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halfcactus's reviews
73 reviews
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
3.0
This is pretty much an adult novel packaged/marketed as YA—I refuse to believe the characters are teenagers, so I age them all up in my head. I found the banter/het romances kind of flat (I firmly believe that the women are too good for the men), not to mention it has both its women be in the exotic prostitutes line of work... :/ I do like some of the characters (Nina and Jasper are particularly interesting to me), I just feel like the writing doesn't get there yet. Maybe in the next book?
On the other hand, the author seems to have a GREAT hand at hurt/comfort tropes, and there are a couple of scenes in the first half of the novel that went straight to my id.
On the other hand, the author seems to have a GREAT hand at hurt/comfort tropes, and there are a couple of scenes in the first half of the novel that went straight to my id.
Revenant Gun by Yoon Ha Lee
sad
4.0
"Who wouldn't?" Khiruev said. "The day we stop having second thoughts is the day we've lost."
"Pretty words," Brezan said, "but they won't do a damn thing for the people who die."
This book wrecked me, and I think the multiple POVs really come together and let you see the full landscape of sadness. I struggled a lot with the momentum of the 2nd and 3rd books, but ultimately I love seeing characters through different perspectives, and I loved that they each had different principles and philosophies and behaved accordingly. I'm not sure I understood the plot of this series but I loved the internal consistency. And even though the writing can sometimes feel clinical, the emotional impact really gets through.
I Ship My Adversary x Me by PEPA
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.5
This is such a cute and feel-good rom-com where nothing bad truly happens. It's only around 50 chapters, and you pick up a lot of net slang from reading it. XD It did hit my embarrassment squick a few times with the protagonist being such an embarrassing disaster (and the love interest turning out to be just as much as a disaster), but it's otherwise a really funny read. I didn't expect to like the Gu Yiliang (love interest) as much as I did, but he turns out to be very sweet and very vulnerable—he and Wei Yanzi (protagonist) start out at different points of their emotional arcs, with Wei Yanzi already having resolved any personal issues he may have, while Gu Yiliang is still in the process of growth and the novel ends when he completes the arc.
The characters have a really good dynamic where they are each other's first male relationship, and their insecurities complement each other's. They go through a lot of power shifts and role reversals in the course of the story, which is nice!
The one thing I don't like about the book is how the cat is just a plot device. It disappears when it's served its function, and it still bothers me. :/
I also highly recommend the radio drama adaptation, which is just as charming and with the added enhancement of an outsider's perspective of the romance. It also has a very... unique way of presenting NSFW scenes haha.
The characters have a really good dynamic where they are each other's first male relationship, and their insecurities complement each other's. They go through a lot of power shifts and role reversals in the course of the story, which is nice!
The one thing I don't like about the book is how the cat is just a plot device. It disappears when it's served its function, and it still bothers me. :/
I also highly recommend the radio drama adaptation, which is just as charming and with the added enhancement of an outsider's perspective of the romance. It also has a very... unique way of presenting NSFW scenes haha.
Guardian by priest
That which we call fate isn't an invisible force that can bind you to a single destination. Rather, it is the moment when you know that there are millions of choices stretching infinitely in front of you, but there's only one path you'll ever take.
I would say that this novel is very much a conceptual and character-driven one. The structure of its writing doesn't really let it fall into either the fantasy or romance genre, as there's a huge tonal shift in the middle that I feel leaves both romance and fantasy unfulfilled. (Which may or may not be the point! But doesn't discount the rocky pacing and the number of details that were lovingly set up then set aside.)
The first half of the novel is an urban fantasy/supernatural procedural, with some hilarious adult romance and team dynamics--this is what I read the novel for! There are huge pacing issues (after the 1st arc, there are 10 chapters of plot not advancing), but I loved this so much! The urban fantasy details are lovely: Zhao Yunlan burning a talisman into a teacup so a cup appears in the Ghost Executioner's hand. A human-sized paperman with a painted-on mouth sliding under Yunlan's windowsill to deliver a message. A miraculous flower blooming from decay, only to be mindlessly crushed under the Ghost Executioner's heel. The skeleton puppet that's trying its best. :(((((( The subplots for the first two arcs are vicious and sad, but off-set by the team shenanigans. (My favorite dynamic is Chu Shuzhi and Zhao Yunlan, because they both work so well together, even though Chu Shuzhi fantasizes a lot about killing Yunlan who, unfortunately, is too well-connected to all three realms to be his prey. XD)
The third arc pivots into the mythological arc, which is heavy on infodumps. It may just be that I'm not very familiar with Chinese mythology, but I found this entire storyline too convoluted. (Also, this was way too difficult for me and my pop-up dictionary to parse, haha. All of it went over my head. I also wasn't able to follow how the 鎮魂令, which Yunlan uses as weapon, was established.) At this point, the modern-day elements fall away, as the focus is on Yunlan and Shen Wei's romantic relationship, as well as their past.
The most interesting part of this novel for me is how it positions Shen Wei's character. Zhao Yunlan is definitely the protagonist: you follow his life and see the different parts of his personality refract against each other. He's a roguish introvert who's very good at both the supernatural, physical, and social parts of his job, and he's very, very good at getting what he wants. But on his days off, he's a disaster hermit who can barely feed himself.
Meanwhile, Shen Wei is the 5,000-year-old Executioner of Souls. You don't get to see the full breadth of his experiences, but you get to see how his arc begins and ends. Shen Wei is written as both love interest and antagonist. He doesn't actively harm Zhao Yunlan, but when he sabotages himself, he sabotages both of them. Born from the ghost clan, he's bound to his instincts of hunger and loathing. Over time, he's managed to "control" his urges, but the selfishness and the loathing (for his own kind, and by extension, himself) go beyond physical restraint. He's "fated" by his inhuman nature. The only way to get a happy ending is for him to lose and, in so doing, free himself from his fate. This was really nice!
(There also appears to be another metaphor about Shen Wei living on someone else's light and warping his darkness around it, and him needing to finally carry his own light.)
That said, I still don't really understand why and how Yunlan loves Shen Wei to give up so much for him?? Maybe it's just his nature to be good and forgiving and selfless. Conceptually it makes sense, and I do love their interactions, but romantically it doesn't really fall into place for me, like I feel like I'm missing a step???
Other notes:
- POV: For most of the novel, it's a very omnisicent POV that hops from head to head at a dizzying pace (you can tell whose POV you're reading from because the character voices are pretty distinct). But once it shifts towards mythological half, it pulls you back and leaves you in Zhao Yunlan's POV as he figures out what he's going on. Shen Wei, whose longings have been so deeply transparent, becomes opaque. (I can't tell if this was a conscious decision of the writer, or if she just settled into it lol.)
- I feel like the novel spends a lot of time talking about the Ghost Executioner's scent and the coldness that comes with his arrival, and then... after he and Yunlan get together, it just stops being a thing?
- Probably my favorite character is Chu Shuzhi because he's so fun??? He's a very powerful cultivator of the undead(?) path who pays close attention to the stock market. He hates his boss but is highly professional about it, except when his love life is involved. :D He has mad respect for the mysteriously powerful Professor Shen and gets so excited to do his best to make a good net for Shen Wei to see. :D He's definitely not a people person, but sometimes he gets lonely and he secretly just wants to gossip. :D
- The pre-relationship stages were so funny because ZYL's POV was all about how he was pervertedly touching Shen Wei with his perverted hands, while Shen Wei's POV was all about his poignant and powerful bursts of yearning that occasionally fall sideways into vore fantasies.
3.5
Still trying to figure out how I feel about this, so this review might not make sense. XD
ch87:
ch87:
所谓命运，其实并不是什么神神叨叨的殊归同途，其实也并没有什么东西在暗地里束缚着你，而是某一时刻，你明知道自己有千万种选择，可上天也可入地，却永远只会选择那一条路。
That which we call fate isn't an invisible force that can bind you to a single destination. Rather, it is the moment when you know that there are millions of choices stretching infinitely in front of you, but there's only one path you'll ever take.
I would say that this novel is very much a conceptual and character-driven one. The structure of its writing doesn't really let it fall into either the fantasy or romance genre, as there's a huge tonal shift in the middle that I feel leaves both romance and fantasy unfulfilled. (Which may or may not be the point! But doesn't discount the rocky pacing and the number of details that were lovingly set up then set aside.)
The first half of the novel is an urban fantasy/supernatural procedural, with some hilarious adult romance and team dynamics--this is what I read the novel for! There are huge pacing issues (after the 1st arc, there are 10 chapters of plot not advancing), but I loved this so much! The urban fantasy details are lovely: Zhao Yunlan burning a talisman into a teacup so a cup appears in the Ghost Executioner's hand. A human-sized paperman with a painted-on mouth sliding under Yunlan's windowsill to deliver a message. A miraculous flower blooming from decay, only to be mindlessly crushed under the Ghost Executioner's heel. The skeleton puppet that's trying its best. :(((((( The subplots for the first two arcs are vicious and sad, but off-set by the team shenanigans. (My favorite dynamic is Chu Shuzhi and Zhao Yunlan, because they both work so well together, even though Chu Shuzhi fantasizes a lot about killing Yunlan who, unfortunately, is too well-connected to all three realms to be his prey. XD)
The third arc pivots into the mythological arc, which is heavy on infodumps. It may just be that I'm not very familiar with Chinese mythology, but I found this entire storyline too convoluted. (Also, this was way too difficult for me and my pop-up dictionary to parse, haha. All of it went over my head. I also wasn't able to follow how the 鎮魂令, which Yunlan uses as weapon, was established.) At this point, the modern-day elements fall away, as the focus is on Yunlan and Shen Wei's romantic relationship, as well as their past.
The most interesting part of this novel for me is how it positions Shen Wei's character. Zhao Yunlan is definitely the protagonist: you follow his life and see the different parts of his personality refract against each other. He's a roguish introvert who's very good at both the supernatural, physical, and social parts of his job, and he's very, very good at getting what he wants. But on his days off, he's a disaster hermit who can barely feed himself.
Meanwhile, Shen Wei is the 5,000-year-old Executioner of Souls. You don't get to see the full breadth of his experiences, but you get to see how his arc begins and ends. Shen Wei is written as both love interest and antagonist. He doesn't actively harm Zhao Yunlan, but when he sabotages himself, he sabotages both of them. Born from the ghost clan, he's bound to his instincts of hunger and loathing. Over time, he's managed to "control" his urges, but the selfishness and the loathing (for his own kind, and by extension, himself) go beyond physical restraint. He's "fated" by his inhuman nature. The only way to get a happy ending is for him to lose and, in so doing, free himself from his fate. This was really nice!
(There also appears to be another metaphor about Shen Wei living on someone else's light and warping his darkness around it, and him needing to finally carry his own light.)
That said, I still don't really understand why and how Yunlan loves Shen Wei to give up so much for him?? Maybe it's just his nature to be good and forgiving and selfless. Conceptually it makes sense, and I do love their interactions, but romantically it doesn't really fall into place for me, like I feel like I'm missing a step???
Other notes:
- POV: For most of the novel, it's a very omnisicent POV that hops from head to head at a dizzying pace (you can tell whose POV you're reading from because the character voices are pretty distinct). But once it shifts towards mythological half, it pulls you back and leaves you in Zhao Yunlan's POV as he figures out what he's going on. Shen Wei, whose longings have been so deeply transparent, becomes opaque. (I can't tell if this was a conscious decision of the writer, or if she just settled into it lol.)
- I feel like the novel spends a lot of time talking about the Ghost Executioner's scent and the coldness that comes with his arrival, and then... after he and Yunlan get together, it just stops being a thing?
- Probably my favorite character is Chu Shuzhi because he's so fun??? He's a very powerful cultivator of the undead(?) path who pays close attention to the stock market. He hates his boss but is highly professional about it, except when his love life is involved. :D He has mad respect for the mysteriously powerful Professor Shen and gets so excited to do his best to make a good net for Shen Wei to see. :D He's definitely not a people person, but sometimes he gets lonely and he secretly just wants to gossip. :D
- The pre-relationship stages were so funny because ZYL's POV was all about how he was pervertedly touching Shen Wei with his perverted hands, while Shen Wei's POV was all about his poignant and powerful bursts of yearning that occasionally fall sideways into vore fantasies.
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky
sad
4.0
This was a short but very very very difficult read. :( It's a poetry collection that's written with the structure of a stageplay, and it's brilliantly executed but extremely heavy and devastating. As the title suggests, it covers the full spectrum of what deafness means to a people, from unified resistance/rebellion to individualistic selfishness and desensitization. It's very much a story of systemic oppression, how it wears you down and breaks your sense of humanity, how violent silence can be. The opening and ending poems tie you back to the present, reminds you how current these issues still are, no matter where you are.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Child death, Violence, and Gun violence
Book of My Nights by Li-Young Lee
5.0
Does someone want to know the way to spring?
He’ll remind you
the flower was never meant to survive the fruit’s triumph.
Twisted Travels: Rambles in Central Europe by Jessica Zafra
This has been an honest and very informative travelogue written from the POV of someone who's not afraid to figure out how to get to places herself, who's knowledgeable and genuinely interested in the history, literature, and people of the places that she visits, and most of all is Filipino. Her passing interjections about Manila's transportation and the Philippines' history are off-the-cuff and cutting.
I really enjoyed her mapping out the inconveniences throughout her travels and longing for her cats, and the way you can see her interests and mindset in the routes that she takes and the conversations that she has. A part of me wishes that this were a larger book with colored photos for reference, but I like that it's tiny enough to fit in your handbag and serve as a travel guide.
informative
4.0
Traveling is intense—you are entirely alone, among strangers, who speak a language you don't understand, in a terrain alien to you. You find that the regular life you declare to be boring is actually comfortable and that you, in fact, love it. The purpose of travel is to remind you of that.
This has been an honest and very informative travelogue written from the POV of someone who's not afraid to figure out how to get to places herself, who's knowledgeable and genuinely interested in the history, literature, and people of the places that she visits, and most of all is Filipino. Her passing interjections about Manila's transportation and the Philippines' history are off-the-cuff and cutting.
I really enjoyed her mapping out the inconveniences throughout her travels and longing for her cats, and the way you can see her interests and mindset in the routes that she takes and the conversations that she has. A part of me wishes that this were a larger book with colored photos for reference, but I like that it's tiny enough to fit in your handbag and serve as a travel guide.
他们都说我遇到了鬼 [They All Say I've Met a Ghost] by Cyan Wings
funny
lighthearted
3.5
My main thought about this book is that I think it works best in other mediums where other PoVs can be more organically incorporated: I've listened to bits of the audiodrama and enjoyed it, but I think it would be even better as a visual medium like a comic or an animated series. The writing is best when it stages the comedic scenes that highlight the differences between what Shen Jianguo (the main character) sees and what other characters see.
To me the book has a very rocky start, but gets better: when we first meet Shen Jianguo, the dense-ness of his PoV felt overdone. Between his exaggerated obliviousness, and the confusing circumstances of the first ghost he meets (Mr. Saw), I wasn't sure it was my type of humor. But I think these were the chapters where the author was still figuring out how to write the book and the characters. The writing and humor certainly get more refined as you go on—my level of engagement peaked between chapters 13 to 30, before the author rushed their way towards the ending.
The women are written so lovingly! My favorite parts were all the arcs involving the girl ghosts. The author really took their time with telling their stories, making for the most heartwarming resolutions and bittersweet partings. When you see the MC interact with the girl ghosts, you understand why he was so popular with school AND why the ML falls in love with him. These are the parts that shone for me the most. The author's end-of-chapter skits for the girls' ending were also really funny.
The romance was smooth, stress-free, and basically just a side dish. I enjoyed it more for how the romance characterized Shen Jianguo than what the relationship or the ML (an exorcist from a well-known family) was like.
There are some really cute outsider PoV extras, but the ones that are in the ML's PoV were so badly executed (they felt so boring and redundant) that it took us 2-3 weeks to power through them, lol.
In conclusion: I enjoyed this book for the middle bits. XD It's a nice and easy book if you want a short and funny story with a gay main character who's very comfortable and confident in his sexuality (and his pecs!). Although there is some romance, the overall vibe of this novel was very gen! Also, apart from being a poor grad student, the main character was completely self-sufficient and did NOT need any saving at all, which was nice! He's very athletic and earnest.
CONTENT NOTES: gruesome deaths (though the writing is very good at focusing more on the afterlife), bullying and abuse (of ghosts in their former lives), and the MC's unquestioning trust in the entire justice system
To me the book has a very rocky start, but gets better: when we first meet Shen Jianguo, the dense-ness of his PoV felt overdone. Between his exaggerated obliviousness, and the confusing circumstances of the first ghost he meets (Mr. Saw), I wasn't sure it was my type of humor. But I think these were the chapters where the author was still figuring out how to write the book and the characters. The writing and humor certainly get more refined as you go on—my level of engagement peaked between chapters 13 to 30, before the author rushed their way towards the ending.
The women are written so lovingly! My favorite parts were all the arcs involving the girl ghosts. The author really took their time with telling their stories, making for the most heartwarming resolutions and bittersweet partings. When you see the MC interact with the girl ghosts, you understand why he was so popular with school AND why the ML falls in love with him. These are the parts that shone for me the most. The author's end-of-chapter skits for the girls' ending were also really funny.
The romance was smooth, stress-free, and basically just a side dish. I enjoyed it more for how the romance characterized Shen Jianguo than what the relationship or the ML (an exorcist from a well-known family) was like.
There are some really cute outsider PoV extras, but the ones that are in the ML's PoV were so badly executed (they felt so boring and redundant) that it took us 2-3 weeks to power through them, lol.
In conclusion: I enjoyed this book for the middle bits. XD It's a nice and easy book if you want a short and funny story with a gay main character who's very comfortable and confident in his sexuality (and his pecs!). Although there is some romance, the overall vibe of this novel was very gen! Also, apart from being a poor grad student, the main character was completely self-sufficient and did NOT need any saving at all, which was nice! He's very athletic and earnest.
CONTENT NOTES: gruesome deaths (though the writing is very good at focusing more on the afterlife), bullying and abuse (of ghosts in their former lives), and the MC's unquestioning trust in the entire justice system
Content Warnings
Minor: Bullying and Child abuse
Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap
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 story—the 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
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:
Hurricane Heels (We Go Down Dancing)
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
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. It’s 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. It’s 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 story—the 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
Bright Dead Things: Poems by Ada Limón
5.0
Isn’t it funny? How the cold numbs everything but grief.
If we could light up the room with pain,
we’d be such a glorious fire.
Clock: turn back, turn back—
everything you’ve dialed to black.
What was it I wanted?
The captain to sail safely? To land alive and, like survival, loved?