A review by dessuarez
Twice Blessed by Ninotchka Rosca

challenging funny

3.0

I struggled with the pacing here, I think sometimes it interrupts its own momentum, but there are moments of evocative - almost erotic - prose in this. Read this for its lucidity more than anything else. The degree with which Rosca is attuned to the mechanisms of this nation and the satirical flare that she posesses results in a novel that is able to describe the absurdity of how the Philippine government "works" (in quotations because it does not) without downplaying the impact of politicians' absurd techniques which, after all, no matter how fucking stupid or funny they may be, work in gathering support and accumulating power. It's good satire, so good that it's sad, because I live here, and it's too true for me. Genuinely, God bless this nation.