t the type of notes that I would usually write, too (e.g. OMG THEY DID THAT??? and Okay, where did this come from?). I always enjoy reading her reviews, even if they’re books I haven’t read or even ever plan on reading. :)

I’ll be featuring 1-2 readers every month for What I Read, depending on how busy I am. :D If you’re interested, you can drop me a line through the contact form or by sending an email to hello[at]tinamats.com. :)

Required Reading: February

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January has come and gone…and it’s been a very good reading month, if I do say so myself. I read a total of 12 books — can you believe that? And I finished all Required Reading books too! Here’s a recap:

That was pretty good, yes? I think the books I read in January were pretty good, too, and I enjoyed most of them. I still ended up getting more books so my TBR pile is still solidly on 128. Oh well, I’ll find a way to get that number down.

Did you join last month’s Required Reading challenge? How did you do?

Now we’re on to February!

Required Reading: February

Continue reading →

How to Save a Life

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How to Save a Life by Sara ZarrHow to Save a Life by Sara Zarr
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 341 pages

Jill MacSweeny just wishes everything could go back to normal. But ever since her dad died, she’s been isolating herself from her boyfriend, her best friends–everyone who wants to support her. And when her mom decides to adopt a baby, it feels like she’s somehow trying to replace a lost family member with a new one.

Mandy Kalinowski understands what it’s like to grow up unwanted–to be raised by a mother who never intended to have a child. So when Mandy becomes pregnant, one thing she’s sure of is that she wants a better life for her baby. It’s harder to be sure of herself. Will she ever find someone to care for her, too?

As their worlds change around them, Jill and Mandy must learn to both let go and hold on, and that nothing is as easy–or as difficult–as it seems.

It’s a bad time for Jill MacSweeny ever since her father died. Always a daddy’s girl, Jill feels lost without her dad, but now she just feels angry that her mom had decided to do the unthinkable: adopt a baby. And not just adopt a baby, but let the mother of the baby live with them until the baby is delivered. Mandy Kalinowski is the pregnant girl in question, and she’s always known how it feels to be unwanted. Mandy wants a better life for her baby, and she thinks Robin MacSweeny would be able to give just that. She moves in with them as agreed, and she finds Robin to be a very nice person, even if her daughter Jill never liked Mandy. But as her due date grows nearer, she’s faced with doubts: can she really let her baby go? And if she does, what happens to her after that?

I was pretty sure I was going to like How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr, but I was surprised at how much I ended up loving it. I’m a big fan of Sara Zarr, not just her books but her posts at the Good Letters blog. She’s quickly becoming one of my sources of inspiration online, and I like that her books reflect what she believe in. I wanted to read this as soon as I got it, but I kind of feared that I wasn’t ready for the emotional punch that it had, especially after most of the reviews said a lot about tears being shed and all that. But the good reviews gave me something to look forward to, so reading it at the start of 2012 felt like a perfect gift for myself.

Like in Sara Zarr’s other books, there is a quiet beauty in how Jill and Mandy’s story unfolded. They were two characters from the opposite ends of the spectrum, clashing horribly at first. Honestly, I thought both characters were unlikeable. When I read Jill’s parts, I wanted to shake her for being so bitter and out of it. She reminded me a bit of Macy in The Truth About Forever, but also not quite because Macy seemed easier to approach compared to Jill who completely shut everyone out. Mandy, on the other hand, is someone who I would probably steer clear from if I met someone like her in real life. I could understand why Jill would rather avoid her, aside from the fact that she was carrying the baby that Jill never wanted to be a part of their family. Mandy is socially awkward and more often than not, the things she says hit the wrong note in other people who do not know how to be patient with her. I admit to be that kind of person, unfortunately, so sometimes reading Mandy’s chapters were a struggle. Oh, but I also ached for her so much, too. The two grew on me as the story went on, and it wasn’t even because there were drastic changes to their personality. In fact, the changes that happened to them didn’t feel like changes at all — they were choices. The choice to do something right, to think of others first, the choice to love in spite of and because of things they cannot understand. It all unfolds beautifully in the story, and it filled my heart with so much love for these two girls that I just want the best for them too.

Normally I would ramble on about how the plot was good and how the other characters were equally as good here, but to be perfectly honest, I can’t. Not that the other characters weren’t good (they were, and they were very fun to read) or the plot was bad (it wasn’t, although the predictable factor is high). It’s just that the book really concentrates on how Jill and Mandy’s lives were changed and saved by the choices that they and the people who loved them made. It all came together so beautifully that I didn’t care if I sort of predicted the ending pages ago — it was still worth getting to it. I was happy that it ended that way. Overall, How to Save a Life is a story of family and love, and how that kind of love can really save a life.

I end this review with a quote from her post about the book on the Good Letters Blog, which I think sums up why I loved this book so much:

As reluctant as I am to talk about “themes” in my work or to explain it or myself, I can see, after four published novels and three unpublished, that this idea of intentional family, of claiming and being claimed, is one of the themes lurking beneath and hovering around all of my work.

My stories seem to always involve people choosing to love other people, in spite of the pain those people have sometimes brought them, in spite of the way they let each other down, in spite of both their minor imperfections and deep flaws.

In the interviews I’ve done about How to Save a Life thus far, nine times out of ten I’m asked if I worried that one of the characters, Jill, was unsympathetic or unlikeable. No, I say. I didn’t worry about it. My editor did, to an extent, and I worked a little on showing glimpses of Jill’s humanity. But not much. Because the point about love, this free will love of the people we call family or true friends, the people we take into our lives, the ones that lead us to claim “you are mine,” is that it doesn’t depend on them (or us) being sympathetic characters.

It’s the kind of love we all hope for.

Rating: ★★★★★

Required Reading 2012: JanuaryMy copy: hardcover from Book Depository

Other reviews:
Forever Young Adult
Book Harbinger
Angieville

Anna Dressed in Blood

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Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare BlakeAnna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
Anna # 1
Tor Teen, 316 pages

Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story. . .

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.

So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life.

Everyone who knows me in real life (and even online) know that I am a great big chicken. I don’t like anything scary, both in movies, TV or books. Oh, I used to like them when I was younger, but I always, always scare myself silly that I end up not being able to sleep peacefully or go to the comfort room for a week or so because my imagination kept bringing up all the scary things I heard/read/talked about. I know there’s a delicious feeling to being scared, but when you keep on running in and out of the comfort room to pee for a week, it’s not fun.

That’s one of the reasons why I delayed reading Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake until know. I borrowed this from Maria after our Quezon trip with other Goodreads friends but I never picked it up. I always put it off because I said I had no time, and then I said I won’t read it yet because it’s Christmas and I don’t want to be scared, and then I said I won’t read it yet because I don’t have any company at home and God knows what happens when I’m scared at night and alone. This week, though, I got my brave face and finally, finally picked it up, hoping that my parents’ presence at home would make me less frightened.

Like I said: I’m a big chicken.

Cas Lowood is a ghost hunter — not the ones you see on TV but someone who puts ghosts who harm living people to sleep. It’s not like those normal Healthcare Administration Jobs that other people got, but Cas feels this is his destiny. When his father died, he took over the “business” with his white witch mom and their pet cat, and they moved from one place to another, killing these ghosts. Cas and his mom arrives in a town where the famous ghost called Anna Dressed in Blood haunts a house. Anna was killed fifty years ago, her throat cut open spilling over the white of her dress, making her look like she was dressed in actual blood. Cas was just expecting to kill her and move on, but he finds it extremely difficult to do so — Anna was not an ordinary ghost, and for someone who’s full of rage and kills anyone who enters her house, she shows mercy and spares Cas’ life.

Anna Dressed in Blood was one of those books that made it to many people’s Best of 2011 lists, too, and I promise, if it wasn’t a scary novel, I would have read it earlier. I managed to read the book in broad daylight most of the time and I realized soon after that it wasn’t as scary as it was. It was scary, but it wasn’t like Paranormal Activity 3 scary because the setting was very different from where I live and stay. I had a general impression of watching a Supernatural episode while I was reading Anna, but with less of the hot brothers. ;) It stopped being that scary after that particular part at the first visit to Anna’s house, and then everything just felt like a big mystery until the twist comes. I had to breathe a sigh of relief when I felt more comfortable with the story without having the need to close the book and get my nerves together. :D

It’s a surprisingly fast read and I found myself devouring the story. At its core, Anna Dressed in Blood is more of a paranomal novel than horror, but it isn’t the usual one with a whiny heroine and a brooding hero. True, Cas has some kind of arrogance with the way he does his work but he grew on me, and his brooding periods didn’t really have that much screen time. Anna was a mystery even up to the end, and I feel like there is still more to her than what was revealed in the story. Their relationship was…well, kind of cute, and I know how odd that sounds in a horror story. Let’s just say it was one of those pairings that was very interesting to read.

I love the supporting cast in this one: Thomas, Carmel, Cas’ mom and especially the cat, Tybalt. Novels with animals are a huge plus for me. I like Thomas’ stubbornness and Carmel’s courage in the face of the unknown. Cas’ mom reminds me of someone who would offer tea and cookies to her son’s friends and amaze them with stories. Anna Dressed in Blood‘s characters feel like a well-rounded sort of bunch, and it was a pleasure to read them.

Reading Anna Dressed in Blood felt like I was watching a Supernatural episode, sans the brothers and the car and the shooting. I really enjoyed reading this book. This book didn’t change my aversion to anything scary, and I still won’t go read the real horror novels or go watch scary movies anytime soon (maybe ever). But I think I am most definitely reading the sequel, Girl of Nightmares, when it comes out this year.

But I will probably read it in broad daylight again.

Rating: ★★★★★

My copy: Borrowed from Maria

Other reviews:
The Book Smugglers
The Midnight Garden
Reading is the ultimate aphrodisiac
The Nocturnal Library

The Reread Factor (1): Anna and the French Kiss

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A few months ago, I posted something about how I named some favorite books in the past after the first read and then when I pick it up again, I realize that I don’t really like them as much as I did during the first read. That post/thoughts made me a bit more careful about how I add some books to my favorites shelf. I wanted to make sure that the ones that make it there are the ones I like even if I read it over and over again. So I decided to start this little feature/challenge for this year: The Reread Factor.

The Reread Factor

The Reread Factor is about that: the reread. I pick some of my best reads from the previous year and reread them, and see if I still like them as much as the first time, and if they could be a book for the favorites shelf. Every now and then, I’ll be posting something about some of the books I found the time to reread, and I’ll talk about if I still liked it or not and what made me still like it or even dislike it after the second (or third) reread.

Note that the initial ratings I may have put on the book may change later on, but the first review will stay. Think of this as a follow-up review of sorts. :)

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
First read in: December 2010

Anna and the French Kiss was one of my favorite reads in 2010, and I pushed this book to everyone who’s ever wanted to read a contemporary YA romance novel. I loved this book so much that I searched for Point Zero in Notre Dame when I was in Paris in August 20111. I loved everything about this book, and I was on a contemporary mood early January so I decided to reread this.

Spoiler warning. If you haven’t read the book yet and you’re still planning to read it, skip towards the end, or just go to my review of Anna and the French Kiss.

Rereading Anna and the French Kiss was an interesting experience. It was familiar, and yet there were some parts I almost kind of forgot. There were some parts that I highlighted that I wasn’t even sure why I highlighted it. I suppose some of them were just really things that struck me, while others…I guess they were supposed to be funny but I’m not exactly sure anymore. Still, even if I knew what was going to happen, I anticipated so many things in the story: the first meeting, the conversations, the gifts and all the little moments that Anna and Etienne had together…and they all still made me smile.

Most of what I wrote back then still rang true on my second read: how easy it was to be immersed in Anna’s world, the side stories about cancer, absent friends and independence, and how the issues were addressed one by one at a given time frame with solutions that weren’t instant or too clean. Okay except maybe for the girlfriend issue, which I felt that maybe it was tied up without anything being heard from the other party. Was she just too tired to fight for it because it’s about to end anyway? Why were there no repercussions to what St. Clair did? Perhaps it would’ve been more realistic if there was one more encounter with Ellie…except that maybe it wouldn’t be as happily ever after if that happened.

On another note, the relate-factor of Anna and the French Kiss is still quite high, surprisingly. I won’t go into detail why (too personal, no need to bore you with that), but man, there were some sorta painful parts to read here when it started hitting too close to home. Interestingly, they weren’t the same parts that I highlighted on the first read. From my reading journal:

Still so good…the relate factor is still totally there, especially when Anna and Etienne were friends, but also not really. And how they kept on going at it without defining anything. WHYYYY.

Uh, yeah, I may have been more affected than I thought. ^^;

So is this book a favorite? Well…probably, but I have to admit that I wasn’t as in love with this as I was during my first read. But somehow, I wasn’t as enchanted with it as I was at the first time. A part of me is kind of wary that maybe a few years down the road, with more experiences under my belt, the book may not mean as much to me then as it does now and as it did in the first read. But that happens, right? However, it is still 100% swoony, and Anna will still be the one of the first books I will recommend to anyone who is looking for a feel-good and well-rounded romantic read.

Finally, I think this book just fueled my need to go back to Paris again to see the places Anna visited and make a proper wish at Point Zero. Someone bring me back there, please.

 

  1. Too bad I wasn’t able to bring my copy of the book so I could have posed with it on my Point Zero photo [↩]

Interim Goddess of Love

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Interim Goddess of Love by Mina V. EsguerraInterim Goddess of Love by Mina V. Esguerra
Interim Goddess of Love # 1
Bright Girl Books

College sophomore Hannah Maquiling doesn’t know why everyone tells her their love problems. She’s never even had a boyfriend, but that doesn’t stop people from spilling their guts to her, and asking for advice. So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise when the cutest guy in school tells her that she’s going to have to take on this responsibility — but for all humanity.

The Goddess of Love has gone AWOL. It’s a problem, because her job is to keep in check this world’s obsession with love (and lack of it). The God of the Sun, for now an impossibly handsome senior at an exclusive college just outside of Metro Manila, thinks Hannah has what it takes to (temporarily) do the job.

While she’s learning to do this goddess thing, she practices on the love troubles of shy Kathy, who’s got a secret admirer on campus. Hannah’s mission, should she choose to accept it, is to make sure that he’s not a creepy stalker and they find their happily ever after — or at least something that’ll last until next semester. (As if she could refuse! The Sun God asked so nicely. And he’s so, well, hot.)

You know a book is good when you go back and reread some most of the book the moment you’re done. Sometimes it’s just to read your favorite parts, but for others (especially for novellas), it’s almost like reading the entire book because you just can’t get enough of it and you want to relive the events of the book.

Such is Mina V. Esguerra’s newest novel (and her YA debut), Interim Goddess of Love. College sophomore Hannah Maquiling is a scholar in exclusive Ford River College, and she’s caught the eye of Joaquin Apolinario, aka Quin, one of the hottest guys in school. But it wasn’t in a way that she (or anyone else) expected. She caught Quin’s eye because Quin is also the Sun God, and he needs her to be the Interim Goddess of Love. The real Goddess of Love has gone missing, and someone needs to fill in her shoes for a while, and Hannah fits the bill. Hannah accepts (because the Sun God was nice, not to mention cute), and starts using her powers on Kathy Martin, a shy classmate who’s all flustered about her secret admirer.

So cute. I’ve always loved Mina’s books, but Interim Goddess of Love had me giggling and grinning when I was done (and when I was rereading some parts), almost like how I was when I was reading Fairy Tale Fail. I admit that I may have already loved Hannah before I read the book — she had me at this: “She’s never even had a boyfriend, but that doesn’t stop people from spilling their guts to her, and asking for advice.” But I loved her even more as I got to know her. Hannah’s voice sounds authentic and different from other YA heroines — it’s nice to read someone who isn’t too whiny and who doesn’t sound too old for her age, too. She’s a very likeable and reliable narrator, and she sounds like someone I would want to be friends with. It was so easy to stick with her and to root for her and hope for a happy ending for her. She’s not perfect, but boy did I find her easy to relate to. :P

Speaking of happy endings, there are the boys. As usual, Mina created very crushable guys to go with her heroine, not just as romantic interests. I found it funny that one of the questions that came up while reading this book was “Who’s your favorite?” That’s because there’s not one but three guys in the book, each with their own charm. I am particularly fond of Quin, but mostly because he’s the one in spotlight, but the other two guys provide good contrast (and competition) for the god of the sun.

That’s another thing to love about this book too: Interim Goddess of Love is not your usual contemporary YA romance because it had elements of Philippine mythology in it. Oh, you thought the gods and goddess reference were just figurative? It’s not. It doesn’t provide an in-depth discussion on Philippine mythology, but if just a taste of it, then you’ll get just that in this book. Then like Hannah, you’d end up wanting to know more because there’s just so much more to know. I look forward to reading more about them and how exactly they all relate to each other in the next books. :)

Interim Goddess of Love is another great book from Mina, and I still can’t stop grinning when I think of my favorite scenes. My only wish was it was longer because I definitely wanted more when I was done. I am so glad that this is the first book of a planned series and that the next book will be released later this year. I can’t wait to read about Hannah’s next goddess project (and more Quin moments, hihi :”> ).

Rating: ★★★★★

My copy: ebook from Amazon Kindle Store

Other reviews:
Ficsation

More info: Interview with Mina V. Esguerra at Rocket Kapre

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