No need for Mr. Darcy

(as published on The Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Young Blood column today, 8 March 2020)

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a girl who grew up surrounded by stories of dashing knights in shining armor or brooding Mr. Darcys would have unrealistic standards in love.

A tad unfair to real boys who can’t hold a candle to dreamboats that pop out of the page, you might say, but there’s no bit of jest in this. My 13-year-old self once swore she wouldn’t settle for anyone who wouldn’t love her the same way Mr. Rochester loved Jane Eyre. These teen years, really, they’re an era of folly, of giggles at the smoldering heroes of Austen and the Brontë sisters. More than Disney and its sanitized happy-ever-afters, these authors have ruined real guys for me.

March 8, 2020March 8, 2020 by airizcasta

Review: Bone Gap

Title: Bone Gap
Author: Laura Ruby
Genre: Magical realism, contemporary, young adult
My Rating: ★★★★
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“The face that the world sees is never the sum of who we are.” I was thumbing the blurb’s print on the roughish dust jacket of Bone Gap when my fingertips stopped at this line, the last one dangling at the end. It struck a chord with me. Lately I was contemplating about appearances, about the metaphorical masks we put on when we bottle up feelings or when we don’t want the society to judge us for who we really are. With its ambiguous synopsis, would the book be able to quench my curiosity?

It did, but in a way I did not expect.

April 5, 2019April 5, 2019 by airizcasta

Review: The Song of Achilles

Title: The Song of Achilles
Author: Madeline Miller
Genre: Mythology, revisionism, fantasy
My Rating: ★★★★
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The true brand of a good tale, I once heard, lies in a string of four words signifying the storyteller’s power over his audience: “And then what happened?” These words indicate a sliver of magic in the middle of action, wedged between this or that plot point; it is a question posed as a half-baked sterling review, an evidence that the truly gifted tale-spinners can prod readers to continue thumbing through the pages for answers.

March 31, 2019January 11, 2020 by airizcasta

Review: My Heart and Other Black Holes

Title: My Heart and Other Black Holes
Author: Jasmine Warga
Genre: Young adult, drama
My Rating: ★★★★
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Poems may get written because of it, songs may pull out their lyrics from it, and stories may be born from its dark womb, but there is irrefutably nothing beautiful about depression. It is not your garden-variety sadness; it is an ugly monster seeking shelter inside you, consuming all the happiness it can find there and eating up a bit more of you until you feel like an empty husk. It attaches itself to you like an additional vital organ, one that pumps away hollowness into your veins. It makes each day too hard to meet, and makes even the thought of smiling feel like a demanding chore. Ultimately, it can urge you to believe that dying—suicide—is a better alternative than living.

March 29, 2019April 5, 2019 by airizcasta

Review: Station Eleven

Title: Station Eleven
Author: Emily St. John Mandel
Genre: Science Fiction
My Rating: ★★★★★
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The last wedge of chocolate you chewed on. The fading flavour of coffee on your tongue. The last note of your favourite song that hung in the air. The creased page of the last book you read. The excited shriek you let out when you caught a virtual creature in a hip game-app. The uneven but beautiful smile of a friend. The soft, persistent kiss of someone you love. The familiar dissonance of the city—the honking of cars, the prattling strangers on the sidewalk during rush hour, the tired sighs of commuters as they wait for the next jam-packed train…

March 23, 2019April 11, 2020 by airizcasta