libraryofmarella_13's reviews
75 reviews

I remember reading this book last year. It was the height of the pandemic. My mon lost her job and I attended my first rally. At that time, I was filled up with so much anger and jealousy. Anger for people who I thought were friends of mine turned out to change sides so quickly and laugh at the struggles of others. Jealousy for the people who treated the pandemic like a vacation, the people who belted out words so easily with no thought of how much impact it could do to those who were hurting. I remember reading the synopsis of this book and being completely entranced, I downloaded it the next day and finished it in a couple of hours. For someone who hasn’t read for two years, the book was such a refresher. It talks a lot about how speaking up can help so much. It covers freedom of speech, the difference between societal classes, the treatment of the LGBTQ+ community in the Philippines, being apolotical and sextrafficking. It also talks about how in this world today, we need more storytellers and people who are empathetic. Now, it does have some flaws specifically it is in the perspective of an American born Filipino and it is shown through that gaze which can be a bit out of touch for those of us who’ve lived in the Philippines their whole life. I also do feel like a lot of the character were almost stereotypical but I mean it did make sense to the story. At the time, I remember telling the bookclub that I was in, “This book taught me how political views don’t define you or it’s not you as a whole.” But now that I have a little more perspective and I haven’t read this book in almost a year. My takeaway has change. I believe that your political views are a part of you. It’s a choice you make and the candidate that you choose, campaign and claim that they will lead the country into a brighter future does say a lot about you. In this world, we can never agree on everything. But if we actually look at each other a bit closer, you’ll see that there are more things that bind us than break us.

This book was a fun, light read and prepare yourself because it will make you hungry. There is so much representation in this book. The love triangle between Lila, Amir, and Jae is one that I got so kilig by. (I’m currently on Jae’s side). I’d really love to see what’s gonna happen between them in the next book. I honestly couldn’t tell who killed Derek and who commited which crime and who was to blame. When it was revealed, I was flabbergasted. Detective Park’s character was interesting, I would want his character to be explored a lot more and his dynamic with Tita Rosie is one that I would want to see dwelled in more. I personally think the only parts that could’ve been improved was the dialogue. Some of it seemed to scripted rather than a natural conversation. Also, I don’t know why but swearing wasn’t allowed for this. Like I get it, Lila’s family is religious but the cover-ups for the swearing like “sugar” and “oh my gulay” were a bit too cringey for me. I think the characters can also be improved a lot more for now they’re all pretty standard and I would love to see more of their stories and what makes them them and see different facades of them. Overall, it’s a great book. I would recommed it and it might be one of my favorite’s for this year

I read this two nights ago. This is my first Colleen Hoover book and it did not disappoint. This book covered domestic abuse and why a victim might keep staying with their abuser. To me, Ryle was such a well-written character not in the complex, good protagonist way but in the way that as you read the book, you become Lily and you really fall in love with him. In all the times, Ryle has hurt Lily, there’s still a part of you that feels like maybe if we give Ryle a second chance he might change, he might not hurt us anymore. I really loved Alyssa’s character to me, she’s not talked about enough. I love how down to earth she is even though she’s literally a millionaire’s wife, I love how she knew what Ryle was really like and even tried to warn Lily that he has abusive tendencies and when Lily told her about the attempted rape, Alyssa didnt force her to stay with Ryle rather told her to leave him. I do really love Atlas but I wish we got to see more of Atlas as an adult considering the major part that we see in his relationship with Lily was when they were teenagers—not to mention the whole 15 and 19 age gap. I would’ve loved to see more of Atlas’ character development and how he grew and what being in the Marines and how being a chef molded him as a person.

“And while the barriers to career advancement or to certain professions for women, for people of colour and for working-class people are often particularly high, what happens to those who do not make it? The system is such that there will always be many more losers than there are winners. Those who are caught in a punitive and cruel benefit system and successive low-paid crap jobs. Aspiration in a world structurally unable to fulfil the aspirations of everyone will leave the unlucky or just those for whatever reason not capable of meeting their aspirations cast adrift.”

I remember this time a teacher of mine said that if we want justice, then we have to work hard for it. If we work hard, we can become successful. Success equals being rich and so on. A few months ago, another teacher of mine said, “Maybe some of you are just resting there and aren’t working.” (For context, we had a free day because they were absent.) After reading this book, I want to throw it at their faces. This book answers those false narrative of working to get to the top and how constantly working is productive.

“As we’ve already seen, work simply does not, as it currently exists, work for the lowest paid. But, as I argue in the rest of the book, the problem of work under capitalism is not just the problem of crap jobs and of an unfair distribution of access to better ones. Even in work that is more secure, more permanent, and better paid, all kinds of problems for workers emerge. The reason for this is that, by and large, we are not able to choose how we work.”

Lost in Work is a non-fiction book about work under capitalism and how it affects everyone especially lower class people. It talks about the history of work and workers and what is work. This book made me question how we define work. What work is worth compensation?

“Homelessness is an acceptable humiliation. Drudgery is another. But selling sex on the other hand is everyone’s business.– Virgine Despentes”

There is a section in this book that I really wished the author continued to push on which was about sex workers and mothers and how they are examples of the inequality when it comes to people defining what work is. There are people in this world that believe that sex workers shouldn’t be paid or that what they do isn’t real work. A lot of them arugue that real work has labor. Sex workers carry an insane amount of emotional and mental labor that people who criticize them can’t even bear. A lot of women who are anti-feminist argue that we never needed feminism or “why did all these women suddenly have to protest, we were fine before, we just stayed at home and took care of the house.” This book clarifies that women used to work 30 hours a day in their household with no proper compensation. Not only that but majority of the women at that time had to endure domestic abuse and still play the loving, doting housewife part.

This book was written during the height of the pandemic and the author also got covid when she was writing this which makes the book more relevant and one that a lot of people can relate to and apply in their life. This was my first non-fiction book and I surprisingly enjoyed it, I don’t normally get attracted to these kind of books because a lot of times they’re boring but I finished 27 percent of it when I first read it which is very impressive for me. This book is intersectional and does take racism, sexism, third world countries, and exploitation into account. I will say though, this book took a lot more braincells to finish and understand and there were some parts that were very much dull but it was necessary. There were also part where I feel like the author could’ve shortend it or not use a lot of big words. All in all, I learned a lot from it and I’d recommed.