bethgstories

Internet connection sucked at the location, but we still managed to enjoy the two days Kim and I were at the Philippine Book Festival. This is my second year of attending the event, and just like before , the repeat buyer/reader and me couldn't get enough of author fangirling.   Fangirls unite! I met Rhois on Facebook, we've heard each other at the MIBF 2024, not only because we were both authors but we were both Kpop fangirls! Naturally, I was pretty excited about her latest release, which featured a boyband and their fangirls. Even more so when she mentioned that she was giving away photocards. Need I say more? I got there as early as I can to get my hands on the Mingyu photocard I was eyeing since the evening she posted it on Facebook. Meeting Ron Canimo (again...) It was during the last year's PBF when I first stood in line to get his books and have them signed. I didn't mind the long line, I didn't mind the wait. With him, it wasn't just about getting ...

I promised myself to read all the books I bought from last year's book fairs (and even from the year previous that) and decided to start with those written by women (yes, I just started this month). And so I immersed myself in the world of Sa Kalye Mailap , a Tagalog romance novel by Ana Digi . Published in 2023, the book has garnered love for its heartfelt storytelling, and I was fortunate enough to get my copy signed by the author at the MIBF 2024 . Meeting Ana Digi in person made the reading experience even more special. What is it about? Sa Kalye Mailap explores the intertwined lives of Robert and Lisa, two twenty-somethings thrust into unexpected circumstances that lead them to live as a couple. Rooted in the close ties between their families, the narrative unfolds with a focus on personal growth, familial bonds, and self-discovery. The plot follows Lisa and Robert, who have been childhood neighbors and whose fathers share a deep friendship. After the loss of their mothers, b...

I discovered Joi Barrios'  works when Kim showed me Muli, sa Tag-Araw. It was a little poetry book, almost looking like the prayer books my mom stashed at home. I am not a fan of poetry book—girl knew this and showed me the book anyway. I randomly opened the pages, a couple of lines caught me eyes, and then I was sold! Poetry is sacred to me, not in the religious kind of way, but figures of speech should be there. I want it to play with my thoughts. I want it to show me to discover the secret it holds. There are many poetry books out there, but only a few made me feel something. Joi Barrios’ poetry was one of them. A dive to the novels The novels were short—I finished them in one sitting. They carefully reminded me of the 2 PMs when I was way younger, when my auntie would play the AM radio and Tiya Dely would read mails about life experiences of her listeners and voice actors would dramaticize it. The smoke of my auntie's unfiltered cigarettes packed in a printed paper, li...

This post may be too late but I had to remove the carousel I uploaded on Instagram for aesthetic purposes. So here I am, sharing with you (once again) my June reads, and this time, this post is going to be here for good or for as long as this domain is alive .  1. The Premonition, Banana Yoshimoto This book has a magnificent prose. I love the way the words were weaved they sound almost lyrical. I wonder if it was the translator or the author, but it doesn't matter. The siblings gave me some Autumn In My Heart vibe it weirded me out in the beginning, but overall, I was entertained. Maybe I am Yukino in some life aspects. In that case, I desperately want my Masahiko! 😂 2. Idol Burning, Rin Usami Fandoms feel like a sensitive topic - they are so powerful and scary that they can make or break my internet existence. When Goodreads recommended this to me and discovered it was about fangirling, I didn't hesitate to read it.  Because I, too, am a fangirl.  Read my full review of...

There might be spoilers ahead. After the enjoyable experience Revenge has given me, naturally my thought process is to read another book from the same author. With Yoko Ogawa, there are a lot of books to choose from, and I chose Hotel Iris as my next read. My reason being 1) there's another Hotel Iris in one of the books on my reading list and 2) why the hell not?  Hotel Iris is such a short read, and if it was another book, I might have finished it in one sitting too. But no, it was a challenge to digest. I had to put it down in some parts where I felt uncomfortable, and somehow tried to find an acceptable reason why a 17-year-old naive girl would want to spend time with a 67-year-old experienced man... except for the fact that she was a teenager and when teenagers think they're in love they would go heaven and hell and beyond rationality. At one point it felt like I was watching a Japanese adult video (no babe, stop pretending you haven't seen one), especially during t...

Fandoms feel like a sensitive topic - they are so powerful and scary that they can make or break my internet existence. When Goodreads recommended Idol Burning and I discovered it was about fangirling, I didn't hesitate to read it.  Because I am a fangirl.  I spent most of my teenage years swooning over good-looking men who didn't even know me. Faces of strangers hung on my wall and each of them was part of my every night prayer. Their music was my after-class devotion and MTV was my salvation on days when trigonometry proved to be so much harder than it seemed. I collected teen magazines, compiled interviews, pasted cut-outs of their songs into a binder, and placed them on my bedside table. I recorded their singles from the radio and made mixed tapes that I would play depending on my mood, my emotional needs, and the weather. Life revolved around those men, and I would often daydream, what if... what if Nick Carter really married me.  Akari didn't have any romantic feel...

When Everytime hit the radio in 2003, the tea was, it was Britney’s song to Justin. They had just broken up and this news was all over the world. Somehow, I interpreted the lyrics as Britney saying sorry to Justin because she cheated on him. Soon after, Cry Me A River was released, an alleged response to Britney’s melody of broken heart. At the time, it all fit – the lyrics, the news, the info we all had. Britney cheated on Justin. Britney’s pregnant but she got rid of the baby because her career would be ruined. Now, exactly 20 years later, we learned the other side of the story. I saw …Baby One More Time went to MTV for the first time. I liked Britney Spears . She was cute and an extremely talented dancer. Until she was linked to Nick Carter (oh yes, we’re petty like that as teenagers). As someone who saw the rise of Britney’s career, her book became my time capsule that brought me back to when I was a schoolgirl and all I had to do was finish my homework and gossip about these We...

If cats disappeared from the world, I wouldn’t have had to spend a fortune on vaccines. So here I am, on my next book about cats. I am back with my lowkey obsession with Asian literature. They’re calm and warm and would often reassure me that it’s okay to prioritize myself and that doing so doesn’t make me selfish. If Cats Disappeared From The World is just like the other books from the same shelf. It somehow made me question how I am living my life because apparently “being alive doesn’t mean all that much on its own. How you live is more important.” So, what’s the story? The narrator failed to mention his name (or was I not paying close attention again?). Only that he’s a mailman and he was just diagnosed with a brain tumor so his days are numbered. Enter the Devil, who tries to send him the idea of making something disappear from the world in exchange for one more day to live. Being a human being who cherishes life dearly, he agreed. The 10 things I want to do before I die This was ...

Desperate Characters is supposedly included in my April reading list. But because it took me a while to finish it, I decided to have a theme for May’s list, now that I can finally laugh at the situation without bitterness. The book is not really hard to read despite the number of days it took me to finish it, and certainly not as challenging as Insurrecto. Desperate Characters follows the life of the Bentwoods, a childless middle-class German couple residing in 1970s Brooklyn. So, what’s the story? For the love of God, Sophie was just feeding that stray cat when it decided that perhaps, sinking its teeth into Sophie’s wrist is somehow a cool way of showing gratitude. Yes, it was about Sophie getting bitten by a stray cat but for some reason refuses to go to the doctor and get the wound checked. As she ponders on the possibilities of rabies and infections she might suffer, Otto , her husband rants about his partner at the law firm, Charlie Russell , and also, just about everyone and e...

Spoilers. Spoilers. Spoilers ahead! This book is supposedly part of my Holy Week creative reset , but there were other things that I needed to prioritize during that period (like scrolling mindlessly through Tiktok) so I just finished reading it last night. All The Lovers In The Night is the first Mieko Kawakami book I've read, and it heavily reminded me of my life currently Strange  Weather In Tokyo written by another Kawakami (Hiromi) . It is a character-based story, quite a bit dragging if you're a fast-paced-let's-get-it-on type of reader but nonetheless a fun, entertaining, and insightful read.  I was a proofreader, spending every moment of my day, from morning to night, hunting for mistakes. - Fuyuko  Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copyeditor who lives all by herself in a place where new relationships aren’t easy to establish. She spends most of her days working on manuscripts and corresponding with her editor, Hijiri. Later on, she adds getting drunk to the rou...

Again, manga is never on my list of interests, but this one persistently lured me.  So yes, I left my bed on a Saturday midmorning to finish this thing that same day I started it. 17 chapters after, here I am wishing there was some sort of an anime version, or a dorama version starring Dori Sakurada as Keiichirou-san. I identify as a hopeless romantic sapiosexual and nothing else is more toe-curling that a smut story of 2 innocent virgins exploring how making love works while at the same time geeking out on how marsupials and amphibian vertebrates attempt to impress their mates, or which flowers represent passion, or how sea cucumber survived for 600 million years without brain, heart, and even lungs. Oh damn, I’d love to have that kind of late-night conversation while curled up in Kim Junmyeon ’s arms , wrapped in a blanket like a cocoon. East Asian stories create male characters that are too good to be true - drop-dead handsome, extremely considerate, and accommodating toward...

Former CNBLUE member once said, "two books a month is a lot" ( video at 10:57 ), and guess who took it by heart. Of course, I didn't force myself to read more than two books this month because 1) 2 books is a lot, and; 2) I am overwhelmed with the pile of unread books on my shelf and because there are just so many of them I do not know what to read first and all the thinking and deciding took so much time that I ended up reading nothing.  Excuses. Okay, let me tell you the truth. I am lazy, okay? Plus I am too busy being happy with my job. So I decided to just make a monthly recap of all the books I've read instead of doing reviews for each. Also, I figured it might force me to read as many as I can so as to make a decent monthly list.  So here are my books for January.  1. Every Moment Was You , Ha Taewan This is one of the last few books I bought last year, and it ended up as the first book I read this year. If you are a Kdrama fan, you know this book very well. Lee...

These days I find it a privilege to be able to finish reading a book. Convenience Store Woman is only 94 pages though, perfect for when you've got nothing to do but roll over your bed for the rest of the night. At first, I thought this is going to be another plotless book, the kind I've learned to expect from Japanese stories like The Nakano Thrift Shop . But it gave me an extremely different kind of entertainment. I didn't find it funny or humorous, unlike the rave reviews I've seen. In this book I got mad, I smiled a little, raised my brows, and exhaled quite a few times.  Relatable Keiko Maybe, I could relate to Keiko. Except that I wasn't a troubled kid (okay, maybe just a little bit). And I could not see myself doing the same exact thing for eighteen years. Plus, I'd like to think I've successfully established my self-identity.  Keiko can't define herself in any other way, except that she was born to be a convenience store woman. She felt the need t...

After a few months of staring at my bookshelf wondering if it somehow just became a decoration in my room to make me feel and look smart, I finally finished reading a book! Apop has graciously provided us with books we can turn to when the whole world appears to be turning its back on us and we need to be reassured it's just a temporary thing. I'd normally shy away from non-fiction and self-help books but I realized I got to do what it takes to feel better in the middle of this worldwide mayhem. So I grabbed the whole set and set aside my scheduled Kdrama marathon weekend (Hospital Playlist 2) and read my first book from the bundle - Kim Dan 's  You Can Wind Down From Time to Time .   Can you tell me what am I going to read next based on what's on my bookshelf? The book is a compilation of snippets from our favorite kid stories, and essays on how they relate to the complicated part of our lives called adulting. Yes, I am an adult and I have no idea what I am doing most...

There might be spoilers ahead. It wasn't until I updated my Goodreads reading challenge that I realized it took me almost an entire month to finish reading this book. The Nakano Thrift Shop is a slow read, a book that I'd likely curl up with on a rainy Sunday afternoon, except it's dry season in the Philippines and there's hardly any rain. Anyway, if you are after the plot, there is none. It's a character-based story written from Hitomi's point of view, the girl that works behind the counter of the shop.  There are only four significant characters in the story. There's Hitomi. Then there's Takeo, who heavily reminded me of  Nakajima Yuto  in his drama Where Do I Came From , whose job is to go with the shop's owner Mr. Nakano in search of items to buy and sell. Then there's also Mr. Nakano's older sister, Masayo, an artist who eventually became Hitomi's closest friend.  The story imitates life too closely, and it's because the characte...

If hospital walls could speak, what kind of stories could they tell me, I would often wonder during the lonely afternoons I spent in the ICU many years ago. I figured it must be fascinating to hear stories of triumph over death, and of course heartbreaking to hear tales of defeat. Years later, I stumbled upon this book, and surprise surprise! It somehow resonates with what I was thinking. Reading it was like listening to one of the walls that surrounded me when I was seemingly counting my every breath. And I should say the stories were all so vivid that I could smell the smells (disinfectant mixed with detergent). I could see the faceless crowd walking back and forth in the hospital's dim corridors. I could hear the hush voices of the nurses drowned in the beep of the vital signs monitor. From the doctor's point of view If I am to write a non-fiction book, I'd write about my myasthenia gravis journey. I'd write about my hospital  mis adventures - the horrors of misdiagn...