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halfcactus's review against another edition
dark
emotional
3.5
It's not purely a horror collection but I liked it a lot. Most of the ones I didn't particularly enjoy reading off the bat become creepier and more interesting the more I think about them.
A common theme throughout the anthology is a very palpable and personal anxiety about losing friends to life/situation changes (ie. classroom changes and marriages). I personally had to nope out of all the barkada anxiety. Itβs all very real and convincingly all-encompassing but I have no desire to revisit elementary/high school haha
The stories:
Good Girls
A common theme throughout the anthology is a very palpable and personal anxiety about losing friends to life/situation changes (ie. classroom changes and marriages). I personally had to nope out of all the barkada anxiety. Itβs all very real and convincingly all-encompassing but I have no desire to revisit elementary/high school haha
The stories:
Good Girls
You're enchanted by the amount of closeness you find in many homes: sweaty couples pressed together, children crowded on either side, useless electric fans whirring. It's love and hunger bound up in acceptance, minute joys punctuated by a mostly typical dissatisfaction, the longing for something better, some way out of this.
This is an urban fantasy manananggal story set in the US with sapphic overtones. The POV alternates between third-person (the roommate Sara's) and second-person (the manananggal, Kaye). The manananggal is a creature that can detach itself from its lower body so it can fly through the night on a hunt for pregnant women or fetuses. I've always enjoyed seeing it portrayed as a metaphor for diaspora and being divided, and I think this story depicts just that and draws a parallel with Sara's own longing for home.
CW: some gore
A Cup of Salt Tears
I have read this before so I did not read it again, but it's the one about the kappa and I remember liking it a lot, enough to remember the author and perk up when I found out that she was releasing a short story collection. It's creepy and it's sad. Here's what I wrote on a 2018 entry on LJ: I liked how it's a metaphor for the kind of love that happens in the storyβthe idea of a selfless love being starved and hollow, as if someone had scraped out the meat. I feel like the setting and the lore work because the conceit is a very Asian one wherein society celebrates the diminishing of women for the sake of their husbands/children as a virtue.
CW: terminal illness
Milagroso
They left Manila to see a miracle.
Very cool science fiction story about a man who takes his family back to his hometown Lucban to attend the Pahiyas Festival. This was a journey for my brain because I had to keep reorienting myself to keep up with what was happening, especially because I was instinctively using the corporation names as a shorthand for information, only to find that this is not the Philippines I know at present. This is the Philippines solving food shortage with a different kind of food shortage. It's very interesting and very sad. This might have been the strongest story in the collection for me.
A Spell for Foolish Hearts
He didn't even know how to fall for someone. The concept was mysterious. Did you choose to be attracted? Did you pluck someone from your environment and decide to attach feelings to them? If all of media was to be believed, he was highly unusual in this regard, but it didn't exactly bother him.But this was first-time everything, his heart was on fire, and the boy across from him always made him smile and had no idea how much that hurt.This is the longest story in the entire collection, but also the easiest one to read. It's an urban fantasy novella bout a witch who thinks it's physically impossible for him to fall in love, and ends up trying and failing to prevent himself from falling in love with his new coworker. It's tropey in ways that remind me so much of fanfiction, and I mean that in the good way. I like the protagonist's anxieties, and the way the story presents sexuality as something that you can't always pin down. I like the way the protagonist is both gay and a witch, and his struggles with being both are treated as separate things, instead of one being a metaphor for the other.
Have You Heard the One About Anamaria Marquez?
High school horror story with a happy ending. It checks out; so much about elementary/high school was about all the ghost stories and stupid dares, and frankly I'm glad to be done with that stage of life.
CW: Mentions of rape as a possible ghost backstory (the story gives you all the different versions)
Syringe
This is a really short futuristic story. Healthcare providers are now humanistic AI with some empathy programmed in. This was too short and the themes were too depressing for me to get into, but it's a thoughtful piece about the mental toll of healthcare work.
CW: terminal illness, death; entire story is set in a hospital
Asphalt, River, Mother Child
This is a story about the extra-judicial killings that have been happening since 2016, told in alternating POVs of Mebuyan (in this story, Mebuyen), the underworld goddess for dead babies, and a police officer who has the blood of innocents on his hand. It's not subtle but it's relevant.
This is the story that was most confusing to me in the way Tagalog is incorporated, but it's fine. Also it is all worth it for this scene, which is my favorite scene in the entire anthology, in which a trans woman encounters Mebuyan and it's just so quintessentially Filipino, simultaneously funny and sad:
Babygirl drinks the milk, then looks at Mebuyen's boobs: "You have so many," Babygirl says wistfully. "Can't I have just one set? Not even here?"
Hurricane Heels (We Go Down Dancing)
I wished, not for the first time, that desperation itself could work magic.Magical girls + friendship + ex-girlfriends! It's more Madoka Magica than Sailor Moon, with characters who have carried the magic and responsibilty into adulthood. This ended up one of my unexpected favorites.
Only Unclench Your Hand
Creepy horror story about a law student who spends her summer at the province (I'm not sure where, I think somewhere in Ilocos?). Features: an albularyo (witch doctor), and black magic from a mambabarang (a kind of black magician).
CW: insects + some body horror (because that's how mambabarang magic works) and some violence
How to Swallow the Moon
F/f fantasy. Features: bakunawa (the serpentlike dragon that eats the moon and causes eclipses), a binukot (a tribe's secluded, treasured maiden), romance between the binukot and her servant, a blacksmith's daughter. I have no idea what epic this story is referencing, and I feel like I missed out on so much. :(
All the Best of Dark and Bright
A story based on Malakas and Maganda. At the beginning of his summer vacation, a college kid named Macho meets the Maganda of legend, and helps her find the bamboo to return to.
Misty
This is a horror story but I'm not very sure I understood it. It's set in a trip to Baguio (which, to be fair, is haunted by default). The horrors are external and internal as Ramona deals with a fear of her father.
A Canticle for Lost Girls
Catholic school horror story about the friendship between three girls with a happy(-ish?) ending. The story covers present-day Raquel as a mother, as well as her childhood, but most of it is set during a school retreat. This is very deeply an all-girls' Filipino Catholic school story, with a lot of anxiety over different things from both the teenage and adult versions of the main character.
Major CW: rape (both implied and onscreen) + predatory high school teachers and all the skeeviness that comes with it
General CW: a lot of preoccupation on girls' anatomy (from the POV of girls/women, who are either dealing with situations or remembering them) + bullying
Content Warnings
Moderate: Rape, Bullying, Body horror, and Terminal illness
madarauchiha's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
β€οΈ 𧑠π π π π my about / byf / CW info carrd: uchiha-madara π π π π 𧑠β€οΈ
Fave stories are:
Hurricane Heels (We Go Down Dancing)
I have a soft spot for villains and superheroes--IF it' done by black people or people of color. I'd love to see a good villain story, or continuation in this universe, from Yap.
A Spell for Foolish Hearts
Oh I love a good office romance, and this was adorable! It's pretty lighthearted and a fun read!
Though honestly I loved all the stories included here. Yap is a fantastic writer and I'm looking forward to reading the read of her works.
β Good Girls
minor domestic violence, arson, stalking, domestic abuse, child abuse, emetophobia, drugs, overdose, death,
medium cannibalism, arranged marriage?, suicide ideation, child abuse, unsanitary,
major gore, body horror,
β A Cup of Salt Tears
medium drowning
major stalking, body horror, sexual harassment, NSFW,
β A Spell for Foolish Hearts
minor q slur, alcohol, menstruation,
medium homophobia,
β Have You Heard the One About Anamaria Marquez?
medium pedophilia, rape, csa, child death, murder, bullying, peer abuse, suicide, child death, religion catholicism,
major child death, suicide,
β Syringe
medium death, medical scenarios,
β Asphalt, River, Mother, Child
minor body horror, emetophobia,
major police brutality, police murder, child death, police, pro police propaganda, gun violence, transmisogyny, hate crime, misgendering,
β Hurricane Heels (We Go Down Dancing)
minor emetophobia,
medium body horror, child death, fire, suicide ideation,
major demolition, death,
β Only Unclench Your Hand
medium animal death, gore, lesbophobia, lesbophobic slurs, medical situations, gore,
major emetophobia, vomit, unsanitary,
β How to Swallow the Moon
minor fatphobia, pregnancy,
major confinement / prison, violence, body horror, slavery, human trafficking,
β All the Best of Dark and Bright
minor emetophobia, medical scenarios,
medium death,
β Misty
medium paranoia, violence, unsanitary,
major parental death, child abuse, toxic relationships, asphyxiation, child abuse,
β A Canticle for Lost Girls
minor lesbophobia, racism,
medium menstruation, misogyny, slut shaming, NSFW, emetophobia, unsanitary, blood,
major rape, sexual abuse, pedophilia, csa, teacher student relationship, peer abuse, bullying, religion catholicism, gore, body horror, sexual harassment, revenge porn, pregnancy, childbirth,
Fave stories are:
Hurricane Heels (We Go Down Dancing)
I have a soft spot for villains and superheroes--IF it' done by black people or people of color. I'd love to see a good villain story, or continuation in this universe, from Yap.
A Spell for Foolish Hearts
Oh I love a good office romance, and this was adorable! It's pretty lighthearted and a fun read!
Though honestly I loved all the stories included here. Yap is a fantastic writer and I'm looking forward to reading the read of her works.
β Good Girls
minor domestic violence, arson, stalking, domestic abuse, child abuse, emetophobia, drugs, overdose, death,
medium cannibalism, arranged marriage?, suicide ideation, child abuse, unsanitary,
major gore, body horror,
β A Cup of Salt Tears
medium drowning
major stalking, body horror, sexual harassment, NSFW,
β A Spell for Foolish Hearts
minor q slur, alcohol, menstruation,
medium homophobia,
β Have You Heard the One About Anamaria Marquez?
medium pedophilia, rape, csa, child death, murder, bullying, peer abuse, suicide, child death, religion catholicism,
major child death, suicide,
β Syringe
medium death, medical scenarios,
β Asphalt, River, Mother, Child
minor body horror, emetophobia,
major police brutality, police murder, child death, police, pro police propaganda, gun violence, transmisogyny, hate crime, misgendering,
β Hurricane Heels (We Go Down Dancing)
minor emetophobia,
medium body horror, child death, fire, suicide ideation,
major demolition, death,
β Only Unclench Your Hand
medium animal death, gore, lesbophobia, lesbophobic slurs, medical situations, gore,
major emetophobia, vomit, unsanitary,
β How to Swallow the Moon
minor fatphobia, pregnancy,
major confinement / prison, violence, body horror, slavery, human trafficking,
β All the Best of Dark and Bright
minor emetophobia, medical scenarios,
medium death,
β Misty
medium paranoia, violence, unsanitary,
major parental death, child abuse, toxic relationships, asphyxiation, child abuse,
β A Canticle for Lost Girls
minor lesbophobia, racism,
medium menstruation, misogyny, slut shaming, NSFW, emetophobia, unsanitary, blood,
major rape, sexual abuse, pedophilia, csa, teacher student relationship, peer abuse, bullying, religion catholicism, gore, body horror, sexual harassment, revenge porn, pregnancy, childbirth,
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Deadnaming, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Violence, Transphobia, Suicide, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Rape, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Misogyny, Hate crime, Gun violence, and Gore
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