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A review by ubepandesol
Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap
"Stories are easy, and they give life order, a piece of driftwood to cling to in the storm of grief. But even stories must be accurate."
This anthology features a wide range of short stories: from lovely romances between two powerful albeit romantically clueless characters to poignant scifi/speculative fiction featuring artificial intelligence, from college-age women whose blessings from years past turned into a curse eventually to a city girl navigating the unfamiliar environment of the province in which she experiences being othered--i could go on and list the blurbs of each story but i think readers who don't have any idea what they'll find inside this book before rushing in (like me) will find countless treasures inside. That said, the rest of this review will be locked behind a spoiler tag because the most memorable moments for me in this book are things that I felt would be best enjoyed if you discovered them yourselves.
<blockquote>"And there perhaps find another girl with bright eyes, who can sing silly songs with you, who can actually be yours, if only in secret."</blockquote>
<blockquote>She touches your cheek, unaware how you melt. “I’m glad you’re taking me seriously.”
“I always do,” you answer, mock offended. She meets your gaze. Look away, you plead silently, but she does not. In the end, you’re the one that drops your head; she removes her fingers from your face.</blockquote>
The sapphic love story between the binukot and her guardian featuring the bakunawa is so intense, their longing screamed so loud on the page. I think that one's one of my favorites here, although I could say the same thing about the romance between the witch and the elemental, I'm truly just a sucker for love stories these days~
The story about the victims of the Philippines' war on drugs, the main characters are the victims themselves, an immortal goddess in the Underworld, and the policeman drowning in the blood in his hands. The guilt, the shame, the trauma was so palpable in the page, and yet the writer exercises compassion towards the characters all the same. If in mainstream fiction we see these people as villains, here we see the emotional rollercoasters character development of the bad guys as well. This is not to say their actions are condoned at all, only that the writer had been creative and imaginative enough to illustrate the bad guy's perspective without making the entire work black-and-white. I suppose that's the word I'm looking for: complex. The characters are <i>so</i> real and life-like. Tropes aren't employed for the sake of tropes; rather, the characters are fleshed out well enough that if their stories do fall under the common tropes, it's only secondary to their journey in the story. This applies not only to the policeman story but also for the whole collection.
This anthology features a wide range of short stories: from lovely romances between two powerful albeit romantically clueless characters to poignant scifi/speculative fiction featuring artificial intelligence, from college-age women whose blessings from years past turned into a curse eventually to a city girl navigating the unfamiliar environment of the province in which she experiences being othered--i could go on and list the blurbs of each story but i think readers who don't have any idea what they'll find inside this book before rushing in (like me) will find countless treasures inside. That said, the rest of this review will be locked behind a spoiler tag because the most memorable moments for me in this book are things that I felt would be best enjoyed if you discovered them yourselves.
<blockquote>"And there perhaps find another girl with bright eyes, who can sing silly songs with you, who can actually be yours, if only in secret."</blockquote>
<blockquote>She touches your cheek, unaware how you melt. “I’m glad you’re taking me seriously.”
“I always do,” you answer, mock offended. She meets your gaze. Look away, you plead silently, but she does not. In the end, you’re the one that drops your head; she removes her fingers from your face.</blockquote>
The sapphic love story between the binukot and her guardian featuring the bakunawa is so intense, their longing screamed so loud on the page. I think that one's one of my favorites here, although I could say the same thing about the romance between the witch and the elemental, I'm truly just a sucker for love stories these days~
The story about the victims of the Philippines' war on drugs, the main characters are the victims themselves, an immortal goddess in the Underworld, and the policeman drowning in the blood in his hands. The guilt, the shame, the trauma was so palpable in the page, and yet the writer exercises compassion towards the characters all the same. If in mainstream fiction we see these people as villains, here we see the emotional rollercoasters character development of the bad guys as well. This is not to say their actions are condoned at all, only that the writer had been creative and imaginative enough to illustrate the bad guy's perspective without making the entire work black-and-white. I suppose that's the word I'm looking for: complex. The characters are <i>so</i> real and life-like. Tropes aren't employed for the sake of tropes; rather, the characters are fleshed out well enough that if their stories do fall under the common tropes, it's only secondary to their journey in the story. This applies not only to the policeman story but also for the whole collection.