Icon of the Indecisive

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Icon of the Indecisive by Mina V. EsguerraIcon of the Indecisive by Mina V. Esguerra
Interim Goddess of Love # 1
Publisher: Bright Girl Books
My copy: review copy from the author

College student Hannah Maquiling, also temporarily working as the Goddess of Love, has had enough of everyone asking for her help when it comes to relationships. It’s her turn to find romance! She deserves it, after serving as matchmaker and confidant to everyone else in Ford River College for the past year. She’s had a crush on handsome senior (and God of the Sun) Quin forever, but he’s destined to fall in love with an extraordinary mortal woman, so she’s figured her chances with him have pretty much dropped to zero.

It’s not like she doesn’t have any options for a classic college romance though. There’s Diego, God of the Sea and Quin’s best friend/enemy. And regular guy Robbie is stepping up, making sure she knows how he feels about her. How hard can it be for a goddess to find someone to love, and be loved in return?

* * *

So at the end Queen of the Clueless by Mina V. Esguerra, I was pretty much sad for Hannah, and I was wondering what will happen next. I won’t explain why I was sad, but if you’ve read a lot of trilogies like I do, second books usually end on a sad/cliffhanger note, so it was kind of expected. I was very, very glad to hear that Mina planned to release Hannah’s third and last book, Icon of the Indecisive, early, because I need to know what will happen next!

Slight spoilers for the first two books starts here! The story opens on Valentine’s Day, the day when Hannah as the Interim Goddess of Love, will become most busy. Hannah is a little bit tired of handling other people’s love problems, and she wants to focus on her own this time around. But since Quin is supposed to fall in love with an extraordinary human girl, Hannah figures may it’s time to give Robbie the Cute Human a chance. But Quin’s acting just a little strange lately. Not to mention there’s Vida, who still hasn’t explained what she did to Hannah, and Diego, who asks strange things of Hannah. How will Hannah ever focus on her own life now? Spoiler warning ends here.

Let’s just say this book had me…er, squeeing more than half the time. Hee. There were many, many things I wanted to ask at the end of the second book, but I’m very glad to report that this third book delivers. Questions were answered here, and loose ends were tied up nicely, with a lot more explanations to what the gods and goddesses can do. I liked that Hannah can do more goddess-y stuff here, and that we get to see her grow more here with her own decisions in life. I like that there’s more Robbie the Cute Human here (because he is a cute human :D), and there’s just a lot more swoon here.

As far as the ending goes…I got the ending I wanted. But it’s not just that, and I liked the message about how these characters will get to that ending. I won’t say anything more, but if we’ve talked about these books lately, then you’ll know why I was very happy with how this ended. Very happy. <3

Okay, I was partially squeeing there, did you notice? I actually got to read the book waaay earlier than the release because Mina asked me to be a part of the Interim Goddess of Love audio commentary (with Chachic, Chris and Meann) that you can download here. Not only do you get to hear us talk, but you also get to hear some juicy trivia about the series. But listen to it after you’re done with the series, because you don’t really want to be spoiled. :)

If you want something cute, light with so many #feels, or if you just want an easy introduction to Filipino fiction with a bit of Filipino folklore, make sure you pick up the Interim Goddess of Love series. And lucky you who won’t have to wait long to see how Hannah’s story ends. :)

Rating: [rating=5]

Other reviews:
The Girl Who Read and Other Stories
Chachic’s Book Nook

Reviews of other Interim Goddess of Love books:
#1 Interim Goddess of Love
#2 Queen of the Clueless

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Unseen Moon

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Unseen Moon by Eliza VictoriaUnseen Moon by Eliza Victoria
Publisher: Independent/Print-on-demand
Number of pages: 220
My copy: ebook review copy from the author

Ghosts in a mansion. A home invasion. A group of friends haunted by a murder. An unlikely friendship, a dead body in an abandoned house. A girl falling to her death, and another falling into the viewless darkness.

Unseen Moon collects five suspenseful stories by award-winning author Eliza Victoria.

* * *

When Eliza Victoria sent me an email about sending a review copy of her newest book, I couldn’t say no. Note that I’m not really a fan of dark fiction, or horror or suspense, but this is Eliza, guys. I read her stuff and liked it, even if they’re not the usual things I go for. I’m not really one for scaring myself, but I make certain exceptions especially when the author just writes really, really well.

Unseen Moon is Eliza’s newest collection that contains several of her short stories, most of them never been published in print. They’re part horror, lots of crime and suspense…and well, lots of dead bodies. Like her other works, the stories are well-written and I think they are exactly what she intended them to be — dark. Sometimes, a bit too bloody. But definitely dark. Here’s a mini-review of each of the stories, and my rating for them.

Needle Rain (3/5) – This is the story of Cleofe, Cedric, Brian and Emily, their friendship and the murder that happened in their town. For some reason, this story felt distinctly Filipino. The combination of the small town, hanging out with friends in the afternoon while eating, and the storms that raged in the story reminded me of my own younger years, where I would work on projects at home while a storm happened outside and it was only a matter of minutes before the house is plunged in darkness because the storm caused a power interruption. Of course, that’s the only thing that I related to in this story. :P Needle Rain comes off as a murder mystery story at first, and then it spirals into something else. I was quite prepared to be scared at first, but in the end I felt more sad. If only the characters were wiser, then it wouldn’t have turned out that way.

The Ghosts of Sinagtala (4/5) – This is a story of Ben and Emma, who inherited a mansion from their grandparents that had a dark history. Oh what a creepy, creepy story. Tricia was tweeting about this when she read it first, so I knew well enough to read this in broad daylight. And even then, I still got terribly creeped out. This is my favorite in the book, and I really liked the connection between the mansion’s past to Ben and Emma. This is the story that successfully made me not want to go out of my room at night to get a glass of water because I was afraid to find a little girl crying in the darkness. O_o

Summer Evening (2/5) – Twins Amarilis and Carlos were left behind by their older brother, Nathan, to his ex-girlfriend, Alicia, because he had a job to do. The twins hate Alicia, so when two guys entered their house to do something to her, they turned their backs. I wasn’t really a big fan of this because it felt too violent for me, and it kind of took me by surprise. That, and there was just something a little too disturbing with the characters — perhaps I just refused to believe that they are capable of what they are doing in the story? It’s still well-written, though, and the ending kind of made me want to wring one of the characters’ necks, but this was one story that I kind of wanted to end quickly because the events made me just a bit queasy.

December (3/5) – Gabriel makes an unlikely friend in an orphan named December, who has her own issues with the people around her. A dead body in an abandoned mansion, a dead body in the lake and lots of music form the core of this story. This one sort of reminds me of Summer Evening, but it was less violent and a little more melancholic than the previous story. In some ways it was a little bit disturbing, but I was able to sympathize with the two main characters in the story more than I did for the previous story.

The Viewless Dark (4/5) – I read this back in October 2012 and I really liked it. I didn’t exactly reread all of it when I read this book again. I still read parts of it, though, and felt the same chill I had when I first read it, and felt the same attachment to the characters, both dead and alive. I think this is a good story to end this collection.

Overall, Unseen Moon is another good collection of Eliza’s stories. It’s not as scary as I expected (except for The Ghosts of Sinagtala – remembering several scenes still gives me the creeps), but it was really quite dark. This collection is a little bit more similar to Lower Myths than A Bottle of Storm Clouds, sans the paranormal aspect. If you want to get to know Eliza’s works but you’re not a huge fan of anything that is out of the normal world, then Unseen Moon might be the right Eliza book for you. If you’ve read Eliza’s other works and you want more, then you won’t want to miss this one. :)

The ebook edition of Unseen Moon is available via Smashwords right now (four stories only, since the ebook edition of The Viewless Dark is available via Flipreads), but if you’re a print person, you can pre-order a print copy of Unseen Moon until May 10 through Eliza’s blog. An excerpt of the stories is also posted in the same blog entry.

Rating: [rating=3]

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Required Reading: May 2013

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Wow, where did April go?

April was, in a word, busy. I was out every weekend, and I was on midshift at work, too, so I was always home late and up late, too. Everything was a whirlwind last month, and my personal life was also like that, too. So I think I made the right decision to choose just two books to read for my April reading list, because I only finished…one.

  • Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (4/5) – our book club’s book of the month, which I really liked. I found it slow, but it was the right kind of slowness that made it beautiful. :)

I’m have about less than 200 pages to go for Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but I think I’ll be able to finish that soon since things are finally picking up. :)

Required Reading: May

May is still a bit busy but not in the book club sense. I have two weddings to attend to this month, and my dad’s going to be home, plus a bunch of birthdays, so…yeah. But it won’t be as busy as April, so I picked a few more books than the usual. There’s no theme this time, except maybe that the books are roughly around the same length. And that I didn’t spend for any of the books on my list. :D

Required Reading for May 2013

  1. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff – our book club’s traveling book, which has been passed around since last year. It’s finally my turn, and I’m really excited to read it since everyone seemed to have good reviews for it. It’s pretty thin, so I’m pretty sure I’d be able to finish this in a day. :)
  2. Smaller and Smaller Circles by FH Batacan – our book club’s book of the month. I read this one back in college so I’m really just rereading it now to refresh my memory. I won this during our book discussion last Saturday, where our moderator gave away two copies. Also speed reading it now so I can pass my copy to other people in the club. :)
  3. The Orange Girl by Jostein Gaarder – I got this one from DC, who recommended the book to me last month, and provided a copy so I can read it. This is supposed to be passed around in our book club, too. So whoever wants to line up for this, let me know! This is technically my first Gaarder, since I didn’t really finish Sophie’s World when I tried to read it in college. ^^
  4. Essays In Love by Alain de Botton – Borrowed this from JL. I’ve been wanting to read a book by the author ever since I followed him on Twitter, but I’m not a huge fan of non-fiction or philosophy. But the topic of this book is too irresistible, so I’m glad that I have a friend who reads these kinds of books. I know this is more apt for February, but I figure since I’m attending two weddings this month, I could read it now. :)
  5. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver – Borrowed from Angus just last Saturday when I was able to check out his shelves after our discussion. He had a rave review for this, and again the subject is something I like reading about. Plus, again, weddings this month.
  6. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke – spillover from April. Again, I have less than 200 pages left. I should be done with this soon. :)

And so, there. A lot more books than my usual list, but they’re all less than 250 pages (save for the last, but I’m counting the pages I have left to read) so it should not be so hard to finish, yes? I realize how different these books are now, and I don’t even have a YA book here. Looks like I really am expanding my reading horizons, yes? I should blog about that.

So, what are you reading this May? :)

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Dead Stars

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I thought of writing a review for this short story that we discussed last weekend, but I was honestly a tad lazy to do it just yet. However, I was digging through some college files for some notes to do some work, and I found my work sheet from my English Literature class about Paz Marquez Benitez’s short story. I thought I’d just post that one here, because it’s sort of a review of the story from when I first read (and liked) it. :) Oh, please note that I wrote these answers about 7 years ago, so these thoughts come from a 19-year-old Tina. :D

Oh, and if you’ve never read the story, you can read it online here.

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Dead Stars by Paz Marquez Benitez

Discuss briefly one internal and one external factor or force that might have contributed to Alfredo’s decision to marry Esperanza despite the apparent mutual attraction between him and Julia. (Spoiler warning!)

Alfredo is supposed to marry Esperanza, but then he meets Julia and falls for her, so he starts to question if Esperanza was actually right for her. But in the end, he ended up marrying Esperanza. One factor that might have influenced this decision is because everyone around him knows about the upcoming marriage. Esperanza’s parents know it, his parents know it, and they have already set a date (or at least, a month) for them to be married. I’m pretty sure invitations are then being made, as well as the program and such. So if he decides to cancel the wedding, it would be a big outrage to everyone, especially to Esperanza’s party. Another factor, which comes from him, is that because even if there is a mutual attraction between him and Julia, he still feels the responsibility of his set wedding to Esperanza. Even if there was apparent mutual attraction between him and Julia, he knew he had this promise to marry the other girl, and being a man, he couldn’t back out from it.

Choose one passage in the story that you particularly like and explain why you like it.

So all these years—since when?—he had been seeing the light of dead stars, long extinguished, yet seemingly still in their appointed places in the heavens. (par. 223)

I like this passage because it sounds so sad, yet it is full of meaning. Besides the fact that the title of the short story appears in this passage, which I think is really lovely (the title), I think I can relate to this somehow. I think this passage talks about someone seeing something that is long gone, but knowing that it was there – gone, but was there before. It’s when you end up expecting something from someone for a long time. When you finally get to talk to the person about it, it turns out that what you have been expecting before is gone, and yet you can still see that they were there before.

* * *

In a nutshell: I liked the story then, and I still like the story now. While the language may be a bit deep and possibly dated, I thought it had just the right amount of angst and bitterness of a “love” that is lost. It’s the kind of story that makes me sigh, shake my fist at Alfredo, and wish that things could be different, even if I’m not sure who needs that different ending the most. True, the characters could have been fleshed out more, but I think the story gives us just enough of the overall conflict that it left me melancholic and wistful at the end.

Sigh.

Rating: [rating=4]

Other reviews:
marginalia
Book Rhapsody
It’s A Wonderful Book World

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Required Reading 2013: March

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February was a fabulous month, if I do say so myself. Many things happened in February, but three major bookish things happened to me:

  1. My book/short story discussion happened last weekend (and I wrote about it here)
  2. My new Kindle Paperwhite that finally arrived:

    Hannah the Kindle Paperwhite ♥

    Hannah the Kindle Paperwhite ♥

  3. I finally finished Les Misérables! (On Valentine’s Day!)

So February was a very good bookish month, all things considered. A recap of my February Required Reading books:

  • Every Day by David Levithan (4/5) – Levithan does it again. There were several memorable quotes here, and it was the right book to start February with. I still like The Lover’s Dictionary just a bit more, but Every Day is pretty good.
  • Boundless by Cynthia Hand (4/5) – The finale to my favorite angel series. I lost sleep over this! Still gathering my thoughts for my review – wait for it!
  • Fourteen Love Stories edited by Jose Dalisay Jr. and Angelo R. Lacuesta (3/5) – It was okay, and there were some stories I really liked, but there were others that I was kind of ambivalent about. I guess I was expecting it to give me more feels?

I wasn’t able to crack open For Darkness Shows the Stars at all, and I’m still in the middle of Ghostwritten, but I won’t include them in the next month’s list anymore. I did read several romance books in the last month to keep up with the theme — needless to say, I had a very “romantic” month because of all that.

On to my favorite month!

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