pbinterrupted's reviews
114 reviews

Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country by Patricia Evangelista

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

5.0

i attended pat evangelista's book talk about a week after i visited davao for the first time. it was a harrowing experience, getting to read this book after being told by newfound friends down south about how beloved the dutertes were. 

the person next to me told me that i read at a scarily fast pace—three chapters in, only 25 minutes since we were seated. i couldn't help it; the book was hard to put down. 

sometimes i forget that this ever happened, like it's all some sort of fever dream. but it happened. thank you, pat, for reminding me it did.

This Earth, My Brother by Kofi Awoonor

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

interesting how storygraph tagged this book as poetry when a bulk of it was written in prose. awoonor's writing was very descriptive and his choice of words was lovely but overall, it was difficult to read because i know nothing about ghanaian culture and language, and also because it was difficult to track which character's perspective was being used across chapters as this changed quite often.

tldr: i don't think i'm the target audience of this book

This Earth of Mankind by Pramoedya Ananta Toer

adventurous challenging emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I would say that PAT's prose was exquisite but this English version is a translation so I don't really know how much of the prose belonged to PAT and to the translator, Max Lane. I wonder, too, what was lost in translation but maybe I'll figure that out when I read the subsequent books. While I did appreciate the variety in chapter length, the narrative fluctuated between feeling too rushed (as it did with the development of Annelies and Minke's romance) and too dragging. The backdrop of the Indonesian struggle against the Dutch was obscured most times by Minke's romance with Annelies, but this is only the first out of four books and I hope the formation of Indonesian national identity is given more attention in the following novels. 

Overall, I think it would've helped if I knew more about Indonesia's history as I read it, but the events were pretty easy to follow even without an in-depth knowledge of the Indonesian struggle. It has a rather similar vibe to Jose Rizal's Noli me Tangere and now I wonder if PAT was inspired by the former in one way or another or if the trope this novel operated on is just common among works within the same genre. 

Octavio's Journey by Miguel Bonnefoy, Emily Boyce

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

"Every people has its original wound: ours is the collapse of our history. In order to rebuild it, we've had to turn to myth."

What a wonderful little story! The prose was amazing (props to the translator! I would've loved to read the original French... if only I were more fluent in it.) and so was the overall trajectory of Octavio's story. I love how Bonnefoy closed the circle at the end of the book, although I would've appreciated more length so as to learn more about Octavio and maybe what happened to Venezuela (the character) by the end. I'm sure a few of the allegories and metaphors flew by me because I read this on a slow and sleepy day, but I did catch a few and all of them were executed well. 

Daylight Come by Diana McCaulay

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

"You think too much, Sorrel. I don't think about humanity. I think about how much of this breadfruit I'm gonna get, if it can be eaten at all, if I'll ever lie in a river again, or if it'll be back to licking the underside of rocks and sucking on agaves. Whether we'll find a good place—no, any place—when we leave Jiba. I don't think about males."

Daylight Come is described by its author, Diana McCaulay, as a piece of speculative fiction and this is, by far, the only piece I've read in the genre that has come close—dangerously close—to how the coming future is shaping out to be. Set in 2084–85 where global warming has dealt irreversible damage to ecosystems and societies, people now function on a reverse cicadian rhythm and eat weirdly engineered food (such as alganola, for one, which I assume is an algae granola). While set six decades into the future, it's surprising that the technology used by the characters was too primitive for the time. It's possible, however, that such is the case because Jamaica is far less developed than who the characters called as

Northerners who came, mid-story, from America in ships to repeat their plundering and pillaging of nations for resources

.

The narrative centers around Sorrel, a 14-year-old teenager who convinces her mother, Bibi, into leaving Bana City before an imminent sinking for the mountains where she believes life to be better. For the most part, she was right: there was a community of women—Tribals, they were called—who took them in and fed and clothed them with the relatively abundant resources of the upper lands. World-building was sufficient (but what the guata! is a PIAK?) and I appreciated McCaulay's choice of using the local names of neighboring island countries (Boriken, Ayiti). Expletives, although limited to only one, were in the local language, too. In terms of character development though, Sorrel, I would say, remained the same throughout the story even after her mother left her with the Tribals.

The Sorrel that left Bibi in the culvert to find shelter was the same Sorrel that decided to get a head start into Cibao before the male-and-female Tribals' raid.

I found this weird because the story, after Sorrel and Bibi had left Bana, began to shape itself as a coming-of-age narrative but the only coming-of-age that happened, really, was that Sorrel got her period and turned 15.

Onto other things, to say that the ending was rushed is an understatement. McCaulay planted multiple seeds past the half of the story that never bloomed: a potential budding romance with Kes—with equal potential of turning complex with the introduction of Rapt's implied attraction to Sorrel. Garan's story and assumed leadership over Cibao. The Northerners and their ships and the war that was looming ahead. It's comedic, too, how Colonel Drax was painted as a big, final boss in the earlier chapters only for him to die from an axe to the head. In real life and in fiction, an axe to the head is indeed fatal, but it's disappointing how quickly Drax died without much interaction with Sorrel or any of the Tribals.

Overall, Daylight Come is an easy and relatively good read. A good reminder, too, of what might happen to us in the coming decades. I was particularly surprised to find out that Diana McCaulay is an environmental activist, which makes the story feel more sincere and serious in its warning for us. 

Half Gods by Akil Kumarasamy

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

akil kumarasamy's prose was exquisite! although challenging to read given the non-linearity and constant switches in perspective throughout the book, half gods was a wonderful, heart-wrenching/warming experience. not all stories hit the mark (especially lifetime in flight which i honestly felt wasn't as connected to the others except for it being a partial story about selvakumar); still, they were undoubtedly well-written and full to the brim with emotion. the butcher, when we were children, the office of missing persons, and a story of happiness left me particularly sad and i am so, very distraught that i will never know more about the characters outside of the slivers of their lives provided by half gods. :')

The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

5.0

i started this book an hour before 2023 ended, read a good chunk of it after eating my midnight new year meal and lighting fireworks on the street, and finished it curled up in bed after waking up past lunch. i didn't even have the full intention of reading this book when i did, but i'm glad google's number picker made this choice for me. 

i have never been so gripped by a (non-fiction) book in the decade or so that i've cultivated a habit of reading. isabel allende is a great writer—her publication history attests to this—and every bit of her that she shared in this book felt like a soothing balm on the wounds i've been carrying the past year. i wish i had her courage, her open heart and passion. 

(i think i'll give my future bridesmaids and the other important women in my life a copy of this book when i can.)

Animal Farm by George Orwell

adventurous emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
Did not finish book. Stopped at 14%.

too slow and uninteresting; will likely reread

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Did not finish book. Stopped at 5%.

too slow for me; will reread