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keikoreadsmanga's review
4.0
My gratitude to the author for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Take Us Back to Genesis recounts the last year of Timothy Ignacio's stay in Genesis House, an orphanage in Baguio City founded by an old couple who couldn't bear a child. It is a tale of young love, unconventional family structure, dreams, grief, and regrets.
It is very digestible and hooking from the start. I like the narrator's direct but reminiscent voice, although, there are times when the narration is dull or monotonous and all I can ask for is more use of imagery to drag me back to the story and keep pace with what's going on. It's really short but it took me hours to finish it because of this problem.
Nonetheless, it is a nice young adult novel by a new author with swell climax, I was actually hoping for the bomb, and thank gee it was there. I love getting nervous and anticipating when's the bomb gonna explode (even if I'm not sure if there's really a bomb, ya know.) The orphanage's system is a bit idealistic to me, nevertheless, it's refreshing and heartwarming (and kinda sad, considering...) Anyway, we need more people like Lolo (and his wife!!) I love the character dynamics. The banters and dialogues are funny and remarkable!
These are my favorite lines from this novel, it's still making me tear up, lol:
“Bring me giants!”
“Tell me when the giants come and if you have conquered them.”
“I want to do something for myself before I forget who I am.”
Admit it or not, we all thought of things like these when we were 17. I mean, isn't that the very age when we felt so powerful and treated the world as our oyster? Or, maybe it's just me. I'm dramatic, like that.
Take Us Back to Genesis recounts the last year of Timothy Ignacio's stay in Genesis House, an orphanage in Baguio City founded by an old couple who couldn't bear a child. It is a tale of young love, unconventional family structure, dreams, grief, and regrets.
It is very digestible and hooking from the start. I like the narrator's direct but reminiscent voice, although, there are times when the narration is dull or monotonous and all I can ask for is more use of imagery to drag me back to the story and keep pace with what's going on. It's really short but it took me hours to finish it because of this problem.
Nonetheless, it is a nice young adult novel by a new author with swell climax, I was actually hoping for the bomb, and thank gee it was there. I love getting nervous and anticipating when's the bomb gonna explode (even if I'm not sure if there's really a bomb, ya know.) The orphanage's system is a bit idealistic to me, nevertheless, it's refreshing and heartwarming (and kinda sad, considering...) Anyway, we need more people like Lolo (and his wife!!) I love the character dynamics. The banters and dialogues are funny and remarkable!
These are my favorite lines from this novel, it's still making me tear up, lol:
“Bring me giants!”
“Tell me when the giants come and if you have conquered them.”
“I want to do something for myself before I forget who I am.”
Admit it or not, we all thought of things like these when we were 17. I mean, isn't that the very age when we felt so powerful and treated the world as our oyster? Or, maybe it's just me. I'm dramatic, like that.
momoxshi's review
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
A free copy was given to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.
Take Us Back to Genesis is a slice of life, almost coming of age story that tells the experience of Tim Ignacio and his life at Genesis Orphanage in Baguio City, Philippines. The novella also gives glimpses of how his relationships are with fellow children at the orphanage as well as with their caretakers.
Things I liked:
- Foreshadowing and (very loose) parallels to The Catcher in The Rye
- Detailed characterization
- The unexpected ending
Things I didn’t like:
- There’s not much plot.
- Things were too positive. Conflicts are either easily solved or negated by a positive event.
- Some parts drag on without anything really happening.
While I usually am a bit lenient with self-published books when it comes to their writing style, I found this pretty okay compared to others I’ve read. There is still need for an editor, but the writer does have consistency in his writing and is descriptive enough to be able to tell the story and show the characters emotion well enough.
But for the story itself, however, I found that there’s no real plot and that there’s too much focus on characterization. It’s not necessarily a bad thing as you could tell there was so much thought put into the characters, even the minor ones, but I’m not personally a fan of slice of life. There’s not much conflict happening throughout the story, there are events that were significant enough to be able to change how things are but they were presented more as a catalyst for things to come more than a hurdle that the characters should be facing.
I mentioned that this was an almost coming of age story. It has the right elements for a coming-of-age story and background was set up for Tim to make him a very interesting character to follow but because there’s not much plot and real conflict, there was no real progression or weight to it. And I think that’s a shame because the ending was good but the effect could have been better.
Overall, so much potential for a deeper, more compelling story but it's still a decent slice of life.
Take Us Back to Genesis is a slice of life, almost coming of age story that tells the experience of Tim Ignacio and his life at Genesis Orphanage in Baguio City, Philippines. The novella also gives glimpses of how his relationships are with fellow children at the orphanage as well as with their caretakers.
Things I liked:
- Foreshadowing and (very loose) parallels to The Catcher in The Rye
- Detailed characterization
- The unexpected ending
Things I didn’t like:
- There’s not much plot.
- Things were too positive. Conflicts are either easily solved or negated by a positive event.
- Some parts drag on without anything really happening.
While I usually am a bit lenient with self-published books when it comes to their writing style, I found this pretty okay compared to others I’ve read. There is still need for an editor, but the writer does have consistency in his writing and is descriptive enough to be able to tell the story and show the characters emotion well enough.
But for the story itself, however, I found that there’s no real plot and that there’s too much focus on characterization. It’s not necessarily a bad thing as you could tell there was so much thought put into the characters, even the minor ones, but I’m not personally a fan of slice of life. There’s not much conflict happening throughout the story, there are events that were significant enough to be able to change how things are but they were presented more as a catalyst for things to come more than a hurdle that the characters should be facing.
I mentioned that this was an almost coming of age story. It has the right elements for a coming-of-age story and background was set up for Tim to make him a very interesting character to follow but because there’s not much plot and real conflict, there was no real progression or weight to it. And I think that’s a shame because the ending was good but the effect could have been better.
Overall, so much potential for a deeper, more compelling story but it's still a decent slice of life.
sphynxreads's review
The author provided me an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
DNF after Chapter 5 (26 pages, 15%)
DNF rating: 1.5/5 (I don't use ratings for DNFs).
Despite the book's short length, I don't think I can finish this book to give it a proper review. I found the writing style to be very juvenile and in severe need of workshopping with skilled editors and beta readers. From Chapter 1, there were just too many grammatical and typographical errors for me to ignore. Within five short chapters, a lot of characters have already been introduced and none of them have enough characterization work for me to be emotionally hooked in. There is also a lack of worldbuilding. Thus, without feeling connected to either characters or setting, I didn't feel interested to continue.
Some things I still appreciated:
- The Baguio setting: I feel like leaning more into this would do wonders for this book.
- Food descriptions are good. Again, I feel like leaning more into this would be to this book's advantage.
- The beautiful illustrations
DNF after Chapter 5 (26 pages, 15%)
DNF rating: 1.5/5 (I don't use ratings for DNFs).
Despite the book's short length, I don't think I can finish this book to give it a proper review. I found the writing style to be very juvenile and in severe need of workshopping with skilled editors and beta readers. From Chapter 1, there were just too many grammatical and typographical errors for me to ignore. Within five short chapters, a lot of characters have already been introduced and none of them have enough characterization work for me to be emotionally hooked in. There is also a lack of worldbuilding. Thus, without feeling connected to either characters or setting, I didn't feel interested to continue.
Some things I still appreciated:
- The Baguio setting: I feel like leaning more into this would do wonders for this book.
- Food descriptions are good. Again, I feel like leaning more into this would be to this book's advantage.
- The beautiful illustrations
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