Author: Nikka

I yearn. I ache. I (window) shop.
Reading is Fundamental

What Books Did You Read in 2024?

by NikkaLeave a Comment on What Books Did You Read in 2024?
What Books Did You Read in 2024?

It’s that time of the year again! The time where I make excuses for why this post is late, blah blah blah and crap. At any rate, we’re mid-April now so I’d better get this out before it’s too late and I end up making another one of my monster two-year reading list mashes. Reading-wise, it appears I skewed more fantasy than usual, which was a first for me! As always, you’re welcome to skip to the standouts below 🙂

Memoirs, Memories and Me
The Meaning of Mariah Carey – Mariah Carey
Crying in H-Mart – Michelle Zauner
The Widow’s Guide to Dead Bastards – Jessica Waite
Robin – Dave Itzkoff
From Here to the Great Unknown – Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough

Sweet, Sweet Fantasy Baby
Starling House – Alix E. Harrow
Fourth Wing / Iron Flame – Rebecca Yarros
The Hollow Places / A Sorceress Comes to Call / Nettle and Bone – T. Kingfisher
The Familiar – Leigh Bardugo
Voyage of the Damned – Frances White
The Ministry of Time – Kaliane Bradley
The Forgetting – Sharon Cameron
Once a Monster – Robert Dinsdale

Loveswept
The Beast / The Chosen / The Thief / Lassiter – J. R. Ward
Romancing Mr. Bridgerton – Julia Quinn
Swift and Saddled – Lyla Sage

Other Stuff
Argylle – Elly Conway
The Best Laid Plans – Sidney Sheldon
Snuff – Chuck Palahniuk
The Queen’s Bed: An Intimate History of Elizabeth’s Court – Anna Whitelock
Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era – Laurence Leamer
The Last Queen: Elizabeth II’s Seventy Year Battle to Save the House of Windsor – Clive Irving

Standouts

Shoe Dog – Phil Knight
I was in Dublin the day after a riot broke out, and was confined to my hotel as it wasn’t safe to be on the streets. I’m not in the habit of reading the memoirs of entrepreneurs, but not knowing what else to do, I hung out in the lounge and picked this up, expecting a more detailed version of Prime Video’s Air (2023). I ended up enthralled with the story of Phil Knight instead. Shoe Dog isn’t just Knight’s story, it’s the story of Nike, his “third son.” Nike’s early beginnings, and its development into the behemoth it is today is way more captivating than any old shoe deal with a burgeoning basketball star and his indomitable mother. Not that Air was bad (go watch it), it was just a pleasant surprise to pick up a book expecting one thing, and find something else even better. Knight can make even accounting sound interesting, and Shoe Dog transcends mere selling and success. It’s a rollicking good story and is compulsively readable. I was very tempted to steal the book and take it home. I didn’t, and although I do now have my own legally gotten copy, may regret not giving in to that initial impulse to this day.

The Quiet Tenant РCl̩mence Michallon
According to Libby, I read this book in one hour and twenty minutes, which doesn’t seem quite right. Pretty sure it took longer than that to finish. What is true is that I inhaled this book in one sitting, something I rarely do now, because my attention span has become woefully fractured. When a book grabs me by the eyeballs and refuses to let go until the last page has been turned, it’s a sign of how good the writing, the story, and the pace is. The New York Times calls The Quiet Tenant an “assured debut” and an “expertly paced psychological thriller” and I am inclined to agree. Michallon skillfully uses multiple voices to weave the narrative around a serial killer – the woman he keeps chained in a shed, the woman who loves him, and his daughter – masterfully ratcheting up the suspense and the dread, chapter by chapter as the ghosts of the serial killer’s victims chime in. It’s chilling. It’s great.

Mistborn: The Final Empire / The Well of Ascension / The Hero of Ages – Brandon Sanderson
Can Brandon Sanderson write? This guy from Wired doesn’t seem to think so. Although I am tardy to the Sanderson party, I do not agree with the guy from Wired. Brandon Sanderson is a good storyteller, even if he doesn’t seem to like using variations on the word “scream”. The Mistborn trilogy is a fun romp through a fantasyland of erupting volcanos, weird skies, ash, and magic. Read it if only to see if you agree (or don’t) with the guy from Wired.

Thornhedge – T. Kingfisher
In Toadling – ugly and unsure, with barely any powers to speak of, Kingfisher has the opposite of a traditional protagonist. You may not want to read about her story, or even care. But you won’t be able to help yourself once you’ve started, because reading Thornhedge feels like someone is simply whispering the story in your ear as you leaf through illustrations of fairies, sleeping maidens in towers, with knights errant hacking their way through the brush. Using clean, uncomplicated prose, Kingfisher absolutely deserved the Hugo Award for Best Novella. Read this if you love re-imagined fairytales.

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder – David Grann
Grann’s characters are as fully fleshed out as he can make them, and this gripping tale of castaways fighting for survival while holding on to the tenets of honor and dignity is well worth the read. The Wager may be non-fiction, but all the pulse-pounding action makes it’s easy to forget that it is. Grann has penned a veritable thriller – and the tension is so tight, you might find yourself holding your breath as you turn the page, wanting to see what happens next.

Random YouTube K-hole

Random YouTube K-Hole: What About… No?

by NikkaLeave a Comment on Random YouTube K-Hole: What About… No?

Has it really been four years since my last YouTube-related post? Found this in my drafts folder, apparently meant to share it last year, but I got distracted. It may have been a while since I’ve shared anything on here, but going down random YouTube k-holes is still a thing for me. Oh well. Better late than never is my ninja way.

I used to say “no” with the insouciance of someone who assumed everything else was in front of me, ready and waiting to be grabbed. Because that’s what it feels like, and that’s what it is like in your twenties. The world is your oyster. You’re spoiled for choice, for opportunity. And then you hit your mid-thirties, where you begin to regret not grabbing hold of every opportunity that came your way … and then the forties comes around, slaps you in the face, reminds you you’re middle-aged, the opportunities are no longer raining down, you’ve pissed half your life away just saying no, and if you don’t say yes now, then when, which is why BAM, you suddenly have a Tesla. Or something.

No – Little Mix

The “no” or “enough” songs tend to bring out the sass. I can certainly relate to being fed up with various forms of bullshit, which is why I appreciate this little oeuvre from the Little Mix. Always fun to have something to lipsync to when I’m in that particular headspace.

No – Meghan Trainer

Where was I nine years ago, when this came out? No idea. I’d stopped using the Billboard Hot 100 as a meter for Top 40, and started relying on my instincts in the Spotify era. Which is why I missed out on a video that has more than 600M views. Which sucks. Because this is a banger. Then again, it’s no big loss – this is the kind of attitudinal pop song a younger, mid-twenty something me would be mouthing in the middle of a dance floor at 1AM, holding a rapidly warming vodka cooler while tossing my hair. I’m too old for all that now. But this song is still a banger. Like I said – better late than never.

No, No, No – Destiny’s Child

You know I couldn’t let this theme pass me by without including the original Destiny’s Child line-up. Look how young they were! Sometimes watching today’s younger skewing popstars play with mature themes like seduction can be pretty uncomfortable, so I will say Destiny’s children did it way more successfully than some.

Tennis

Adiós, Rafa

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Welp, this sucks, and I’m sad I’ll never get to see my beloved Rafa play on the terre battue he dominated for so long. I am glad I got to see him practice, though. And to bear witness to so many classic matches – the Wimbledon 2008 final will forever be a highlight.

Reading is Fundamental

What Books Did You Read in 2022 and 2023?

by NikkaLeave a Comment on What Books Did You Read in 2022 and 2023?
What Books Did You Read in 2022 and 2023?

Good lord, is it the end of April already? Time does fly the older one gets. I’ve been meaning to post this reading list up for a good long while now and am finally doing it because if I don’t, I will blink and it’ll be next year. Anyway, better late than never is my ninja way, so here are my book reads of the past two years. It’s a paltry list for 24 months (grad school aside)… I’ve really got to get back on the book wagon. As usual, skip to the end for the standouts!

Disclaimer: you’ll notice a definite uptick in the romance genre, which was intentional. It really would’ve been more, if I hadn’t read a certain Booktok-favoured title that was SO bad, I gave up on my quest to read only romance for the rest of 2023. Booktok is a lie. It’s a lie. *cries*

Thrills and Chills
Six Four – Hideo Yokoyama
The Final Girl Support Group – Grady Hendrix
Notes on a Scandal – Zoë Heller

Sweet Sweet Fantasies Baby
My Name is Morgan – Sophie Keetch
Tress of the Emerald Sea – Brandon Sanderson
Uprooted / Spinning Silver – Naomi Novik
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – Gabrielle Zevin

Loveswept
The Prince of Broadway – Joanna Shupe
The Governess Affair / The Duchess War – Courtney Milan
You Had Me At Hola – Alexis Daria
A Worthy Opponent – Katee Robert
Enchanted – Elizabeth Lowell
Daring and the Duke – Sarah MacLean
For My Lady’s Heart / Shadowheart / Flowers From the Storm – Laura Kinsale
Icebreaker – Hannah Grace

History Re-imagined
The Forbidden Queen – Anne O’Brien
The Wedding Portrait – Maggie O’Farrell
The Secret Life of Josephine: Napoleon’s Bird of Paradise – Carolly Erickson

Memoirs, Memories and Me
I Feel Bad About My Neck – Nora Ephron
Paul at Home – Michel Rabagliati
Persepolis 1 / Persepolis 2- Marjane Satrapi
I’m Glad My Mother Died – Jennette McCurdy

Behind the Scenes
The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt: the History of a Civilisation from 3000 BC to Cleopatra – Toby Wilkinson
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Won’t Stop Talking – Susan Cain
Missing From the Village – Justin Ling
Little Girl Blue: The Life of Karen Carpenter – Randy L. Schmidt
All of the Marvels – Douglas Wolk
The Bad-ass Librarians of Timbuktu – Joshua Hammer
The Madness of Queen Maria: The Remarkable Life of Maria I of Portugal – Jennifer Roberts
Young and Damned and Fair – Gareth Russell
Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon – James Hibberd
Pandora’s Jar – Natalie Haynes
The Last Mrs. Astor : A New York Story – Frances Kiernan

I Don’t Care What You Say, Re-reads Still Count
A Stranger in the Mirror – Sydney Sheldon
Tapestry – Karen Ranney
Warrior’s Woman / Keeper of the Heart / Heart of a Warrior – Johanna Lindsey
The Prize – Julie Garwood
A Knight in Shining Armor – Jude Devereaux

The 2022-2023 Standouts

2022
Brazen and the Beast – Sarah MacLean
He’s a Covent Garden gangster who rules the dockyards, speaks in grunts, and only gets verbose in the throes of passion. She’s an intelligent spinster whose elder brother is running the family’s shipping business into the ground, and can’t (or won’t) shut up until she’s physically teased to the point of incoherence. They’re made for each other! Barring a few, clunkily obvious signs that this regency romance was written in the age of must-have consent and equality, this is witty, fast-paced and ridiculously horny. Read if you like bodice-ripping, heavy-breathing, smutty romance.

The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books – Edward Wilson-Lee
Fernando Columbus is not the first name that comes to mind when one thinks of the Renaissance, and Wilson-Lee makes the argument that he really should be. This professional courtier and illegitimate second son of Christopher Columbus revolutionized indexing, cataloguing, arranging, mapping, research, and building libraries. If not for the circumstances of his birth, it is very likely that he would’ve been the heir to Columbus’ fortune instead of his useless excuse for a half-brother. This is one of the best biographies I’ve read in a long time, and touched many of the things I enjoy – biographies, relatively obscure Renaissance figures, obsessive-compulsive list making, and a love of books. I enjoyed it so much, I used it as the subject for a book talk assignment, which I like to think went over quite well – if not with the class, then at least with my instructor 🙂

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach
Do not read Stiff if you are eating. Do not read Stiff if you are squeamish. Do not read Stiff if you do not want to know how bodies decompose when they are left on their own without the benefit of embalming. Definitely read Stiff if you are interested in knowing how cadavers prove their usefulness: as crash test dummies, as anatomical models, and as guinea pigs for experiments. And definitely read Stiff if you would like to know how fearless Filipinos, probably hopped up on whatever goes into anting-antings, defied a hailstorm of bullets in the Spanish-American War and in doing so, became the impetus for ballistic research and the concept of “stopping power”.

2023
Yellowface – R.F. Kuang
No one in Yellowface is likeable. None of the characters are reliable narrators. When your main character is a caricature of an entitled white woman (terminally insecure, petty, selfish, self-aggrandizing, narcissistic, delusional) jealous of a “perfect’ Asian author who turns out to be cold, fake, pretentious, and fond of mining the trauma of others for her art, reading becomes a challenge, because we are wired to like leading characters, even when they’re terrible people making terrible choices (plagiarism is never a good idea!). I’m not a fan of the sanctimoniousness that comes with race politics, so if the author’s intent is to make you feel something, she succeeds wonderfully. Yellowface is a good read, not only because it makes you feel, but also because this single-white-female x cancel culture x appropriation story has Twitter exchanges, references to real life personas, and a disdain for the behaviour of publicists, agents and suck ups that seem too sharp to be made up. The scenes so sharply specific, it made me wonder how much of a roman a clef this book really is (juicy!). Read if you like trainwrecks, good writing, and are prepared to feel uncomfortable.

All the Murmuring Bones – A.G. Slater
All the Murmuring Bones is an atmospheric, mesmerizing tale about one family’s ill-gotten gains. It’s a gothic fantasy that marries Hans Christian Andersen with Mermaid Forest. One thing about the heroine though: she doesn’t seem able to feel very much. Even when she says she’s scared or terrified, she keeps a level head at all times, outwitting murderous ghosts and menacing kelpies. Read if you like haunting fairy tales and don’t enjoy weeping, anxiety ridden heroines.

Jaded Hindsight Edition

It’s Saving for Botox’s Eighth Birthday!

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Happy 2024! WordPress has very kindly reminded me that Saving for Botox turned eight today. Although it features way less regular posts than it used to in the beginning and hardly has anything to show for the past two years, it – like its webmistress – is still very much alive.

I keep meaning to write and post, just like I keep meaning to lose weight, but have never really made good on those well-meant intentions. Will 2024 change all that? One can only hope. I no longer have graduate school to blame, and the pandemic is (hopefully) in our collective rear view. I wonder what I’ll write about this year. I know for sure I am combining my annual “What Did You Read in ####?” for 2022 and 2023, and that should come out any day now.

So, eight years from a semi-serious pledge to save for a thing that ostensibly helps stop aging in its tracks, have I finally gotten Botox? Negatory. Needles have yet to pierce me in the face. This is due in part to a fear of commitment (what if I I end up looking like Jacqueline Wildenstein?), FOMO (there’s always going to be a better doctor out there!), and because I do not like needles poking my face (there goes my social life?). These days, the bestie keeps extolling the joys of affordable South Korean facial rejuvenation, which is probably his way of telling me I look tired and need more than a facial. Ah well. Never say never, until you actually do mean never. But for now, I’ll wait.

Has it really been eight years? It doesn’t feel like it, and I have decided to apply a little something I call COVID math. COVID math states that 2020-2022 do not count. Which means in the general scheme of things, Saving for Botox is actually six. Happy birthday to my blog baby!

People are People

Gloriana

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Gloriana

The last time I had the energy to say write anything, Cherie Gil did a final drag on an omnipresent cigarette, raked us from the tips of our heads to the soles of our feet and back again with patented disdain, executed a final exquisite eyebrow raise, and left for St. Peter’s Gates. And now, #HerMaj. Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, who made a point of never abdicating, has died at 96.

I am by no means a rabid royalist, but I’ve always liked QEII. Britain thinks of her as their national grandmother. In a way, I’ve co-opted her as mine as well. (I can hardly help it, the woman is on our money. ) Every time I see QE II in the news, I think of my real grandmother, whom I love and adore, and who I miss very much. I haven’t gotten to visit her since the pandemic hit, and she’s getting up there in age. I guess in a way, QEII is my stand-in grandma, because they share similarities. Both women are petite. Both insist on staying active even in their twilight years. Both women were strong leaders, in positions traditionally held by male counterparts. And both women are very much loved, not just by their families, but also by the people around them who they have touched.

Elizabeth II did not have the glamour and mystique of Elizabeth I, nor was she fancifully indulgent like Victoria I. Both queens ruled with a sort of forceful charisma, while QE II did not. If anything, she was well known for being quite the opposite. Some called her “horsey,” not because she looked like a horse, but because she loved horses, and it was said that if she had not been made queen, she would have been very happy living the life of a country gentlewoman. QEII’s ethos seemed to spring as a reaction to (and, in a way, rebuke of) her self-indulgent uncle, who famously cavorted around with married women to the dismay of his father, then King George V, and who ultimately abdicated because he couldn’t have the woman he wanted. If Elizabeth I used the iconography of the virgin to portray herself as a monarch above her subjects, pure, clean and blessed, Elizabeth II used duty, self-sacrifice, and constancy, making herself the prime exemplar of British reserve. She was a walking, talking advertisement to Keep Calm and Carry On, and she did it for almost 71 years. That’s seven decades of “never complain, never explain” to her public. That is next-level consistency. Although her children and grand-children, and sometimes her husband, sometimes seemed caught in a never-ending round of public faux pas, the woman never faltered. If there’s anything I like most in a person, it’s being consistent.

I love reading stories of strong, capable Queens making their mark in a world traditionally ruled by men. QE II is arguably the last monarch to have that distinction. I admired her very much, and I am sorry she’s gone.

The Motherland

Effortless, First-Rate Original

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Effortless, First-Rate Original

Cherie Gil died.

I didn’t know her personally. I was more familiar with the persona she had built as an actress -the haughty, upper class, sharply dressed rich bitch, eyebrow perpetually arched, raking you with her gaze from head to foot and back again with searing dismissal, a Virginia Slim effortlessly balanced between two slender, tapered, perfectly manicured fingers. Filipino cinema has no shortage of unforgettable female villains. Along with Celia Rodriguez, Cherie Gil was arguably the most recognizable, the name and face that came to mind whenever the concept of the kontrabida was bandied about. She played women you loved to hate with elan, with class, and with flair. Those patrician features and take no prisoners attitude certainly contributed to the overall effect; Cherie Gil never needed to say it out loud in the movies, but her very aura told you in no uncertain terms that she was aware of your hatred, and didn’t give a damn about it.

I don’t think I ever saw any of the movies she was in, so my impressions of her are from movie clips and oft-bandied lines. With her passing, the most memorable has been shared and played all over local news and my feed. It’s just piling on at this point, but I can’t help sharing it anyway, because it is a line delivered with such delicious venom, and such precise diction, it’s more than earned its place in Philippine cinema as one of its most (fine, I’ll say it) iconic lines:

La Primera Contravida indeed.

I wonder if Cherie Gil was that way in real life. I like to think she was more than the two-dimensional villains she was most famous for playing onscreen, whose only existed to be hated. I also like to think the spicy forthrightness she brought to her villainess roles was intrinsic. Maybe it was, if the profile piece in Mega Magazine earlier this year can be believed. She confessed to struggling with fear, shaved her head (“What’s hair, di ba?”), sold all her things, and moved to New York for a fresh start and to be with her kids. In hindsight, she must’ve already known, she just wasn’t willing to share it. She hadn’t announced that she was ill (really, the hair should’ve been a clue). Maybe Cherie Gil didn’t want to be defined by her illness. Maybe all Cherie Gil wanted was to go out with a bang. And I think that makes me respect her more, even if I never knew her. I still want to be Cherie Gil some day. Alas, I don’t think I’ll ever have the features for it.