dlrosebyh's Reviews (773)

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for sending me a free e-ARC of The Misdirection of Fault Lines. 

 

Listen, I don’t know if it’s because I don’t know how to play tennis, but I didn’t really enjoy this book. The only redeeming element were the characters. And that’s it. 

Filipino men are either of the two Ts: trash or treasure. And while this is cliché, Filipinos take this very seriously, hence why Smaller and Smaller Circles didn’t feel fiction at all while reading this. 

 

If you’re familiar with Philippines politics, every element in the novel shouldn’t surprise you. Yup, priests can be corrupt, can be evil, and it happens more regularly than expected. But what’s so groundbreaking about this book is that it breaks the conservatism of our country in some sort of way. 

 

Growing up as a Filipino in a conservative Catholic household, I've always been told to not do certain things, and consuming media against the 5th commandment (AKA: thou shalt not kill) is extremely prohibited. Smaller and Smaller Circles winning as a Philippine National Book Award sure stirred a lot of conversation, but it was deserving of the attention. 

 

One thing Filipino authors never fail to do is to bring up the social issues in our country. In this book, we can see that with the underlying child labor plot, where children are forced to work because they’re in poverty. 

 

While, yes, I know that the book is something not new or has been done before, I also really enjoyed reading it. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m Filipino, but this book felt somehow like home. It was easy to read, to digest, and you don’t need a lot of brainpowers unlike a majority of crime/mystery novels. 

 

Overall, I believe that Smaller and Smaller Circles might be cliché, but it’s an eye-opening novel about the things happening in the Philippines, a third-world country who do not have the privileges first-world & second-world countries have. 

Firstly, I’d like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free e-arc of Medea by JJ Taylor. 

 

Finally, I have finally read a Medea retelling. AND I LIKED IT. 

 

For the past few years, I’ve been finding a Greek mythology retelling that isn’t Hades and Persephone. Like, they’re great and everything, but they have the tend to be overdone. Other than that, I also didn’t want to read anything from authors I have read before, so this.. it had something I want. 

 

I was never familiar with Jason (I mean I was… but I was familiarized with Greek Mythology women more), so I wanted to see if he was a normal Greek Mythology ego guy, and uhm…yeah! He was! He was coward and selfish; thank GOD he isn’t the main character. 

 

Medea contains a lot of twists, so it kept me intrigued! That doesn’t happen to retellings a lot, so I was shocked of how bold this book is. It was definitely a delight and I would highly recommend! 

Read this because my group is making a Macbeth x Heathers project...lol.

I have yet to find a short story collection that can make me go 'wow'. Because this was not it.

It had everything I want in a short story collection. It was directed to people who tend to result to pain, to fear, to anxiety.  But I found this book...lacking? I don't know, I only liked maybe three stories and that's about it. My favorite is absolutely Rambla Triste. If the rest of the collection was written like that, then maybe I would have rated this higher.

Also, the last story has the t slur. I have not seen anyone mention it, which is weird...