Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Amazing Grace is one of the many novels of Filipino author, Tara FT Sering. In this book, Grace is your typical 20-something girl from a Chinese-Filipino family. She is constantly under pressure to get married and on one blind date, she finally met the one: Mike. Two years later, Mike popped the question, but there's a catch: Mike is suddenly assigned for two years in Singapore. Without a definite wedding date, and noticing that almost all the photos of Mike in Singapore was with a certain blonde, Grace races to countries in South East Asia, trying to go after Mike and saving her future marriage, and man, from leaving her. Thoughts: Okay, the book was written in the second-person point of view, which makes me feel like I'm reading those Choose Your Own Adventure novels from way back, although this adventure has already been chosen and the ending is set. I honestly am not a big fan of this type of narrative, so I got annoyed more at some bits of the story.
True, I could relate to the character on most parts [the getting pressured to get married, settle down and have kids, having a successful career, among others], but I would probably never even consider running after someone in order to save a future that I so planned in my head. What happens, happens, and the time, effort, and resources it would take for me to undergo such a journey that Grace did would be unfathomable, and bordering on insanity [at least for me]. So yeah, to each their own. I dunno if I enjoyed reading the Grace's story, but the places and sights featured in the story piqued my interest, and yes, the descriptions of the places are indeed detailed and updated. It's either the author researched on the countries well or has been to the places too.
Okay, what I did like about the story - it was by a Filipino author, and I *think* I've read a chick lit of hers way back in college, but I don't remember now. It was quite nice that this book was first published abroad before it was picked up in the PH to be published. It's also one of the few Filipino books that I could easily recognize and can be seen in the shelves of the major bookstores. The cover is excellent - it's cute, and the accents in the pages: the airplane and what I suppose is Grace in the odd pages, is an excellent touch. The paper used in the book, I'm not a big fan of.
What else can I say? The book certainly lacked the goosepimply, awww moments that I was looking for in chick lit books. Maybe I was wrong in thinking this was chick lit, I don't know, maybe it was just plain literature? I was not really happy as I was reading the book and it took me quite some time to finish it.
Published: 2010
Available From: Locally - major bookstores. Internationally? No idea.
Publisher: Anvil
Book was: provided by Anvil for review. Thanks to Gege and Honey for compiling the list and offering =)
Rating: I'm completely between the fence here. I really could not make up my mind if I didn't like the book or if it was just okay. [2.5/5]
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