Before Ever After

Before Ever After by Samantha Sotto

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Eggs.

Whether its well done, sunny side up, creamy scrambled eggs, by the time I'm finished with this book, I was having egg withdrawals.

You guessed it. Before Ever After revolves around eggs which I think, for sometime, was pretty out of the box. That and the egg hunt tour around Europe.

But then, it's what gave the novel a unique charm. I've always been in love with Europe. The cobbled streets lit by the warm glow of lamps. The brick houses and the castles. The history and culture that resonates even now.

For someone who can only dream about going to Europe, I felt nostalgic. Samantha Sotto takes you through Europe's streets with lush and vivid prose, with unexpected twists and turns.

Though it dragged at first and there were many questions left unanswered, what really set Before Ever After above other novels is Sotto's unrivaled take on immortality.

She defied the laws of fiction writing by beginning the past at the end and weaving it with the unfolding present(whew!).

After I read this book, I had a different perspective on eggs, basilisks, and endings.

PS. I'm extremely proud for this beautiful Pinay and her ode to the Philippines!

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Separation anxiety

When I look at my book shelf, all I see is: SEPARATION ANXIETY. The missing titles among the row of books is that obvious I could actually see those two words.

It does feel good to share shove my books into my friends hands. For them to read it and like it is another thing to boost my bibliophilic ego.

But I do miss my books after a while and it worries me that they might never come back. I fervently hope not. That would break me.

My books are important to me. They each carry a piece of me - a memory, a place, a time, a person. They've been with me through a certain point in my life and I clung to them for my dear life.

Maybe one day I could let them go, set them free. Pieces of me in the hundred paperbacks, millions of words, out there in the universe.

Now they're selfishly mine. Living pieces of me scattered within a 300 mile-radius, maybe?

Top New Year's resolution: Read more. Write more (other than work).

You think when you get older you'd read more classics, more philosophical works, more non-fiction. Genres  beyond your years because at the age of 21, you want to prove how intelligent and wide reader you are. (There's just so many 20 books you need to read in your 20s list, 30 books in your 30s, I plan to read some of it) But instead, you get stuck in Young Adult and you're not even ashamed. Way better than getting caught reading 50 Shades of Grey in public, or even in your e-reader cause nosy people can still read the large font, you guys.

Apologies

"What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being." - Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Someday, I will get this permanently inked on my skin. Guess not today. 

This sums up 2012 for me and even when the new year came around, I still feel adrift. 

I want to be more, want to be here, want to leave footprints, want to know where I'm going, or atleast, keep going wherever I'm headed. 

I'm taking it one day at a time, one book at a time. 

Somewhere in the pages, I'll find a word, a phrase that would hold me down.

Apologies for not being here.

October's come and gone

Hello from a month-long hiatus!

I miss it here, though to tell the truth, I shun this corner out of hopelessness. There really comes a time in your life that you fail to see the point in everything. So you blindly trudge on and bump into things and you end up with a couple of bruises.

The past month has been a philosophical roller coaster ride. I spent weeks of introspection and lost thousands of brain cells in the process. Just when I was clearly losing a battle with myself, someone I barely know looks me in the eye and says, no - exclaims "great pretender!", with a finger pointing at me of course. I have nothing against mind-reading and mind-readers, but that accusation knocked me off, like I was found guilty without due process in court. Psychologists or whatever you call them - not even a real one! - are not supposed to judge you or persecute you. I guess I was more bothered by the fact that I was bothered at all.

The thing is when I asked someone who really knows me if I was guilty, he said yes, and I accepted it without question. I realized that while some people are out to diminish you, there are people who accept you for your being, your flaws, your passion, that you learn not to be so hard on yourself. That I am very much appreciated. I'm glad someone found me before I fade away.

Do you know the feeling when you're reading a book and it becomes your perspective on life? I found solace in Milan Kundera's words:

"What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being." 

"The absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant." - The Unbearable Lightness of Being