What You Wanted by Mina V. Esguerra - REVIEW: RANDOM THOUGHTS + MARKADO LINES
Wednesday, November 25, 2015
Done with What You Wanted by Mina V. Esguerra, is part of the Chic Manila series with the story of Damon and Andrea and also, the second book (but the first ARC) I read from Mina V. Esguerra. Release date is today, November 25. Yay!
What You Wanted
Mina V. Esguerra
It’s the classic one-night stand: Beach wedding,
bridesmaid, groom’s friend. When Andrea and Damon meet, sparks fly, and they give in to the attraction. Sounds simple, but Andrea’s still getting over someone, and Damon thought he’d be hooking up with another person that night. It could still be simple, really, if they chalk it up to a weekend tryst and move on.
But one night becomes lunch the week after, and then dinner the next weekend…and before they know it, Andrea and Damon are still together,
dealing with the feelings they know they might still have for other people. How hard can it be to get exactly what you want? How do you even know what it is?
Buy Links
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My Random Thoughts...
Well this part is the actual review, but they are sooooooo.... random.
1. I
didn't like Andrea. Period. That was my initial reaction when I was at the beginning of the story. I just hated the fact that she could have sex whenever and wherever she wanted, and that was WHATEVAH! But, (yes, there was a 'but') I learned to love her as I flipped more pages. Her upfront wasn't an easy task girl!
2. What You Wanted was not the type of book I would actually read. The words ONE NIGHT STAND would probably have prevented me from reading this kind of romance story. And yes, Andrea, the main protagonist wasn't the type of MC I would actually support or root for (her sister, Julie, was the character I was rooting for at the beginning of the story because I could relate to Julie, being called Manang hi-hi). It felt wrong for some reason and seemed like I was practicing discrimination, and I didn't want that. So, I got out of my comfort zone and read the whole book. No harm done, I think. (I know very well that my judgment getting affected by my preferences sucks! Forgive me, but it happens a lot.)
3. Andrea and Damon weren't the ideal love birds I would expect from an HAE story. No. They weren't really. Strange, but I loved the chemistry hovering between them. I never imagined myself being one in that kind of relationship,
but this story had given me a second thought for just a while, just maybe. They had this give and take relationship. Everything was two-way. They understood each other, though it was rocky on the process, still as functioning adults of a decent society (I think). They made it through, overcoming their inhibitions and doubts about love, they discovered true love that was already there all along.
Markado Lines...
Left mark in me and I just love them.
Nothing was wrong with me. I got screwed, that was all.
~Andrea*I can so relate with this line, pretending nothing is really wrong, pretending that everything is just the way it was. Girl!!!
Bitter tears. I want them to cry bitter tears, Damon.
~Andrea*She's being bitchy here, and I loved her for that.
You win. Go back to your bad habit and I'll go back to mine.
~Damon*Him being like this broke my heart.
Let's not try to rewrite history.
~Andrea
*The moment when she realized that she was the coward one all along, and it was the time to exercise the final verdict, that was throwing her pride and choosing love. Meeting Damon halfway!
Rating: 4 STARS
About the Author
Mina V. Esguerra writes contemporary romance, young adult, and new adult novellas. Through her blog Publishing in Pajamas (minavesguerra.com), she documents her experiments in publishing.
When not writing romance, she is president of a communications firm
Bronze Age Media, development communication consultant, indie publisher,
professional editor, wife, and mother. She created the workshop series
“Author at Once” for writers and publishers, and #romanceclass for
aspiring romance writers.
Her young adult/fantasy trilogy Interim Goddess of Love is a college love story featuring gods from Philippine mythology. Her contemporary romance novellas won the Filipino Readers’ Choice awards for Chick Lit
in 2012 (Fairy Tale Fail) and 2013 (That Kind of Guy).
#HeistClub was ahead of me after #StrangeLit, and yes it was another online writing workshop. It ran from October 1 to November 7, 2015. There were activities to write and submit, deadlines to meet, and two face-to-face meetings last September 26 and November 7.
#HeistClub was about writing crime fiction. And crime fiction genre wasn't and still not that popular in the Philippines, but Mina V. Esguerra along with Bronze Age Media as the sponsor took on the challenge. Crime fictions in English and Philippine setting by Filipino Authors, that's what #HeistClub has to offer soon...!
18 Authors were able to submit their story on time and that's last November 7.
One of them is mine. I submitted it a little early.
Titles to watch out for! Yay! 💕
Subscribe for updates! 👉🏽
Songs of Our Breakup (Playlist Book 1)
Published on August 22nd 2015
by Jay E. Tria
Genre: New Adult Romance/Chicklit
by Jay E. Tria
Genre: New Adult Romance/Chicklit
Synopsis
How do you get over a seven-year relationship? 21-year-old Jill is trying to find out. But moving on is a harder job when Kim, her ex-boyfriend, is the lead guitarist of the band, and Jill is the vocalist. Every song they play together feels like slicing open a barely healed tattoo.
Jill’s best friend Miki says she will be out of this gloom soon. Breakups have a probation period, he says. Jill is on the last month of hers and Miki is patiently keeping her company.
But the real silver lining is Shinta. Having a hot Japanese actor friend in times like these is a welcome distraction. This gorgeous celebrity has been defying time zones and distance through the years to be there for Jill. Now he is here, physically present, and together he and Jill go through old lyrics, vivid memories, walks in the rain, and bottles of beer. Together they try to answer the question: what do you do when forever ends?
Excerpt
Jill took one beer bottle and chugged, her eyes on the door again when Kim entered, trailed by a girl too.
She coughed out beer on the table, splashing Nino’s shirt. Nino didn’t seem to mind. Nobody did. Their table seemed as frozen as her lungs as Kim approached them, a stranger in tow.
Jill couldn’t see her, could not make out any details. Something clouded her eyes, and the familiar vacuum was in her ears. From somewhere far, she heard Kim speak.
“Scary crowd tonight. I hope no one’s drunk yet.”
“I don’t know. I think that might come helpful.” Nino had pressed Jill’s hand around a new beer bottle.
Kim said the girl’s name, and the girl said some things.
“You’re the girl from Math 100!” Son exclaimed. “Were we classmates from my first take, or the second one? Was that a June?”
The girl laughed. Already she was connected to Jill’s friends by more than Kim’s hand.
She coughed out beer on the table, splashing Nino’s shirt. Nino didn’t seem to mind. Nobody did. Their table seemed as frozen as her lungs as Kim approached them, a stranger in tow.
Jill couldn’t see her, could not make out any details. Something clouded her eyes, and the familiar vacuum was in her ears. From somewhere far, she heard Kim speak.
“Scary crowd tonight. I hope no one’s drunk yet.”
“I don’t know. I think that might come helpful.” Nino had pressed Jill’s hand around a new beer bottle.
Kim said the girl’s name, and the girl said some things.
“You’re the girl from Math 100!” Son exclaimed. “Were we classmates from my first take, or the second one? Was that a June?”
The girl laughed. Already she was connected to Jill’s friends by more than Kim’s hand.
“There’s a free table.” Kim spoke again, and said hand reached the girl’s waist. “We’re up in about an hour, guys. Nobody get wasted until after! Later.”
Jill kept sitting up straight, knowing Kim and his friend had taken the table just behind them. His voice still reached her in this vacuum, interlaced with the girl’s giggles, as Jill’s insides filled with dead air and her stomach shrunk in itself.
The vacuum broke, bile rising to her throat. Jill shot up and flew out the door.
Her sneakers pounded on the concrete. She made it past the queue of patrons outside, through the metal gate of the parking lot. Acid, air, alcohol, and whole peanuts spilled from her mouth to the gravel floor. She sunk on her knees, her hair on the stones, one arm wrapped around the clenching pain in her stomach.
“Up you go.” Miki took her arm and gently pulled, one hand running soothing circles on her back.
“I didn’t hear you come,” Jill muttered, staggering upright. “Go away, I’m gross.”
Miki turned her to him and wiped her mouth with the back of his hand. “There.” He smiled. “Clean as new.”
He towed her to his car, which was nearer the scene of Jill’s vomit crime, and they sat on the hood. Jill breathed in the cool air, the bitterness in her tongue aching for water. Darkness still clouded her eyes, cold sweat covering her arms. She blinked and waited for the colors to return.
She turned to Miki and concentrated on his face. Soon his image sharpened, the deep crease between his brows a curious contrast to the calm lines of his mouth.
“Do you wish you met Ana in Economics 100 instead of me?” she said, mouth dry and tasting of bile.
“Where’s that coming from?”
“She’s cute and perky and obviously socially adept.” Jill paused as she processed this. “She’s like the anti-me. That’s so strange. But then she’s also tall and skinny and she moves like a boy, like me.”
“Huh.”
“I never understood why you of all people never had a girlfriend. Or so you claim.”
Miki pulled out a clean handkerchief from his pocket and pushed it on Jill’s hand. “Sometimes girls can be very cruel.”
Jill took it, noting how old fashioned her best friend was, carrying a white handkerchief around, as the tears made a free fall down her cheeks.
“Boys too,” she murmured. She allowed Miki to pull her head down to his shoulder, so he wouldn’t have to see her noisy, ugly cry.
About the Author
Hi! I'm a writer of contemporary Young Adult and New Adult romance. These days I'm writing paranormal/fantasy too, and it's a fun exercise. I'm often inspired by daydreams, celebrity crushes, a childhood fascination of Japanese drama and manga, and an incessant itch to travel.
Author Links I Website I Amazon I Goodreads I Twitter I Facebook I Instagram I
Paper Planes Back Home
Published on February 21, 2015
by Tara Frejas
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Fantasy, Romance
by Tara Frejas
Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Fantasy, Romance
Buy Links
I Goodreads I Amazon I Smashwords I Barnes & Noble I Kobo I Apple iBooks I
Synopsis
When
Gianna wakes up on a cloud, she is disoriented yet fascinated. She thinks she's
only dreaming until she gets a storm of paper planes—"They're thoughts of
people who remember," a man on another cloud tells her—each pleading for
her not to leave. The man tells her these planes are the key to get out of
there, and while she thinks it's hard to believe, she decides everything is
worth trying if it meant finding her way back home.
Excerpt
Skylar recognizes the grief,
the denial on the newcomer’s face while he watches her unfold each paper plane
and read the messages—the thoughts—sent her way.
“I need to go
back,” she murmurs, finally breaking the silence between them. “I can’t stay
here.”
“I tell that to
myself often,” he says. His tone is calm, as though already resigned to his
inevitable fate. And then he smiles. It’s the reassuring kind, one that makes
her smile at him in return. “There is always a way.” He takes a small step to
the side and glances behind him, jerks his thumb toward what she initially
thought of as a paper sculpture, and says, “Ride back home.”
Her eyes narrow in
curiosity. “What?”
“I’ve seen it
before,” Skylar says. He drops on his cloud and sits comfortably until he’s
poised to tell her a story. “There was an old man here. Sam,” he begins,
pointing to empty space to his left. It’s only then that she takes the time to
look around. Not that there’s much to see aside from the beautiful expanse of
blue hues as far as her eyes can see.
“Might’ve been
about fifty. Said he suffered a stroke while tending his garden.”
The brunette
stares blankly at the space Skylar gestured to, and then she turns to him.
“Where is he now?”
“He’s gone back
home.”
The look on her
face is quizzical.
“Home,” Skylar
says with a smile. “What do you think of when you hear the word home?
There is a word in
her head, just one. A name she doesn’t utter, but one that’s always brought
about a familiar, warm feeling—like gentle morning sunlight against her skin.
“Anyway. You’d be
surprised what those paper planes can do,” he continues. His voice is bright
and encouraging, and she wonders how he could be so. She has only been sitting
on her cloud for—How long have I been
here, again?—a short while, and she already feels miserable. She wants to
go back home. “That guy, he’s had
millions of paper planes fly to him every single waking hour . . . It was an
amazing sight, I tell you.”
“How long have you
been here?”
He stops, the
question taking away a shade of cheer from his face. He doesn’t seem to know
the answer either. “A while.”
“Why don’t you go
back home?”
Another shade of
cheer gone, and she feels sorry she asked.
“I don’t get
enough paper planes,” he replies with a shrug. There’s a short, uncertain pause
that transpires between them—one unsure if she should ask why, and the other
unwilling to reveal any more of his misery—before he finally says, “And that’s
that.”
Without warning, a
loud swishing sound is heard around them again, and a bunch of paper planes
emerge out of nowhere. Skylar only watches as they all fall on the other’s
cloud, and they exchange glances for a while. He sees the sorry flicker in her
eyes, and he smiles. “It’s okay.”
She seems
reluctant to unfold a plane, but when she looks back up at him, she sees a
paper plane drop on his lap.
The look on his
face is inexplicable.
“Someone thought
of you,” she points out, feeling an ounce of hope for this man in front of her.
Skylar swallows a
lump in his throat. Could it be—Jeannie,
have you found me? He unfolds the paper plane quickly, brows knitting
together when he sees a handwriting he couldn’t identify.
Be strong,
soldier.
About the Author
Author Links
Tara
Frejas is a cloud-walker who needs caffeine to fuel her travels. By day, she
works in project management and events, and she writes down her daydreams at
night. She began publishing fiction for public consumption in 2004, posting her
pieces on various online channels like fan forums and Blogspot, eventually
exploring other avenues like Livejournal, Soomp!, Tumblr, and most recently,
Wattpad.
Aside
from her obvious love affair with words and persistent muses, Tara is very
passionate about being caffeinated, musical theatre, certain genres of music,
dancing, dogs, good food, and romancing Norae, her ukelele. She owns a
6-month-old male bunny named Max who sometimes tries to nibble on her writing
notes.
Paper Planes Back Home is her first novel.
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