Category: musing

Well, what should I say? I’m glad my office crush is not an IT guy or else I’m doomed.

Okay, I really don’t know how to start with my review because I still can’t get over with all the kilig I felt after finishing the book. Perhaps, I should start with this warning:Never use your company email for telling personal stuff (specially your office crush) to your friends at work for some cute IT guy, who also happens to be your crush, might be prying on your email.

Attachments is really a very lovable story. I love everything about it specially the way the author used the (email) epistolary style in presenting the characters. To be more specific, I love the email exchanges between Beth and Jennifer because admittedly, we often do that in our office. I mean, we usually maximize the sametime feature of our company email to chat with each other about personal stuff like, in my case, crush sightings :D.

I think that is the reason why I find the story so realistic. As for the characters… well, I adore Lincoln! I picture him as someone who looks like this:

I think I’ll stop here. I just want you to read it and hopefully agree with me later that it’s a nice story indeed.

Title: Attachments
Author: Rainbow Rowell
Rating:Rating: 
Copy: E-book
Read from March 23 to 24, 2013

Okay, so that was my initial reaction after reading the book. What I like most about this book is that the authors never failed to remind that yes, in one way or another, you’ve committed an act of cupidity but it’s never too late to ask for  forgiveness and start with a clean slate. Our God is a God of forgiveness and redemption.Cupidity was actually more of a reminder for me that we should really test against God’s Word whatever things we heard about love. Every believer should always bear in mind that God is always concerned about our lives, and that includes our love life.

Title: Cupidity
Author: Hailey and Michael DiMarco
Rating:Rating: 
Copy: Owned
Read from February 05 to March 17, 2013

Ever since I first get to know Jesus personally, it has always been my desire to grow and mature in my faith in Him. As a relatively young Christian, I know I still have a long way to go to reach at least that same level of maturity exemplified by Paul in the bible. I still find it hard to submit to Jesus completely and I still commit sin over and over again. My only consolation is that I’m holding to God’s promise that He will finish into completion the good thing He has started in me. I’m holding to my faith that in Him I can have eternal life not because of my performance but because He is gracious and loving.

Jesus said that if we will accept Him as the Lord and Saviour of our life, we can have eternal life. When I first heard about this, I refuse to believe it. Is the way to heaven really that easy? Just by accepting Jesus in my life I can be assured of going to heaven? I don’t think so. The bible even says that you have to choose the narrow road before you can go to heaven.

But then God opened my heart and He made me accept the truth and truly, accepting and believing in Jesus as our Lord and Savior is actually not that easy. Well, believing that He is a Saviour, yeah maybe, but as Lord, that’s a different thing. Imagine allowing someone to tell you things you need to do even if you don’t want to. Who would want that? But then, that’s what Jesus really wants from us. He cannot be our Savior unless He is Lord. It may seem difficult to surrender our life to Him but the truth is, it’s the other way around. Life with Jesus is a lot more easy. He can even make us the kind of person that He wants us to be, if we will only let Him do the work for us. All we need to do is align our hearts with Him. And the message of this book revolves around this truth.

The message of this book is not actually new for it is a universal truth for Christians that doing the will of God should be our greatest desire. It is only by living the life according to His will that we can have a full and meaningful life – a life that is filled with purpose. As mentioned by the author, “Learning to desire God’s will is not something we can accomplish by resolve and willpower. It occurs only when we live so close to God’s heart that the rhythm of our own heartbeat comes to reflect the divine pulse.”

This book is actually an encouragement and a challenge for me. Somehow God used this book to reveal to me and make me realize that I’m really doing things the wrong way. No matter how many sacrifices I made for God, it will be useless unless I do it with the right motivation, and that is love. Love for God, for other people and for the world. What really matters to God is the state of our heart and I know this is still one of the process items in my life. But, I don’t despair because I know Jesus will help me and make me change my heart. A heart that is beating and longing only for Him. 🙂

I’m not really  fond of paranormal YA books, maybe because I had enough of Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and yes, Twilight that I get tired of reading about people with extraordinary power.It was only last month that I started reading this genre again and I’ve chosen this book after reading the Hex Hall series.

I’ve been seeing good reviews about this book, and I got curious that most reviews say that the male protagonist is swoon-worthy. Well, I guess they’re right. It’s really hard not to like this book because love-hate relationship are really my favorite recipe for a love story. And I love the characters, especially Katy, who also  happens  to be a bookworm and a blogger. As for Daemon, yes, he is swoon-worthy but I think I still prefer decent guys over bad-ass ones. I really find the brawling episodes between Katy and Daemon sweet and cute so yes, I think I’ll love following this series.

I just can’t believe that I was able to put off reading this work of Gaiman for a year now. The movie adaptation of this book was one of my favorites last year so I decided to try the book as well. Besides, I’ve been hearing good things about Neil Gaiman from my bookworm friends.  I’m glad I did because I enjoyed the book as much as I enjoyed the movie.

Stardust is a fantasy story about a lovestruck man, Tristan Thorn and a fallen star, Yvaine. Initially, Tristan was inlove with another woman, Victoria, and he will do everything just to get her attention. So when she asked him to get the fallen star for her, Tristan did not hesitate to cross the wall and oblige to Victoria’s request. To his surprise, what he found was not a piece of rock but an unbelievably stubborn girl and that’s the start of their wonderful story.

Anyway, I’ll stop discussing the details of the story in this review for I might spill some spoilers.

My experience while reading the book was actually a rehash of the experience I had when I was watching the movie. However, I felt betrayed when I found out at the end of the book that the movie was different in a number of ways. Well, they say never judge a book by its movie so maybe i’ll take note of that next time.

I gave this book 4 stars because I really like it. I think watching the movie first didn’t help for I was so familiar with the plot that I didn’t get excited that much while reading. But I want to give Gaiman some credit for the plot because it’s really unique and I love his kind of old english writing style so for sure, this is definitely not my last book from Gaiman.

Title: Stardust
Author: Neil Gaiman
Rating: 
Copy: Owned
Read from August 01 to 02, 2012

When I was younger, I have identified five qualities I’m looking from a guy for me to like him. One, he should be smart. I really admire those guys who excel academically. For me,that means he really values education more than anything else. Two, he should know how to play guitar and can also sing a tune so  that he’ll be able to serenade me and maybe write a song for me. Four, he must be athletic or at least know how to play basketball. Lastly, he must love reading like I do. Yeah, I know you’re thinking that explains why I’m  still single even at this age. Anyway, that was before and I’m not going to say more about my kind of guy. I was just reminded of this thought because of this book and I’m thinking, maybe my type was actually a geek.

Moving on to my review, the plot may not be extraordinary and unique but somehow, I find it new and fresh. Maybe because it’s the first book I’ve read with this kind of plot.  I also love the characters, Jen and Trevor, for they are both strong and the story was well-developed that I became so engrossed and  finished it overnight. What really makes me love this book was the way the author revealed piece by piece the reason behind Jen’s character and how she was able to deal with her issues.

I may have given this five stars if not for some cheesy lines in the middle so I have to settle at four. 🙂

This is one of the first book I’ve read in 2011. Being a fan of Mitch Albom, this book has been part of my wish list since 2009 and fortunately, my wish was granted when I got 2 copies of this book as exchange gift in the two Christmas parties I attended last year.

Having read most of the Mitch Albom’s works, I was really expecting that this will become part of my most-inspiring-books-i’ve-ever-read list. After reading the book, it turns out that the story is actually inspiring but not as touching as Tuesdays with Morrie.

In Have a little Faith, Albom alternately relates the story of two men of faith — his childhood Jewish rabbi, Albert Lewis and his Christian Pastor friend, Henry Covington, that would eventually lead him to realize the difference faith can make in the world.

Of the two characters in the book, I was more inspired by the life of Henry, a former drug dealer, an ex-convict, the kind of man that you would describe as hopeless but was transformed into a kind of man that you would later call as man of faith. Through Henry’s life, I’ve seen God’s power and the change He can make in our life if we would only turn to Him.

Rating: 

Originally posted from Goodreads.
I was able to finish this book in one day, thanks to the poor service of NBI that I have to read this book while waiting in line to entertain myself, only to find out that my name has a hit because of my service obligation to the country as a DOST scholar so my twelve hours of waiting in line to process my clearance application resulted to waiting in vain. I had mixed-emotions while reading this one because Im starting to feel irritated because of the long hours of standing and waiting, and the same time, I felt glad because I felt the satisfaction of finishing a great book like this (and I think this is one of the few good things that happened to me today).

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a story of the adventures of Dorothy and her dog, Toto, who were accidentally brought by a cyclone to the land of Oz. It also follows her friendship with Scarecrow, Tinman and the cowardly lion as they join her in finding her way home to Kansas.

I really find the story cute, lovable and full of lessons that it actually made my day. This is one of the classic stories that I would love to read again.

Title: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Author: Frank L. Baum
Rating: 
Copy:  Owned, MPP
Read on September 06, 2011