Category: Book Reviews

Trese 3 and 4

I read the first two Trese books a couple years ago, right after getting them signed at the Visprint booth at the 30th Manila International Book Fair back in 2009, where I got them signed by creators Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo.

It wasn’t until the third volume won the National Book Award for Graphic Literature that I was able to get myself a copy, but I hadn’t had time to read it yet. It’s been tucked away on my shelf since, shrink-wrapped, because I was reserving it for Halloween. I finally got to break open the seal a few weeks ago, when I sat down for an interview with Budjette and Kajo!

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Numbers, The Chaos, and Rachel Ward


I read Numbers last year and was highly intrigued about the sequel, The Chaos, the second book in the Numbers trilogy. Being invited to join the live chat with author Rachel Ward at the Manila International Book Fair presented a golden opportunity to read the book, so I set out to finish it in time for the event.

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To Lola, with love

I’ve been away for a spell as the whole family flew to Bacolod to pay our last respects to my paternal grandmother, Lola Binyang, who passed away last week.

I was too young to remember the death of my paternal grandfather or my maternal grandmother, so losing both remaining grandparents in under two years is painful. Growing up with grandparents make you feel they’ll last forever (because to you they’ve always been old), and no matter how old you get, they still make you feel like a kid again, so losing a grandparent is a bit like a death toll on your own mortality.

Lola always spent part of the year with us when I was younger and she was still mobile. I remember endless summer afternoons playing cards on the bed with her — she was quite the cardshark — paris-paris (“pairs” in Ilonggo), blackjack, and even solitaire, as she’d leave a pack of cards behind to tide me over until she returned to our house the following year.

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Band of Brujos

After the interview with Alexander Yates at the Manila International Book Fair, Day 4 was wrapping up and I was dead tired, so I found myself wandering to the wellness fair in one of the halls upstairs, and got one of those 15-minute massages on a demo massage chair. So I kicked off my shoes and took out my copy of Moondogs and had fifteen minutes of pure reading bliss.

I’d had a very exhausting month, squeezing in some odd pages whenever I can, and I really wanted to get back to reading, so the following week, I went with my fool-proof plan of action whenever I’m in dire need of some quality reading time: I booked myself myself a massage (not reading, of course, although not for the lack of trying :p)  and mani-pedi combo (the golden opportunity!) at the spa (hair treatments at the salon work just as well)!

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Return to Riverdale

I spent the last few days in bed, laid down with a nasty throat infection, and on top of the cocktail of meds I was taking, my mom (who thinks I am wasting away) gave me this vitamin that made me alternate between falling asleep and chowing down like I hadn’t eaten in a week. Suffice it to say I did not get much reading done — other than this: The Best of Archie Comics, because Archie comics have been a sick day staple since I was a kid.

 I had not picked up a new Archie in ages (I have a bunch of raggedy ones, read many many times! And it was the last day of the cut-price sale!) and I was hit by a sudden bout of nostalgia.

Archie comics were a huge part of my childhood. They were all the rage in school, and whenever anyone had a new Archie comic, it would get passed on from girl to girl, right under our teachers’ noses.

In 90’s grade school, comics weren’t exactly approved reading material for Catholic schoolgirls, and possession of one can earn you either a disapproving stare, or worse, confiscation of the comics you saved your weekly allowance (then alternating on Sweet Valley Twins, BOP magazine and MAD magazine) for.

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