bianca

A heart was meant to beat. And air was meant to be breathed, close to your ear. And your skin was meant to remember what mine felt like. And some songs were meant to play on repeat. And the sun was meant to come down. And we were meant to ignore it when it woke up. And days were meant to pass. And nights were meant to follow. And your eyes were meant to cry out whatever pain was left.And I never meant to hurt you. But I guess that's what everyone says.

We are all the same in the middle of the night, fighting against the great tide of loneliness that threatens to drown us. All longing for someone to hear, to truly know us as we are.

— Interesting and diverse characters but for what I suppose is a character-driven book, the characters were not able to drive the book to its fullest potential.

Still now, I send letters into space,hoping that some mailman somewherewill track you down and recognize youfrom the descriptions in my poems;he will place the stack of them in your handsand tell you, There is a girl who still writes you.She doesn't know how not to.

— Over-hyped book about a cheesy romance founded on insta-love. That plot twist at the end actually ruined it even more for me.

Looking back on it now, I'd say one's thirties are a cruel age. At this point, I think of them as a time I whiled away unaware of the tide that can suddenly pull you out, beyond the shallows, into the sea of hardship, and even death.

— A quiet novella about a couple and the cat that brings back meaning to their lives. Poignant but did not resonate with me.

There's nothing more real than the things that can haunt you . . . But, you know, there's nothing more powerful than deciding not to be afraid.

— A book that tackles bullying, depression, alcoholism, self-image, loss, etc. That's a lot of themes but this book delivered!

You are so much stronger than the worldhas ever believed you could be.The world is waiting for youto set it on fire. Trust in yourself and burn.

I've seen versions of you who are darker, and damaged, and I don't care. I want you even when you're broken. I want you no matter what. Your darkness, your anger, whatever it is you fear inside yourself—it doesn't matter. I love you completely, don't you see? I even want the worst of you because it's still a part of you.

It wouldn't matter if you visited a million worlds. You never know everything about another person—not even someone you love. You can't, and you wouldn't want to.

Omg I loved this so much. So thrilling and I did not expect that twist! Wow! This review is a lie.

Posible bang ang isang tao ay ipinanganak nang masama? May kautusan bang nagtatakda galing sa itaas? O hangin lang ba itong kung saan mapaling ay magiging mabait ang isang tao o masama?

Tungkol sa kabutihan at kasamaan, at kung paano ba natin ipinapakahulugan ang mga salitang ito. Dito, susubukin ang pagtingin natin sa mga karakter na itinuturing na “mabuti” at sa mga karakter na itinuturing na “masama”. Higit 100 pahina lang ito pero malamán ang kuwento.

It's probably not the book, it's just me. I just couldn't get into the writing style and idk if it's because of reading slump, but I really struggled to finish this.

But that's what love does to you. Gut-wrenching, overpowering, crushing, fulfilling, complex, bring-you-to-your-knees love.

She was talky. She painted her fingernails green and wore floral-print dresses and enormous cardigan sweaters. But you can be talky and paint your fingernails and still be very sad.

A bittersweet read on self-discovery and learning to unhinge our happiness from other people. The title is a reference to the scenes happening again and again, showing how the same situations could turn out differently in alternate universes. Really interesting style.

Things are better now, they feel like they're getting better—don't they? But there might be more coming. This might be the least of it. Have you thought about that? We knew nothing about what it meant to grow up, to be partners, parents, all of it. Nothing. And maybe we still don't.

“We repeat what we don't repair.” A compelling character-driven family drama spanning decades about two families and how their lives have been affected over the years after one tragic night. A story of love and forgiveness, and a really good character study

He's always sorry. He says it won't happen again.I know now that the last is never true. It will happen again. And he probably does love us, but it's never been enough to make him stop. Instead, it makes it worse—his love for us. And ours for him. It makes it impossible to leave.

A magical realism story about a family living in a house that repairs itself from the damages of domestic violence—a metaphor for people turning a blind eye & being complicit in abuse. Just because the damages aren't visible doesn't mean they're not there.

I'm just a body. Just a girl. Someone who asked for it. That my body may have been found in that house, but I went there by choice. I asked for it. They didn't need to force me to do anything, because this is who I was. And somehow, I ended up dead, but it had nothing to do with these boys who were just being boys.Nobody even cares that I'm dead. No one talks about how I cried. How they threw me into the dirt. They just make sure everyone knows that I was a slut.

A raw, haunting and infuriating examination of rape culture, privilege, power, and the ways society belittles and confines women in definitions and expectations all the while excusing men for their bad behavior. What can I say, men are trash

A nice collection of Filipino young adult short stories. I liked the stories in Filipino, not so much the ones in English because those were mostly romance stories that I just didn't prefer. My favorites: (1) Stainless, (2) Half f-stop, (3) My Brown, Bony Knees

Cloudy days are nothing to love unless you've known the loneliness that will try to swallow you through dark nights.Pain is nothing bad if you have never had the good that is the opposite of it.Water will never be “needed” if you have never met dehydration and never known what it means to be thirsty.How would you have known what love isn't, if you've never met people who could offer it to you?

There were some nice lines here, but this collection mostly didn't feel like poetry to me.

A collection of strange and sometimes disturbing short stories about human insecurities and dysfunctional relationships. My favorites: Neighbors, They're Not Your Husband, Jerry and Molly and Sam, How About This?

But sometimes, you could. Sometimes, you should be allowed a tiny bit of joy that would stay with you for more than five minutes. That wasn't too much to ask. To have a moment like this, and be able to hold on to it. To cross that membrane, and feel alive.

You watch the world. I'm not even sure you live in it.

— Ahhhh touching! About learning to accept who we are and not who we wish we were. Great read.

But maybe the most valuable thing she taught me is the importance of trying to understand people who are different from you, even though it's so much harder than writing them off, because it might make you admit something to yourself that's painful. Sometimes you won't be able to understand, and that's okay. It's the trying, and realizing the importance of trying, that makes a person really special.

— Loved the message of this book! Try to understand people instead of judging them.

Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star. It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn't even exist anymore. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything. You're here. At least you look as if you're here. But maybe you aren't. Maybe it's just your shadow. The real you may be someplace else. Or maybe you already disappeared, a long, long time ago. I reach out my hand to see, but you've hidden yourself behind a cloud of probablys.

What-might-have-beens may be beautiful because they are exactly just that: just what-might-have-beens.

How are you today? I said. It was an inane question but I was too sad to look for a better opening.Why don't people start a conversation by saying, Who are you today? Nikolai said. How anyone is matters less than who he is, don't you think?Who are you, I said. It sounds intrusive, does it not? How are you—is it less intrusive? If someone does want to know the answer it's intrusive too.Who are you? I went over the question in my head. I suppose people would have a harder time saying who they are, truly, I said. Or there are so many possibilities it's hard to give one and neglect the other twenty.When you see a tree, do you say, How are you today? Mediocre, the tree may think, because it's a windy day. But it's obliged to reply, I'm good, thank you, and you? No, when you see a tree you think, Here is a tree.People are more complex than trees, I said.We think we are, he said. So, who are you today?I'm your mother.

A book about an imagined conversation between a mother and her son lost to suicide. I liked some parts of this, but mostly this didn't really move me, which I feel bad about, knowing that the author herself actually experienced losing her son this way :(