How am I supposed to write my own reflection, or a book review for this one, when half the time I felt like my brain was being dragged through every technical, philosophical, & intellectual discussion imaginable?
This is my first time reading R. F. Kuang, and honestly, the experience felt both intimidating & deeply intriguing from the very first pages. The sheer amount of terminology, academic discourse, and layered intellectual conversations made the story feel incredibly dense—almost as if the book itself carried a tangible weight of knowledge. At times, it honestly felt like I was sitting inside a lecture far beyond my own understanding, trying to grasp every idea while knowing some of it would still slip past me.
And because of that, it also felt like such a looong read—not in a bad way, but in the sense that every chapter demanded patience, attention, and emotional energy. Kuang writes in a way that constantly reminds you how knowledgeable & intentional the narrative is. Every conversation feels loaded with meaning, every argument feels sharp, and every idea seems to carry its own gravity.
But what truly kept me reading was how human everything still felt underneath all that intellectual heaviness. Beneath the theories, philosophies, and dark academia atmosphere is something painfully tangible: the fear of not being enough, the hunger for validation, and the desperation to be chosen or seen as worthy. Even when I couldn’t fully absorb every technical detail, I could still feel the emotional intensity of the story so clearly.
Reading this felt overwhelming, immersive, and emotionally exhausting all at once. It’s the kind of book that makes you feel challenged not only as a reader, but also as a person trying to confront ambition, insecurity, and the unbearable weight of knowledge itself.
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The title alone—Affidavit of Loss—carries the weight of bureaucracy and erasure. As someone familiar with its legal use, I know it demands a formal declaration of something taken, missing, or irretrievably gone. It is language stripped of emotion, reduced to procedure. So when I learned it was a collection of poems, I wondered how something so rigid and administrative could be transformed into poetry—and what kind of emotional or political weight that transformation might carry.
What struck me most is how familiar the loss feels. It is not always loud or dramatic; sometimes it quietly settles into everyday life, carried through memory, absence, and the things people try—but fail—to leave behind. What struck me is how familiar it all feels.
The bureaucratic tone of loss is not distant—it is everywhere, it was and it is here. It is how injustice is archived, how disappearance is recorded, how violence is rendered procedural. What should be unbearable is instead normalized, folded into the language of “due process,” as if justice itself were not vague, conditional, and unevenly applied.
In this collection, loss becomes more than personal—it reflects the effects of state power, silence & institutional neglect. The Author reveals how legal language can be used to soften violence and erase history, turning the “affidavit” into a form of testimony against these systems. While institutions may choose what to remember or forget, these poems resist that erasure by continuing to name what has been lost.
I kept asking: what does it mean to give shape to something we can’t fully understand or contain?
The poems resist being contained. They break the silence around loss, revealing everything language fails to fully hold. Behind every line is a feeling, a memory, a name that refuses to disappear quietly.
To read poems about self-love, love, or friendship is one thing. But to encounter a collection shaped through rigid legal language—one carrying a nation’s collective experience—is something else entirely. It doesn’t simply move you; it unsettles you, refuses comfort, and demands attention.
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Over a year on my shelf—and I ended up finishing it while on shift 😅 Ending April ’26 with Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.
This book might look like a light, quirky story at first—but it’s much heavier than it seems.
At first, it’s easy to think Eleanor is just a quirky social misfit with no friends and no real social life—and she is. But it quickly becomes clear there’s much more to her. She lives a deeply lonely life, insisting everything is fine, when it’s obvious it isn’t—and maybe never has been. The story slowly reveals pieces of her past, holding back just enough that when the truth surfaces, it hits hard.
Eleanor is socially awkward, rigid, and often unintentionally funny. But she’s not written to be “cute.” She’s isolated, struggles to connect with people, and carries emotional weight you can feel even when it’s not fully explained. I found it especially painful to watch how she copes—retreating into habits and thoughts that keep her at a distance from the world, while quietly hoping for connection.
Although there is humor scattered throughout, this is ultimately a deeply sad story. There were moments I found genuinely hard to get through, especially when you see glimpses of how she views herself and her place in the world—it makes her loneliness feel even more suffocating. She’s often misunderstood or dismissed by the people around her, which only reinforces her isolation.
What the book does especially well is portray loneliness in a quiet, realistic way. Not dramatic or exaggerated—just the kind where days blur together and small interactions carry weight. That authenticity is what makes it linger.
Looking back, this turned out to be something much more emotional and confronting—something that stayed with me long after I finished it. It left me thinking about how easily we overlook people who seem “fine,” and how much can exist beneath the surface that we never take the time to understand—how a little more patience, compassion, warmth, empathy, understanding, or simple human decency might make a difference in ways we don’t immediately see.
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Received a physical copy from one of the book tours I’m part of, along with an extra copy of the author’s second book! Plus bookmarks, stickers, and personal notes 🥲 😭
Feeling incredibly lucky! ✨🙏🏻
Once again, endless thanks to @thefilipinoshelf and @solenewrites ♥️🍷
#bookishlove #bookishpost #bookish #bookmail #tfsafterglow
Good People by Claire Betita de Guzman is the kind of book that stays with you quietly.
What I loved most about this short story collection is that it doesn’t try to show only “good” people. Instead, it gives us people as they truly are—complicated, bruised, full of love, pushing through, and enduring in a world that is not always gentle. Some carry pain they caused themselves, while others carry pain passed down by life.
This is my first time reading a book by Ms. Claire, and now I understand why so many readers love her and the way she writes. Her storytelling feels effortless to fall into. I kept finding myself naturally moving on to the next story as each one quietly pulled me in. There is something deeply perceptive and reflective in the way she writes, as if she understands emotions we often carry but cannot always name.
What makes this collection special is how it rests in the gray areas of being human. It reminds us that people are never just one thing. Not simply good or bad, strong or weak, loving or cruel. We are all made of many parts, still learning, still choosing, still finding our way through life for the first time. Sometimes we hurt others while trying to heal ourselves, and sometimes we love the best way we know how, even when it is imperfect. That honesty is what makes these stories feel close and true.
This book also feels like a gentle reflection on love—where it begins, what it asks of us, and what people are willing to do because of it. There are no easy answers here, only small windows into lives and moments held still long enough for us to sit with them. Not to judge, but to understand.
If you’re looking for something beautifully written that captures how tender, messy, and deeply human people can be, this book is absolutely worth reading. ✨
#bookish #bookreview #bookstagram #ireadanvil #bookrecommendations📚❣️
Starting Affidavit of Loss—as if loss can be filed, signed, and contained, when it lingers long after the paper ends. 🗂📚📝🔍
Thank you once again @thefilipinoshelf@uppressofficial and @tintautology 🙏🏻✍🏻
~
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Afterglow: Poetry of Fire by Solène (Czarina de Guzman)
This is a collection of poems that moves through love in its most unguarded forms—the blaze, the breaking, and the quiet, difficult act of gathering yourself from the cinders left behind. The kind of love that doesn’t ask for permission before it ignites, and doesn’t leave without changing you.
There’s an intensity here that’s hard to ignore, as though each line was forged in flame. Love isn’t written as something safe or steady, but as something ready to ignite at any moment—unpredictable, overwhelming, and sometimes impossible to hold onto. The poems sit in that space where tenderness and hurt exist at the same time, where something beautiful can turn into something that burns without warning.
Reading it felt familiar in a way I didn’t expect—like remembering versions of myself I thought I had already let go of. The kind of love that glows so brightly at first, only to leave you learning how to sit with the afterheat when it’s gone.
What stayed with me the most is how the book doesn’t rush you out of that feeling. It lets the longing linger. It lets the ache exist. A slow, smoldering kind of pain that doesn’t demand to be fixed right away. And somehow, in that, there’s comfort. Because healing doesn’t always look like moving on—it can also look like learning how to carry what still burns without letting it consume you.
Maybe that’s why Afterglow feels so real.
It doesn’t try to make love look pretty or easy. It shows it as it is—messy, fleeting, and sometimes leaving behind more questions than answers. But also worth it, in a way that’s hard to explain unless you’ve felt it yourself.
In the end, it’s never the fire that stays—it’s the afterglow, the warmth, the scars that remind you you survived it.
And maybe that’s the quiet beauty of it—
that even after everything, something in you still burns, softer now, but steady. ✨
Thank you @thefilipinoshelf and @solenewrites for this opportunity! ❤️🔥❤️🩹
You can grab your copy through @8lettersbooks & @reko.books — as well as on Lazada & Shopee 🛒🛍️
#TheFilipinoShelf #TFSAfterglow #AfterglowPoetry
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I first read this years ago, and after rereading it now, I realize I still can’t talk about it like a typical review.
Reading it as a woman is unsettling—not because it tells you anything new, but because it puts into words what you’ve always known yet never said out loud. The quiet pressures. The constant awareness of your body. The invisible weight you carry every day.
Makiko, Midoriko, Natsuko—they’re different, but also the same in ways that are hard to ignore. Each of them is trying to understand their body, their worth, their place. And none of them ever really arrive at an answer.
Perhaps, that’s what stayed with me the most: there is no resolution. Just a steady, unrelieved exhaustion—one that feels closer to real life than any neat conclusion could.
The kind that comes from constantly asking:
Am I enough like this? Do I need to change? Do I want a child? And if I do, am I ready for everything that follows?
I feel like, the book doesn’t resolve these questions—it lets them exist, messy, repetitive. And reading it feels like being caught inside that loop, unable to step outside it.
It also refuses to romanticize anything. Motherhood isn’t softened; it’s uncertain, fragile. Wanting a child isn’t pure or instinctive—it’s complicated, even questionable. And that honesty feels almost cruel, but necessary.
There’s no loud empowerment here. No clear sense of liberation. Just awareness—and maybe that’s harder to face.
Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
I didn’t walk away feeling inspired—I walked away feeling seen, but not comforted. Like someone finally said the quiet part out loud, and now there’s no returning to not knowing. Even as the novel ends with Natsuko finding her own sense of peace and choosing a future she can finally call her own, that underlying weight doesn’t lift—it simply becomes something she learns to carry, like something the world expects from your body whether you agree to it or not.
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Rereading Dekada ’70 by Lualhati Bautista this Women’s Month feels different.
The first time I read it, I was angry. Angry at the system, at the silence, at how deeply oppression can root itself inside a home and call itself “normal.” But reading it again now, I find myself sitting more with Amanda—not just as a symbol of resistance, but as a woman slowly, painfully awakening.
Set during the Martial Law regime of Ferdinand Marcos, the novel remains grounded in a specific time in history. And yet, what unsettles me the most is how it refuses to stay in the past. Decades later—after the People Power Revolution, after everything we claim to have learned—the questions it raises still linger.
How many Amandas still exist today?
On this second read, her quiet defiance feels louder. Her realizations cut deeper. The weight of being a mother, a wife, a woman in a patriarchal society—it doesn’t feel distant or historical. It feels familiar. It feels present.
And that’s what makes Dekada ’70 so powerful—and so unsettling.
That a novel written in 1983 can still mirror the struggles of women today is both a testament to its brilliance and a reminder of how much work remains. The systems may have changed their faces, softened their language, modernized their appearance—but the core remains. Control. Silence. Expectation. Endurance.
Amanda’s journey wasn’t just about thinking differently—it was about choosing to see, even when it was uncomfortable. Choosing to question. Choosing to resist in ways both quiet and radical.
And maybe that’s what this book continues to teach us today—that awakening is a process, and awareness alone is not enough
And that is the most dangerous thing a woman can become… is aware
Because once you see the chains, you can no longer pretend they aren’t there.
Dekada ’70 is not just a story—it is a manifesto.
It is rage, grief, resistance, and hope woven into the story of a mother, a woman, a nation. It reminds us that liberation—whether personal or national—is forged through defiance, struggle, and refusal to stay silent.
#dekada70 #bookrecs #bookish #bookishph #bookcommunity
For this month—and in celebration of Women’s Month—I picked up this graphic novel by a wife-and-husband duo that explores Filipino folklore: Cautionary Tales From a Filipino Childhood by Bambi Eloriaga-Amago and Roland Amago.
Growing up hearing stories of local folklore, I eventually became desensitized to many horror tales. Instead of fear, they sparked amusement and a sense of thrill in me, making me eager to learn more about each province’s folklore and legends.
Since I can barely draw more than stick figures myself, I also found myself appreciating the artwork in this graphic novel. Through a Lola Basyang–like narrator, it tells classic horror stories—tales that almost everyone has heard at some point in their lives. While it doesn’t offer much comparison with other provinces’ versions of these stories, it was still engaging enough to spark my curiosity to read more. For younger generations who did not grow up hearing these local tales, it also serves as a good introduction.
The haunting illustrations help create an atmosphere similar to sitting with our grandparents on humid, dark nights during rotational brownouts, listening to them share old stories. It evokes memories of simple provincial life—afternoon snacks, children playing in the streets, midday and afternoon movies, and the familiar rhythm of life in the province. In many ways, it truly feels close to home.
Overall, it’s a fun & easy introductory read to Filipino mythological creatures that you can finish in one sitting.
If you have a child—or know someone raising Generation Alpha kids—you might consider gifting this to them so our local folklore can continue to live on and be passed down despite changing times.
PS: I won this from @thefilipinoshelf last year🤍
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Starting this Women's Month with The Age of Umbrage by Jessica Zafra 💜💚🤍
I’ll admit, I bought this book for the "vibe" first—the cover was playful and just the right amount of cheeky. But then it sat on my shelf for months. I’d seen the reviews; people either loved the wit or found it way too harsh, and I wasn't sure which side I’d land on.
After finally finishing it, I totally get the divide.
The story follows Guada, who grows up in the servants' quarters of a massive, old-money estate in the Philippines. She’s in this weird, uncomfortable middle ground: she sees the privilege, the Ferraris, and the high-society drama up close, but she’s never actually in it. Set during those messy transitional years between Marcos and Cory, the book is basically a front-row seat to the secrets the Philippine elite try so hard to hide.
There were moments while reading where I actually felt a little "called out." You know those tiny, awkward embarrassments we all learned to just accept while growing up? Zafra points them out with precision. Her humor is dry—sometimes so dry it feels a bit mean—and if you’re looking for a warm, fuzzy "coming of age" story, this isn't it. She can be cynical, and at times, it feels like she’s looking down on the very world she’s describing.
But beneath all that sarcasm, there’s something really human. It’s that universal, stinging feeling of being slightly out of place. It’s the way she describes the specific smell of a street or the way a certain meal tastes—it feels like a memory you forgot you had.
By the end, I wasn't just laughing at her jokes; I was thinking about my own "outsider" moments. It’s a sharp, sometimes prickly read, but it reminded me that being the awkward person on the margins is actually a much more shared experience than we realize. Even if you don't always like the tone, you’ll definitely recognize the truth in it.
This Women’s Month, Guada’s story reminds me that growing into womanhood is rarely graceful—it’s awkward, observant, and full of quiet realizations about where we belong - and eventually, realizing we have a place in it too.
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