From the monthly archives: March 2009
It’s Sunday night and it will be Monday in a few minutes, and I had a really short yet busy weekend. But it was all very interesting. :)
Last Saturday, I woke up late and rushed all the way to Makati to meet up with Cors at Greenbelt for our confession. I realized then how far Makati really was. Total rides I had to go to all the way to Makati from our place: 4. Gah. Well, at least it gave me a lot of walking time. :P
After lunch at Burger King, we roamed around at Greenbelt 5. We visited the new branch of Fully Booked and marveled at (what else?) the books and other items like greeting cards that greeting cards online cannot replace. I was on a mission to find a paperback copy of City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare, but instead, I found Sarah Dessen books! Hope is not lost! I couldn’t leave the store without them, so I ended up swiping my card to get That Summer, Dreamland and Keeping The Moon, which I haven’t read yet. Talk about giddy. :P
After confession (yay happy forgiveness :D), Cors and I met up with her friend at Robinson’s Place Manila (it’s been years since I last went there), and then headed to MV Doulos.
Now it’s my third time to MV Doulos, and I wasn’t really expecting to get anything there, since the last time I was there, there wasn’t anything I liked. This time, though, they brought back the fiction area where I got my Francine Rivers books (that I have yet to read!) from my first MV Doulos trip. They were now selling three books for P200 there with a free bag. There were CDs I wanted to get but decided not to, a kid’s series that I wanted to get but it wasn’t complete (sometimes I hate that I have to complete a series to fully enjoy the books), but I still ended up buying something after a quick search over at the center table: Jake Thoene’s Chapter 16 series. I hear they’re like Tom Clancy books which I haven’t read yet, but I’m curious. :P So they’re now added in my growing TBR list.
I got home thirty minutes before Earth Hour. I joined last year’s Earth Hour and I totally forgot to turn off my lights but this year everyone was intent on making me remember. :D It felt like a New Year’s countdown when everyone was counting down to turn off the lights and then it was total darkness. Except for my iPod, laptop and the TV. :P
I watched some of the coverage of the Earth Hour, and I know this is incredibly sappy, but I started tearing up and blubbering when I watched Nat Geo’s video clip about how the world united as one during the 2008 Earth Hour because of what Sydney did in 2007. Did it make sense? I don’t know, something about people uniting for a cause always touches me and makes me blubber like an idiot. ^^;
The darkness was oddly calming, though, and it was really nice to be a part of something big. :) And this has totally made me think more of how I do things now, and how it affects the environment. Seriously.
Today was another day at the mall, where we heard mass and then went our ways to go shopping. I was still hunting for City of Ashes so I went to Powerbooks…and guess what did I saw? The rest of the Sarah Dessen books. Crazy. I couldn’t leave the store without it, especially The Truth About Forever. After lots of roaming around, trying to spot City of Ashes, I decided to get Someone Like You, This Lullaby and The Truth About Forever because I know I would totally regret it if I don’t. My credit card is definitely complaining though. :P
Weeee. Don’t they look pretty? :D Now I only need to wait for the paperback copy of Lock and Key and it’s complete. :P
And I can’t wait to re-read The Truth About Forever in print. ;)
I love that they all have that Speak logo there. The very last book (the one with the green back) is Robin Palmer’s Cindy Ella). I am now always on the lookout for these kinds of YA novels. :)
Now it’s already past midnight, meaning it’s Monday already and it’s back to work. I better get to bed now. :) Busy week up ahead!
Rating: 
Lydia Meadows, a former lawyer turned full-time mother, is startled to discover that her daughter Erin is one of the popular girls, a tight foursome whose mothers are also great friends. Lydia has always thought of popular girls as ambitious little manipulators who enjoy being cruel. But Erin is kind and well-adjusted. Maybe this popularity thing wont be so bad after all. Then a new student ruthlessly targets Erin to boost her own popularity, and Lydia wonders what to do when her daughters phone stops ringing. And the uneasiness among the girls begins to affect the friendship of the mothers even though they are all grown women who should know better. Has their driven energy, once directed toward their careers, turned into an obsession with the social lives of their daughters?
So I got this on a whim because I thought the cover was cute. :P It took me a while to actually start reading it but once I did, I couldn’t stop.
A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity is actually a mom-book more than a teen book but in a way, it’s also a teen book. Did that make sense? It’s about a mom who’s so focused in the life of her daughter that her world revolved around her school, her activities and her friends who also have daughters in the same school. Life was controlled and at peace as much as they can tell, until they saw their daughters in matching drawstring skirts and realized that…well, they’re popular.
I couldn’t really relate to the entire popularity thing since I don’t think it’s really such a big deal back when I was studying, but I felt bad for Erin once the new girl came in and took the attention away from her. I identified so much with Lydia and how she felt antagonized by everyone else, even her friends, from what the new girl is doing to her daughter. I also liked how Lydia’s other roles in life were shown and how it meshed with everything else in her life. There were her friendships, her relationship with her husband (who is also a lawyer — not sure if he’s an offshore injury lawyer or something else), and also with herself as a woman who has needs. I also found it very clever that Erin the daughter hardly spoke in the novel and yet I felt her presence because of Lydia’s love for her. Kathleen Gilles Seidel made realistic characters that I felt like I was actually involved in the Alden community, like I was a part of the changes happening there.
The book is also as much as a social commentary as it is a mom/teen book, as it shows how ruthless some people can be to gain popularity, and how much lengths moms of teen girls will go to protect their daughters and to make sure they are not left out.
Overall, this is a good book, with somewhat of a sad yet hopeful ending. No one likes saying goodbye, and Lydia certainly doesn’t, but the final choice she made in the end is ultimately for the good of her children which is a very admirable thing to do. :)
Rating: 
When Chloe Adam’s fiance dumps her — the night before their wedding — two girlfriends from her book group decide a little adventure is in order for the three of them. After all, why let a perfectly good honeymoon cruise go to waste?
Adventure? Chloe Adams? No way! Chloe’s lived in one town her whole life. The closest she’s ever gotten to actual adventures is reading about them. But her girlfriends won’t take no for an answer.
One good adventure calls for another as Chloe’s friends try to coax her out of her post-dumping funk, and soon she finds herself living ut the adventures in her book club’s latest selections. Hiking. Sailing. River rafting. Traveling to new places and eating exotic food. The play-it-safe Chloe begins to blossom into a new, daring Chloe. A Chloe who just might be ready to take on her biggest adventure of all.
Laura Jensen Walker is one of my favorite authors, hands down. Her book, Dreaming in Black and White was the first Christian chicklit I read and I love reading it until now. She also has a knack for humor in her books, which I can see even in her more serious novels, like Reconstructing Natalie, which talks about breast cancer.
However, this one just didn’t really cut it for me.
The book did not have the same story flow that Reconstructing Natalie or Miss Invisible had that made me kind of not like it as much. The flow of the story was more or less fluid, almost like the Phoebe Grant series. However, the entire plot felt like it was lacking something. The premise was there and it’s really a big conflict but I felt like it wasn’t really delved into. Okay, so romance wasn’t really the main point of the book, but then the some sort of romance between Chloe and the other guy shouldn’t have been hinted.
Don’t get me wrong, the story was nice and it had a pretty nice lesson. It’s all about the great adventure that is life, and I’m still learning that. I just felt like the story lacked an overall conflict that is there in other Laura Jensen Walker novels.
But plus points on mentioning Switchfoot, though. :) And the book list and the mention of yummy food. This book makes me want to go to Paris too.
Apparently, this is a part of a series, and knowing me, I’d most likely get it. Probably. Seeing the blurb of the book from Amazon, I think there just might be more conflict there.
This is a super delayed post, thanks to everything that happened this week. So I apologize for now, but hey, this post has pictures! (Like that’s any consolation :P)
ANYWAY. I’d go through paragraphs and paragraphs of how my birthday went but I realized it may be a bit boring to read…so instead, I’ll go for timelines. So…how did my twenty-third birthday go?
March 16, 2009
7:00pm – received a call from Niki, and when I answered, all the YFC DLSU present at the worship (16 of them, I heard) sang me “Happy birthday”. ♥ I have no idea who everyone was there, but thank you! ♥
7:30pm – received a groupcard in my work inbox. Hey, it’s a Group Card from my IBM friends! A day early but what the heck. Thank you!
9:00 – 11:00pm – had the longest call of our training ever. I was chatting with Grace, Cors and Reggie all the while and I kept getting asked what time my call would end and all. Reggie then asked if I wanted to go get ice cream later after the call which was kind of weird since he’s on a diet. The call ended, and I started fixing my stuff. But wait, there’s another call! Reggie calls me and tells me someone was waiting for me outside, though, so…
11:00pm – I headed out to the reception area and saw Cors’ shoes immediately. I saw her carrying a cake with a candle and was already surprised, but not until Happy popped out from behind the reception table with a bouquet of flowers and the yelled “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” Whoaaaa. I accepted the flowers, gaped at Happy’s presence at the office and then blew the candle out. Then I noticed, right in the middle of the bouquet was a SUNFLOWER. AWWWW talk about finally crossing that out of my wishlist! :P
11:10pm-11:45pm - I had to go back inside because I still had one call, so Cors put the cake in the box again and Happy said she’ll wait for me downstairs. I went back in and got back into another call, but still shaking from the surprise and amazed at how pretty a sunflower looks in real life. We had the call and then headed down to go home.
March 17, 2009
12:10am – arrived at home, and Happy and I set up the cake and took photos. I blew the candle off again and then it was cake time!
12:20-2:00am – ate cake and talked with Happy. And marveled again at how pretty the sunflower is. :P Ahaha, I’ve never really spent the first few hours of my birthday with a friend so this is a first. :) Thanks Happs. ♥
2:00am-3:00am – Birthday prayer time! :)
9:00am – woke up with text messages in my phone with the usual greetings. I headed back to my computer and saw my gMail inbox was filled with Facebook notifications. Overwhelming, man. And they kept on coming! :D
12:00pm-1:00pm – arrived at SM Megamall to hear mass. Met up with brother’s girlfriend after the mass then we hunted for a place to eat.
1:00pm-2:00pm – Lunch at Bigby’s, my treat! Yummy salad, yummy steak, yummy shake, oh and I got a free cake! And a birthday song. My brother’s girlfriend also gave me a really nice present — something I could definitely use in my commute. :P I’ll post about that sometime soon. Bigby’s was a lot like TGI Friday’s with really nice decor. Our waiter was really nice, and very friendly — I bet he’d also be good at sales jobs. :) Oh, it’s my first time to be greeted at a restaurant too. :P
3:30pm – Got to work, and saw a present from some office friends on my table. Opened my email and saw an overwhelming number of emails and Facebook messages again. Haha.
5:00pm – Headed to Haagen Dasz (sp?) with Grace to buy ice cream for the team…and then headed to 7-11 instead. I dreamt of Haagen Dasz, but it’s waaaaaay out of my budget. So…no thanks. Pistachio ice cream is nice. :)
7:00pm-10:00pm - Found out there were two episodes of The Listener for download! Wohoo, Craig Olejnik! ♥ It’s like another birthday gift, haha! Anyway, I spent the rest of the night at work, finishing some things and then went home when my brother arrived.
11:30pm – full with ice cream and cake, I looked at the sunflower again and then went back to my room to watch The Listener episodes with Macy.
March 18, 2009
12:30am – Felt a bit bummed that someone I know and is close to forgot my birthday. I don’t know what’s up, really…but it kinda stung. Oh well. Maybe I’ll post about it sometime, but not now. I want good vibes.
7:00pm – Birthday dinner with Cors, Gel, Anj and Grace at Pancake House. We missed you, Bel and Rosco! Talked about lots of stuff, got another present (thanks for the very pink journal :P), and took pictures for Marvs who we were all missing. :P
March 19, 2009
12:45pm-2:00pm – Met up with Jomar after a loooong time, and had lunch and talked about books, blogs, music, media and all the things that Joms and I talk about. Haha. Then had dessert at Red Mango while he played with Macy and I played NFS with his phone.
The rest of the week was filled with a game of charades, issues at work and the general feeling of being older. Haha. The “birthday” glow has long faded, as far as I can tell, but being 23 isn’t so bad. I just feel…well, older but in a good sense.
I’m happy at how my week turned out. Plus there were so many firsts in this birthday that it’s really going to be memorable, just as how every other birthday has been. :) I mean, come on, it’s another year to celebrate life, how could it not be memorable?
So, I thank everyone who’s greeted me, made an effort to make my day special (that’s you, Happy! :P), the people I fed, those who left Facebook messages, text messages, YM messages, Multiply comments, and comments in my previous post, and who greeted me in every way possible. :) Thanks to my family for allowing me to get the iPod Touch, haha! Thank you, thank you, thank you. ♥
And most of all, thank You Lord. I know I don’t deserve any of Your grace or Your love, yet You give them anyway, and that is reason enough to be even more thankful. Thank You for another year, and I pray that this year be a year that I get to know You and love You better. Thank You. ♥
Here’s to 23. :)
Here we go again, exactly one year after I posted last year, before I turned twenty two. It’s less than 24 hours till I turn twenty-three, and…well, I thought I’d post early since I don’t think I’d have the time to post later. Busy, busy day at work. ;)
My 22nd year was a blur. I don’t know why, but it felt like it is. Maybe it’s because I was so busy with everything in my life that I hardly noticed things. Well, okay, I did, and they’re safely written in my journal (at least, almost all of it), so my memory is kind of failing right now. Maybe my journal-writing is really becoming like Dumbledore’s Pensieve (did I spell that right?). Hm. That’s a thought.
I was sick almost the entire week last week because of that nasty indigestion I had last Monday. I was so weak last Monday that I could have asked for NO2 Black, except I don’t know what that would do to me. I can’t remember if I posted about it, but I threw up again on Tuesday, for eating a too heavy dinner too soon. Bah. I was reduced to a crackers and juice and congee diet for the entire week. I was so hungry by Thursday, but I had to keep at it because Friday was Pizza day with the teammates. Good thing I was well enough by Friday, and I got to eat normally, but not as much as I used to.
Which is a good thing, really, because that means I can lose weight by eating less. :P
Anyway, Saturday was a big day, because I got my first birthday present for the year. :) I let go of Triskal last Friday and sold him to my boss, because I was planning to get the much-awaited and wanted iPod Touch. :) I’ve been losing sleep over the weekend playing with it and installing apps and making sure all my album art are complete. Haha, Apple products do this to people, srsly. I’ve yet to make a proper review of this, but here’s a photo:
So pretty! The silicone case is my brother’s birthday gift to me, plus my pink earphones, so it’s all pink. ♥ I named it Macy after the lead character of Sarah Dessen‘s The Truth About Forever. I knew that a guy name wouldn’t fit this one. :))
Sunday, after catching up on sleep, I cleaned my room. I used to clean my room three times a year back when I was studying, but ever since I started working I hardly do. But yesterday gave me a reason to do so, and see here:
YES, IT’S FINALLY HERE! Took three months, but it’s okay. :) This is actually my brother’s Christmas present, which I kind of feel bad asking for since it’s a bit expensive. :) But thank you, none the less! I realized yet again that I have so many books, that i didn’t know how to fix them yesterday. Note that those aren’t the only books I have — I have more on a separate single shelf on my dresser. :P
I haven’t figured out a real way to arrange the books, except that the non-fiction are on the left, the young adult/teens were on the right and the ones in the center are my favorites. The ones on the top are the books I have yet to read. I have to figure out a better way to organize this and fit more books, but for now, I just like looking at it. :)
Today’s going to be a long day at work, with QA’s and goal setting, and documentation and training at night. I hope I can get home before midnight, though. I want to start my 23rd year at home. :D
When the iPod touch first came out, I didn’t like it. For one thing, I was already satisfied with my current player then, and I didn’t want anything touch screen. If you knew me way back then, I didn’t like the Palm, or anything that requires me to touch its screen to control it. I’m such an OC about my gadgets that I hate having to have fingerprints all over the glossy (and pretty) surface.
I didn’t want the iPod Touch, and I thought that if ever I’d be getting another iPod, I’d get the classic or the Nano since it has so many colors.
So why the sudden change of heart when I added it in my 23rd birthday wishlist?
I saw Mae using hers during WordCamp 2008, and I was…amazed. I mean, everyone was using their own laptops to Plurk/Twit/blog/whatever, but Mae was just fiddling with her iPod Touch. Then I wondered about all the other things I could do with that, most especially writing. I read somewhere that there’s a WriteRoom application for the iPod Touch…and I can sync my iCal with that (I wonder if Notes Calendar can be synced with it? Hmmm)…and I can just imagine what else I can do with that. :))
So why do I want an iPod Touch again? Let me count the ways:
- Write anywhere. Whenever I have an idea that I just need to write, I usually use my phone. But I can only write so much in Captain Tal. I can probably even try NaNo-ing in an iPod Touch if I’m crazy enough. Plus WriteRoom!!!
- eBook Reader. I discovered the fun of ebook reading in Triskal, but imagine how hard it is to read and remember which section I last read there. Plus using the clickwheel to scroll can be tiring on the thumb! I’ve seen how ebooks are shown in the iPod Touch and I can actually read multiple ebooks with bookmarking. Oh the possibilities.
- Wider viewing pleasure. I tried watching videos in my teammate’s iPod Touch and I was amazed at how big the screen was. And so bright since it’s not composed of led light bulbs. Haha, this should be fun too.
- Internet anywhere there’s Wi-Fi. I don’t have to bring Aslan everywhere now, as I can use the iPod Touch to blog/Facebook/Plurk/Twitter. :D Portability oh yeah.
- Built in speakers. I don’t have to get speakers to play my music in my room. Of course, Aslan is there…but I don’t have to turn him on all the time to play music. :D
That’s all I could think of now. Haha suffice to say I’m excited to have one. :)) I’d like to think of it more as a productivity tool than a luxury. ;) Or it could be both. Wahaha. It’s my birthday gift. :P
So as the ever-prepared (or so I’d like to think) girl that I am, I’m lining up apps to install once I get it:
- eReader/Stanza. Still choosing between the two, but I think I’m leaning towards Stanza.
- WriteRoom. This is the only paid app that I will really pay for. I can’t not have this. This is the ultimate writing tool for me. Unless of course there’s Scrivener mobile already…Hm.
- WordPress. Self-explanatory.
- Facebook. Self-explanatory too. :P
- Twitteriffic. This, too.
Ah…all web stuff. :P I’m thinking of getting White Noise too, but it might be really a luxury since it’s not a free app. Anything else you might suggest?
Anyway, I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. But I will get an iPod Touch…sometime…soon. Haha.
I have to go and get ready for work! :D
As I mentioned in my previous post, I haven’t been blogging about things that are not books. I’m sorry, I was just too caught up with all the books I’ve been reading lately and there’s really nothing too interesting to write about lately that isn’t…well, fiction. But I guess now it’s time to start writing something about what has been happening lately, so here we go.
- I started training for the new process being transferred to us last week. I finished my mid shift last February, went on day shift for three days and went back to mid shift after that. How fun. The training’s going well, so far, and my partner and I agreed that all the things we went through for our Europe clients was a blessing since it gave us background knowledge on this process. Of course, there are two more processes to be transitioned to us, and that’s a different story. One day at a time.
- On the first day of my training, as I was about to leave the house, my pink earphones and iPod cable disappeared. :( Okay, I may have misplaced it here somewhere at home, since even the small bag it goes in is lost, but my flash drive, which is also there, is not lost. Weird. I can remember putting the cables inside before going to breakfast on Thursday morning, but that’s as far as I can remember. I can’t remember what happened to it after that. I thought I put it in my bag as I usually did, but turns out I didn’t, so now it’s lost. :| I’ve been music-less at the office for almost a week. My friend calls this phenomenon a black hole, and I’m still hoping that black hole spits them out. They’re not cheap, you know, and the bag is cute! If I decide to buy brand new ones, I’ll end up paying almost as much as I am paying for my monthly insurance quote.
- I watched Repertory Philippines’ I Love You Because last Saturday. The story was nice, the performance was just…okay. There were a lot of laughs though, plus company was great, so I’m not complaining. :)
- Monday got me sick, though. I woke up with a really bad bout of indigestion, threw my breakfast up and spent the rest of the day feeling totally lethargic and nursing a headache. I got my blood pressure too, and I had quite a high one but it was just because of my headache. Good thing we didn’t have training last night, so I went home early, drank meds and spent the rest of the night sleeping. I feel much better now, although still a bit wary about my stomach.
- I’ve decided to take it a bit easy on Wordplay, by going on a deliberate break. Details here.
- I need to find replacement earphones and cable. Any suggestions for a cheap one? :D
I better get ready for work now. It’s going to be another hot commute, ergh. Oh well. :)
I wanted to post this one yesterday but it was way too late. Soooo, posting it on the eighth but still maintaining the title, since it sounds better. :P
I know, I owe non-book-related entries. I wanted to write something when Ash Wednesday rolled around but work and Wordplay ate too much time, and I honestly wanted to read more instead of blog. But today I felt the need to blog, mostly because of the date today: March 7.
That means…there’s ten more days before I turn 23. TEN!
I’m a big fan of birthdays. I like celebrating birthdays — be it for friends or family or even especially Christmas (since it is Jesus’ birthday). And yes, those birthdays include mine. I know it’s mighty selfish, but I always consider birthdays as days when the celebrant can act as bratty as they want and be excused since its their birthday. :P So there.
So anyway. It’s just a little over a week till I turn 23, and I’ve got…three lunches/dinners that are planned for the month. Haha, talk about fun. Of course, most of those are my treat, which I really don’t mind, although sometimes I hope someone else would sponsor food for my birthday. Or, wait, my parents have done that for years. Heh. :P Anyway, I’ve got a lunch with my teammates on Friday (and that’s shared with three other teammates so the damage won’t be that bad), another one for IBM Club friends and another one for my family (I originally planned a free hotel night with them, but we’ll do that when my Dad gets here) and another one for other friends. So…let’s see how much these things would cost me, haha.
Anyway, I call on this moment to call on special birthday privileges and be a bit materialistic. In short, it’s wishlist time. :)
Tina’s 23rd Birthday Wishlist (March 17, 2009)
Rating:
Dylan Shoenfield is the princess of L.A.’s posh Castle Heights High. She has the coolest boyfriend, the most popular friends, and a brand-new “it” bag that everyone covets. But when she accidentally tosses her bag into a fountain, this princess comes face-to-face with her own personal frog: selfprofessed film geek Josh Rosen. In return for rescuing Dylan’s bag, Josh convinces Dylan to let him film her for his documentary on high school popularity. Reluctantly, Dylan lets F-list Josh into her A-list world, and is shocked to realize that sometimes nerds can be pretty cool. But when Dylan’s so-called prince charming of a boyfriend dumps her flat, her life — and her social status — comes to a crashing halt. Can Dylan — with Josh’s help — pull the pieces together to create her own happily-ever-after?
Don’t you just love the cover of this book? It screams young adult/chick lit! No wonder I wanted it! Okay, fine, I’m not such a fan of how they cut the head off (at least it’s not at the neck — big no no!), but it’s so pretty, and the actual cover has glitters on it. Talk about whimsical. :P
I’m glad that this book is really good inside too, aside from having a pretty cover. I’m starting to get really fond of re-telling of fairy tales and old stories I know, much like Jasper Fforde‘s Nursery Crime series. Geek Charming is a retelling of The Frog Prince, set in the bright, sunshiney and somewhat materialistic world of Castle Heights High. I don’t know why, but I could somehow imagine the setting even if I haven’t ever been to Hollywood. And then again, I imagined everything just bright and sunshine-y too — maybe it’s a personal stereotype I have.
It’s a really cute and charming story, much like it’s title. Told in alternating point of views between the protagonists, it’s somewhat cliche, but not really. Then again, it’s a re-telling, so what can you expect? Dylan was really annoying at the first few chapters and I really wanted to sock her for being so stuck up. I mean, yeah, you’re rich, and you could probably afford one or more car insurances for your BMW, but do you really have to be so selfish? However, she started becoming more human after some time, and I started sympathizing with her. I liked Josh from the beginning, being the geek that he was, although I kind of felt that his “sickness” is kind of exaggerated.
It’s really more of a friendship/self-discovery story more than a love story, which was refreshing in a way. I liked how Dylan and Josh’s friendship developed throughout the book, and it gave the characters more depth. The other characters were just as amusing, especially Sandy, Josh’s mom.
It’s a quick and light read (I read straight it over the weekend), something that helped me get over the darkness that is Adam. :P It’s cute, but not exactly stellar or life-changing. It’s something I’d recommend someone to read but not really get something really deep, unless if you’re around that age, I guess. But it’s good, just not as good as say, Flipped. I can’t wait to get a copy of Cindy Ella, and all other books that Palmer will come up with. I think I just found myself another author to watch out for. :)
Rating:
Do you believe in evil?
In the mind of FBI behavioral psychologist Daniel Clark, there is no Good and no Evil. All that possesses him is the pursuit of the serial killer known as ‘Eve’. A pursuit that will lead Daniel to his own death.
But he is miraculously resuscitated — twenty-one minutes after flatlining — and it soon becomes clear that the only way to stop Eve is to recover those missing minutes by dying…again.
Daniel’s pursuit of Eve descends deeper and darker than ever before. Soon — in circumstances he could never have imagined — he will find himself re-evaluating everything he ever believed.
It’s been a long time since I have read a Ted Dekker book, and I have been eyeing this one ever since I saw it at National Bookstore. When I saw the smaller print (the one above with the bright green back cover), I immediately snatched it up.
I have read a couple of reviews of this book, and most of them said something about this being Ted Dekker’s darkest work yet, and that some slept with their lights on, so I was kind of wary about this. Somewhere halfway into the book, I started wondering if all those dark stuff is really some kind of hype. Even when I finally finished it (more to the ending later), I wasn’t particularly stunned.
Until last night. I’m not saying something supernatural happened, but I woke up in the middle of the night and the first thing that came into mind was the last scene in the book…and boy was I suddenly terrified. I had to think of other thoughts fast, keeping my eyes closed so I won’t imagine anything in the room.
Talk about haunting.
In a way that’s how this book was — haunting. I described it first as disturbing, but I realized haunting is the better word. The story was flawless, as far as I’m concerned: the story — both the newspaper articles and the actual story — are tightly woven together, and the terminologies seemed authentic as far as my knowledge was concerned. In fact, it kind of felt like I was reading a novelized CSI episode with all the mention of AFIS, CODIS and all the protocol they followed. I even learned some new things that I somehow never picked up in the CSI episodes I’ve watched, like did you know that when they say ventricular fibrillation, it meant heart attack? And that electric shock thing with paddles is called a defibrillator?
But I digress. What I liked about this book was how Dekker managed to connect the physical/scientific world of crime solving with the spiritual aspect. At first I had a hard time trying to connect them when it was finally brought up — perhaps it was my exposure to all those CSI episodes that followed the motivations and the scientific stuff made me numb to thinking about the faith aspect — but after some time, it made sense. I remembered that there’s the body and the soul, and Dekker merges the soul aspect here in a creepy albeit effective way. He manages to tie everything effectively in the first question of the blurb: do you believe in evil? Because evil exists, and it’s not something you can hide from in locked doors or fence installation can keep away.
As always, the ending brought a little twist that I really didn’t expect, so props to that too. Nothing is as surprising as Thr3e‘s ending, though. ;)
My only gripe about this book is how dark it was. Yes, it’s one of the “good” aspects of this one, but it’s definitely not for someone who’s early in his/her Christian walk. It’s not for teens, for sure, because the themes are too heavy and the ending didn’t have a very solid resolution, just the solving of the case. It presents a side of our spiritual life that can be scary to some people if not understood properly.
Don’t get me wrong: it’s a good book. Just make sure you’re ready for its after-effects. :)
You will learn that evil tends to target those who are least suspicious of its power. (Ted Dekker)
