Staircase Wit

I rarely read YA, but if the movie or TV series version fascinates me enough, I would definitely read the books. After rapidly binge-watching Netflix's Shadow and Bone, I quickly devoured Siege and Storm. The plot is fast-paced and interesting, and the world-building makes for an absorbing read. I loved how the story is Tsarist Russia-inspired, instead of the Medieval European setting common in fantasy books. While it's no Harry Potter, I like the Shadow and Bone Trilogy as much as I liked The Hunger Games Trilogy. 

  Four women who live in Gangnam in Seoul, South Korea, offer insights about South Korean culture: obsession with K-pop idols, plastic surgery, borrowing money to afford plastic surgery, aversion to starting a family and having kids, and class and social discrimination.

Ready Player Two, just like its predecessor Ready Player One, endlessly references 80s pop culture. It's very nostalgic, and acts as if no good film, video game, music or book was ever written or released after the 1990s. The plot was compelling enough that I forced myself to finish the novel, although some chapters dragged. Did those chapters drag because I did not know enough about the movies/musician/video game they were referencing? Probably. But a novel is not supposed to punish me for not knowing about names, events, and facts it has not even discussed. It's even supposed to make me care and want to learn more about them, which, sadly, Ready Player Two failed to do. If it's my fault that I didn't enjoy the novel fully because I am not familiar with 80s pop culture, then the novel gatekeeps more than it entertains. However, I think the ending saved the book, although it felt like a combination of several Black Mirror episodes. (Yes, I know I just complained about b...

Four siblings are promised a huge amount of money from a trust fund, which they will receive once the youngest of them celebrates her 40th birthday. They call this fund 'The Nest', and they have always been impatient to receive it. Then one day, the siblings are shocked to find out that most of the money is gone because of the eldest brother's scandal. This is an intelligent and witty story about a dysfunctional family, a reflection of how people can get lazy and unimaginative when they feel that huge amounts of money is their birthright. This is a story filled with selfish, greedy, but interesting characters. While the characters are not particularly likeable, the novel is a pleasure to read.  

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a prequel to the Hunger Games trilogy, and President Coriolanus Snow's origin story. While the Hunger Games trilogy showed us the life of a teenager from District 13, Ballad offers the perspective of an ambitious and self-entitled teenager who grew up in the Capitol, bitter and disgruntled because his family lost all their money after the districts' First Rebellion. Coriolanus Snow is a complicated and interesting antihero. He is calculating, but he somehow still has a moral compass. He always thinks ten steps ahead, but he can still fall in love. While there are so many other characters from the Hunger Games trilogy with more colorful back stories, The Ballad of Songbird and Snakes is still an entertaining read. Worth reading if you're a fan of the trilogy.

This is an intriguing and entertaining quick read, a guilty pleasure of a page-turner that is easy to finish in a few hours.  This book is about social climber Amber Patterson, who befriends the beautiful Daphne Parrish so she can steal the latter's obscenely rich husband. While this book has evil villains with no redeeming value, it is worth reading for the satisfying plot twist.

Rebecca Serle's In Five Years pretends at first to be a romance novel. The premise: Dani, a career-driven lawyer gets engaged to a guy who is the "right fit" for her. She falls asleep and wakes up five years later finding herself in bed with a totally gorgeous total stranger. Then she wakes up again, returning to the present. Eventually she meets again the stranger in her "dream". It sounds like a cute rom-com, but nope, it's far from one. In Five Years is actually a story about friendship, and about finding and loving yourself. The bittersweet twist at the end is sad but realistic and satisfying. This is a heartwarming and beautiful read.

No, this not a self-help book that teaches you how to be charming and how to effectively communicate with people. This a book written by Malcolm Gladwell, after all. Malcolm Gladwell wants to tell us that we generally "default to truth", that we have a tendency to believe that people are telling the truth, even if there is already glaring evidence that we are being lied to. Then again, Gladwell tells us that it's okay if most of us default to truth. After all, if we are all skeptics all the time, it would be impossible for us to have to have an organized society. Gladwell also warns us that not all strangers are transparent. We think we might know psychology and human behavior, and that we have ample experience in reading people. But some people's internal feelings and thoughts are simply not matched to their facial expressions and behavior. Talking to Strangers is another interesting and fascinating book by Malcolm Gladwell.  Read his books with a grain ...

The story of Bel Canto was inspired by the 1996 Japanese Embassy hostage crisis in Peru. That hostage crisis, just like the one in the novel, lasted for several months. In real life, just like in the novel, revolutionary rebels took as hostage high-level diplomats and business executives. The main difference between the two hostage crises: In the novel, one of the hostages is the world's greatest opera singer. Bel Canto is romantic, haunting, and fi lled with magical realism. It makes you fall in love with each and every character--every politician, diplomat, priest, idealistic young rebel soldier and general. It makes you understand why the hostages and rebels all wish they never have to leave the mansion where they are all locked up. Then it breaks your heart. Read the book, then watch the film. Both are inspiring and beautiful.

City of Girls is a decadent, booze-filled, and sexy coming-of-age novel about New York City, the theater, fashion, and feminism. While it starts off light and fun, it eventually reminds you that the novel is set against the backdrop of World War II, and tells of the somber reality experienced by the war's survivors. Photo credit: Bloomsbury UK

Flexing the spoils of my Valentine's Day visit to  # BigBadWolfBooksPH   # BBWManila2020 . A little bit of politics, historical fiction, spy thriller, finance, and of course, chick lit.

Well, it's a page-turner, and it's quite entertaining dystopian fiction. It reads just like YA. A far cry from the first book, The Handmaid's Tale.

Educated is the remarkable memoir of Tara Westover, who didn't have any formal education until she was seventeen. Despite her lack of formal schooling, she taught herself Algebra, and was admitted to a university. She went on to earn her masters degree and PhD from the University of Cambridge, and was a visiting fellow at Harvard University.

André Aciman's Call Me By Your Name is the most gripping, rousing, and beautifully-written romance novel I have ever read. What a love story. What an ending. I melted, cried, writhed, suffered.

Things I learned from Ryan Holiday's Ego is the Enemy: 1. Do your work. Do it well. You may or may not be rewarded for it, but that's not important. Recognition and rewards are a bonus. The effort is enough. 2. Never stop being a student. Never forget that there is much you don't know yet. Seek criticism and feedback. 3. Winning is not enough. People can get lucky and win. Being the absolute best you're capable of should be the metric to measure yourself against. 4. Greatness comes from humble beginnings; it comes from grunt work. It means you’re the least important person in the room—until you change that with results. (Part I Chapter 5).

Copyright: HarperCollins Publishers Limited Hyeonseo Lee, a North Korean defector, writes about life under one of the harshest dictatorships. Her life in North Korea, as described in the early chapters (the ones about her life in North Korea) is so similar to the lives of the people in George Orwell's 1984: friends and neighbors rat out on each other when they are suspicious of each other's loyalty to the Dear Leader and the Great Leader;  the regime forces its citizens to always be in the company of other people to keep them from having individualistic and private lives; food and resources are dwindling, yet the government consistently feeds them propaganda that they are the greatest and richest nation in the world. Hyeonseo Lee is a courageous, adaptable, and resilient woman, sharing her fascinating story of escape to China, and eventually, to South Korea.

Copyright:  Windsor-Brooke Books, LLC Sultana, a Saudi Arabian princess, tells her story to American writer Jean P. Sasson. Sultana lives an obscenely wealthy and luxurious life filled with private jets, palaces and lavish gardens in the middle of the desert, yet she feels trapped in a gilded cage. While studying, working, driving a car, traveling on their own, dating, and getting married to the person they love are things women all over the world enjoy and take for granted, control of their bodies, lives, and happiness is still something women and even princesses in Saudi Arabia have to fight hard for their entire lives.

Copyright: St. Martin's Press Behind Closed Doors starts by first making it appear that Grace Angel, the heroine, has the perfect marriage, and that her rich, handsome, and loving husband absolutely adores her. The ugly nightmare of her marriage masterfully   reveals itself, a kind of slow torture befitting the pain the heroine goes through. A horrifying and macabre read, but a great psychological thriller. Rating: 4/5

Copyright: Flatiron Books Black Klansman is the true story of an African American undercover cop who led a sting operation against the Ku Klux Klan. He joined the KKK, phoned regularly with then KKK Grand Wizard David Duke and the local organizer Ken O'Dell, and used the information he got from them to preempt the Klan's activities. The subject itself is amusing and entertaining, although the writing is a bit flat. However, Sgt. Ron Stallworth is primarily a police officer, so he can be forgiven for not being a spirited storyteller. Looking forward to watching BlacKkKlansman, the movie adapatation direcreted by Spike Lee.