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You Loved Me at My Darkest… so dark…
What can I say? I HAVE A NEW FAVE AUTHOR ON MY LIST!
Congrats, Evie Harper, for a great debut! You Loved Me at My Darkest took me to a hell of a ride. The Taken premise was just right to get me hooked on the story.
I love Lily, I love Jake. I pained for Sasha, Emily, Megan, Cho, Natalia, and all the women who unfortunately got into the mix. I was breathing hard in most parts, especially during and after Sasha’s escape. That almost killed me, I cried buckets. I was looking for a plot twist or something… but **sigh**. Those parts were hard, especially that my blurry eyes were acting up.
Though, I look forward to Alexa and Joseph. Their impending chase excited me so much. I am a sucker for their kind of drama.
This scared me a little since I’ll be flying away from home (not New York, though) to work. I have a pretty morbid imagination and reading YLMAMD touched the scared-shit inside of me making me think of what-ifs. Pfft! Hahaha.
Anywho, again, congrats on your amazing debut, Evie (I’m on a first-name basis now, eh?). All the stalking your takeovers and grovelling to the rafflecopter gods to lemme win a copy paid off so well I wanna do the chicken dance for them. Hahaha!
I also want to say ‘thank you’ to Ate MayRose for introducing you to me through your work. It was because of her that I got obsessed with chasing butterflies.
I look forward to reading more of you. Kudos and love from the Philippines!
Reading DRACULA abridged version
Today, our office had a familiarization tour a.k.a field trip to various museums and parks here in Davao.
Anyways, in the bus, while everybody was busy chatting and feeling excited by our trip I was busy doing my thing; snuck up on my corner of the bus, reading.
I was reading the abridged and starter version of DRACULA. I borrowed it from our Admin Officer’s sixth-grade son.
The book was a fun read. I finished the 200-pager in an hour and a half, give or take a few minutes. It was a chill and quick read because even if it was 200 pages long, the print was large and every chapter has a pageful illustration. If the print was printed the way my regular read was, it’d be cut in half.
I enjoyed the book a lot, actually. The past years, I have read countless books that depicted vampires as this yummy papis that women drool over.
With this book, the king vampire was not depicted as a sparkly, shimmery, shine-bright-like-a-diamond vampire; none whatsoever! Good ol’ Count Drac was written as a pretty bad villain! And it was cool. I missed the original vampires who killed and infect like no other!
But it wasn’t a complete experience for me. The gore wasn’t there the way it was in the unabridged version. Then in the end part, it was a little anticlimactic because—with everything that Count Drac did in London–the fight and the ultimate death happened in just one page, two paragraphs.
Maybe because it’s a kid’s book so it was a bit tamed. Rated PG.
What made the read even more fun, though, was when my officemates were amazed that I leafed through the pages “like lightning” (their words)! Hahaha! They were shocked when they saw me close the 200-pager before we reached our second destination. ^o^ It was a kewl feeling when I saw their faces and when one said, “I know you read much, but I have no idea you read THAT MUCH! (NV)”
Anywho, to wrap this up… I give Count Drac 4/5 stars for a reader starter book.
When the Fangirl Made Her Dream Come True
Yallo! Prima donna testimonista’s back! Hohoho. So here’s my review for the recent Eve Montelibano kick-ass story, Dare To Love.
Technical review:
The book was quite thick and the pages were printed so close to the top and bottom margins so it’s a long story. The letters were so tiny so it’s an eye buster; people should not forget their glasses. The cover art was enticing; it spoke of its enticing contents. Although we know we should never ever judge the book by its cover but in this case we could. There were some typographic and spelling errors peppering the prose though it’s forgivable. Sorry, Evie, I just can’t help turning on the technical reader in me sometimes. Hohoho! —END—
Story review:
As I have said before, the story was a VERY FEEL GOOD one. There was not a lot of heavy drama that would make you weep in agony. There was a little story about Alana’s treachery and Gabby’s crazy-obsessive love to Dare. But all in all, the book was all laughter, giggles, and snickers. It was a romantic comedy worthy of Jennifer Aniston. 😉
Celine. Everybody who was crazy over Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Leonardo di Caprio, and all the other legendary hotties of Hollywood could easily relate with Celine Lavega. Who wouldn’t? Admit it or not, each one of us has fancied being in love with one or two or all of these men and we dreamt of marrying our ultimate Hollywood hero someday. I know I did! I was ultimately in love with K. Reeves when I first saw him in SPEED when I was still 13 years old. I swore to myself that I would marry him by hook or by crook. Then, I wanted to kill Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie for snagging Brad Pitt. But we know those were just fangirl dreams. But Celine made those dreams come true! She snagged her ultimate Hollywood dream man! Albeit it took her a lot of time and a lot of dedication and a stroke of luck via her fairy godfather, Mr. Benjamin Speedman, but in the end she landed glitter city’s Mr. Movies!
Dare. Dare was the ultimate Hollywood hottie worthy of those people mentioned above. Although we imagine him as Paul Walker, he’s more of a Brad Pitt crossed with Brad Pitt (sorry, I have an obsession with BP). He’s successful and rich as a god and I could not describe how good looking he is. He has residences in Beverly Hills, Thailand, Singapore, and scores of other cities. And he doesn’t know Philippines even exist. But despite all of those, he has had a bad early life and sorrow peppered his life. Been married to his first love but was only betrayed. Been married to two supermodels for show. Been divorced twice and his third encountered difficulties because Gabby wanted to have him back, or his money – something like that. He was a cynic alright. Who wouldn’t be? Love was like a mystery in his life. So unreal. Then she met a pretty spitfire that turned his upside down world upside down.
The love story. Hmm. The love story was so, so, so effing good! The first meeting, nothing short of being spectacular. The next meetings, right up to the first meeting’s alley. The banters were epic. The love-bordering-on-obsession-but-turned-out-right-in-the-end plot was pretty farfetched but nothing short of what every Hollywood actors-loving girl would ever dream of. The conflict was pretty thick, thus the migraine inducing number of pages. The love scenes were pretty, pretty hawt! Memorable LSs?
- The limo-scene
- Plane crash-site first time
- Dalliance at The Marq
- The durian ice cream eating
Fan rating. 9 stars out of 10.
House of Decadence: JAQ
Philippines
Okay. This is a little bit late, as usual… but I’m a prima donna and I lurrrrve to make a scene, so here we go!
I had Jaq for days now. He was sent to me by an angel lurking around the corner. Thank you by the way, girl. I won’t mention your name here at baka mahiya ka na naman. 😉
Anyway, despite having him in my book pile for days, I did not have the courage to read him. Why? I have these reservations with regards to Jaq. I know he’s written superbly, knowing Eve Montelibano, so it’s not about the story. It was about people’s reception of him and some other shit reason.
One, people were raving about him and sometimes I don’t like it when people kept yapping (sorry for the term, guys!) about a particular book. When people do that my expectations get soooo high that I get frustrated when it fell short. I got burned by Twilight (no bad-blood with the TwiFans in here, I just don’t like the saga – personal choice). Two, a friend told me that his story was sort of a… “some kinda like the Sweetheart series” by, uhm… So that was a definite bummer for me (sorry for her lingering fans). Three, and this is the shitty one, I have an enormous pileup of books that craved for my attention. So… *shrug*
But, a weak book-slut as I am, I caved in. I read Jaq.
AND BOY HOWDY WAS I PROVEN RIGHT AND WRONG!
As usual, Jaq’s prose was written fabulously by this woman whom I so wanted to bottle and include in my daily vitamin regimen. A toast is in order for the not-so-prolific but very fantastic romance goddess of Philippine written literature. Evie, you could charm words like a turban guy charms a cobra. Kudos!
I can say that I can’t fault readers who were raving about Jaq. I AM RAVING MAD ABOUT JAQ! My expectations were high and, boy, meeting those expectations was magical! The beauty of first love, the pains and hardships of Montague-Capulet-like shits (asshole brothers, snotty sister, freaked-out parents), misunderstandings that went waaaaay out of proportion, rediscovering the beauty of love, brain-draining twists and revelations, and the brand that ultimately screams LOTHARIO and LM – scorching hot and detailed love scenes – completed the whole experience. So, pardon my French but aside from the first love blah I can’t see a damn ounce of Sweetheart here (just saying).
And, I’m just glad that I turned a blind eye on my book pile and passed up on reading Sheldon, Sparks, Wharton, and a whole lot of people on my to-read load because Jaq had me at…
She suddenly looked in his direction.
Their eyes locked on each other.
He wasn’t into clichés. But hell, for once, he’d concede to this one, overused romantic allusion.
Time definitely stood still for him. (HOD: Jaq, pp. 20)
I caught bait, hook, line, and sinker! I am such a weakling… An addicted weakling.
Then, throughout my reading, I writhed in what we call the “kilig moments”. I definitely enjoyed their trysts. I laughed like a big idiot especially in scenes with X and the Oblivion gang. I hated the Yulo twins like a plague. I hated Jordan, too, but not as much as the twin assholes. Sherry Yulo is forgivable, she is in love! I fell in love more with X (sorryJesse Peralta but I’m just being truthful) and albeit I know he’d eventually end up with Yandra I wanted to have the juicy bits of how would Y bring the King of Excess down on his bony knees, pun intended, pronto. Then, there was the short segment with Lizzy and Kit before everything got so messed up between the two of them (I took it as a sign to read Kit again; crossfingers with that Joy de Vera). The two star-crossed lovers/parents added a cute twist although they did not get enough mileage.
And, boy, was I intrigued by the running-mystery of Jaq’s biological pop! I had fun contemplating between FM, FVR, and Erap. But I guessed it was not the latter because he’s, I guess, not powerful enough so it’s either FM or FVR. And I was right! It’s Mr. Tobacco-man! Hahaha!
It also made me think about Lothario’s geishas. I know they are, well, high-end “prostitutes” (sorry, I don’t know how to put it lightly) but I really wanted some of them to end up with a Lothario or someone of the same level. Let’s not count Laila here, she was not a geisha. I really liked Psy/Psyche. She has a great mind and a great personality. She’s technically a woman of the world and could kick some serious ass. She is a Lothario in some sense. I really wanted her to have her own story (just saying again).
Anyway, all in all, it was a refreshingly hot read. Although I did not cry a lot, I did laugh and feel their pains. I also got hooked with the kilig-feeling from start to finish. It was not a drama, although it had a lot of drama. It’s not Kit- or Nico-level when it comes to tear-jerking and heart-wrenching; those two were the ultimate sob-heaver EM novels bar none. I loved it to bits and would definitely read it again in due time.
Jaq was a read worthy of its imprint; it was a decadence a modern Filipina and Filipino could indulge in to. Happy reading, again! Toodles!
P.S. Ms. Eve used Always by Bon Jovi for their love theme song. I loved Jon so much and it tickled me that my fave song was injected into the story. But I would like to pitch in a song for Jaq and Angie, too:
After All by Peter Cetera and Cher
After all the stops and starts
We keep coming back to these two hearts
Two angels who’ve been rescued from the fall
After all that we’ve been through
It all comes down to me and you
I guess it’s meant to be forever you and me
After all
I Am Luan 