From books, we go to characters! Today is the second day of the Faves of TwentyEleven series hosted by Nomes of inkcrush. :) Characters are my favorite part in a book, and sometimes I think they may even be more important than plot. I believe strong characters can revive an overused or boring plot, so I always pay attention to them. Here are some of the characters that stood out for me in the books I read in 2011. :)
I remember making my own set of best-of lists for last year, but this year I don’t have that same gimmick, so I’ll ride on other bloggers’ gimmicks instead. Ha. Here’s my first post for the Faves of Twenty Eleven hosted by Nomes of inkcrush! :)
In My Mailbox is a weekly book meme hosted by Kristi from The Story Siren, where bloggers post about what books received that week, be it via mailbox, library or store. I wasn’t expecting to write an In My Mailbox post this week, but three things happened:
And so, I ended up with these:
My FHL copy signed by the author :)
Signed High Society
Signed!
And being a Trese fan, I cannot pass up something like this:
Signed glossy Trese poster in plastic case :)
It’s so pretty. :) Actually, we call it a placemat because it kinda looks like one. But this is going on my wall, once I’ve organized my room. Gotta love the detail in this one. :)
And there goes my week. Before I reward myself with anything else, I must get to 50,000 words on my NaNoWriMo novel first. Onward!
This is me catching up on a couple of weeks of In My Mailbox posts again. It’s always more fun to post when you have more books to post about, right? :) Plus, I was out of town last weekend and I was just too exhausted to take photos and come up with an IMM post. Anyway, so many books in the past weeks — even I am surprised at my stash. Look:
Wee~
So, what did we get in the past few weeks?
I attended the launch of the fourth (and much-awaited!) Trese graphic novel at Robinsons Bestsellers two weeks ago. I’m not really a graphic novel person, but I loved Trese and I’ve been waiting for the fourth book ever since I finished all three a few months ago. :) The event was a success if you were to judge only with the number of people who attended (dress code was black, apparently :P). I do think it was an overall success because not only was it a full-house event, but also we got our books signed. :)
Last weekend, I was trying to get into reading Noli Me Tangere for my Required Reading challenge and because it was Independence Day. Unfortunately, I was having a hard time getting started — it is one of our National Hero’s masterpieces written during the Philippines’ Spanish era, so the language was a bit dated. I had a hard time getting into the book so I perused my shelf for something easier to read, but still Filipino because like I said, it was our country’s independence day.
So I said hello to Alexandra Trese again. :)
I can’t remember who told me about the Trese series — I probably read it in one of the many blogs I’m following. Since I was on a mission to read more Filipino work last year, I knew I should read it, even if I only bought myself the first copy. I got it, read it in an hour, and liked it but never got to review it. I even met the authors during the Metro Comicon last year, but I’m not a comic girl, so I wasn’t really that interested, or starstruck, unlike some of my friends were. Fast forward a few months later, after getting the next books and discussing graphic novels with Ariel (who gave me Books 2 and 3 for Christmas), I finally cracked them open.
Trese # 1: Murder on Balete Drive by Budjette Tan and KaJo Baldisimo
Visprint, 104 pages
When the sun sets in the city of Manila, don’t you dare make a wrong turn and end up in that dimly-lit side of the metro, where aswang run the most-wanted kidnapping rings, where kapre are the kingpins of crime, and engkantos slip through the cracks and steal your most precious possessions.
When crime takes a turn for the weird, the police call Alexandra Trese.
Trese is a comic book series about Alexandra Trese, a bar owner who also works as a paranormal detective helping the Manila police in solving the weirder crimes that happen in the metro. Each book has a series of shorter stories inside, where we see Trese find the criminal through her contacts in the paranormal world. As it’s set in the Philippines, Trese’s paranormal contacts are all from the Philippine mythology — aswang, duwende, tikblang, etc.
I remember reading the first book last year and being impressed — it was very nice to read about something I know and grew up with given a different twist. Trese was likeable despite her very cold demeanor, and she immediately joins the strong female leads that I have read about in other books. I do find her a little bit too perfect in this though — perfect in the sense that she knows everything and she does everything right. I would’ve wanted her to mess up a bit, but that may be too much for me to ask in the first book.
The cases were interesting, and they tread carefully between the line of paranormal and horror (is there a line there? Not sure). I liked how it related to what I know as a Filipino, but not in the classic, dated sense. I liked that the story was set in places in Manila and how they were updated to the current times. No deep dark forests or remote provinces were the creatures normally lurk here, for sure. It’s fun, and thankfully not scary enough for me to really freak out, you know?
Yeah, I know, I’m a big chicken. :P
On the international front, I think Trese would be able to hold its own with a bit of limitation. I don’t think it’s very hard to understand, but I think the mythology would take some time to get used to and would need more research for a non-Filipino reader to understand. It’s easy for me to wrap my head around the creepiness of Balete Drive because I live here, but for someone in another country, I’m not sure if the creepiness factor would be the same. Still, I’d like to see how non-Filipino readers would view Trese.
There are parties.
There are epic parties.
And there are epic bookish parties. Those are the best kind, you know. ;)
So my friends in Goodreads and I have been planning our third meet-up / Christmas party since November. The last official meet-up was in July and while there has been many smaller meet-ups and dinners and movies and drinking sessions in between, it’s been a long time since we all saw each other and met some newbies together as a group. However, everyone seemed to be busy up until December (my brother’s wedding and NaNoWriMo ate my life late October to early December), so we settled on the weekend right before Christmas.
And man did that day take too long to arrive. I was excited because it’s been a long time since I had a very bookish meet-up, and I’ve just really missed my friends from Goodreads. I missed them so much that I committed to spend the entire day with them, declining invitations to five other parties on that same day. Yes, five, and yes, our parties/meet-ups in Goodreads tend to last the entire day. :P
So despite the stress of the shopping, exhaustion from commuting and all that, I arrived at UP Ayala Technohub all chipper and excited to see old and new faces from our band of bookworms. :)
And imagine the smile of those bookworms with these many books are up for grabs:
And more:
Book heaven? Probably. :D
