BLOG TOUR: Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim

BLOG TOUR: Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim

Monday, July 27, 2020

I am so excited to be doing this blog tour as it is my first time to do a tour with Caffeine Book Tours. I didn't actually know that I was going to enjoy this book so much, but I did. The first few chapters really dragged but mind you, when you get to Paris, everything will just get you curious  and you just want to find out everything about Evelyn and just be her. *heart eyes*

I'll be doing a full review of this book after the tour, so watch out for that! ❤️

Title: Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop

Author: Roselle Lim

Publisher: Berkeley Romance

Publication date: 04 August 2020

Genres: Adult, Romance, Contemporary

Synopsis:

Become enamored with the splendor of Paris in this heartwarming and delightful story about writing one’s own destiny and finding love along the way.

Vanessa Yu never wanted to see people’s fortunes—or misfortunes—in tea leaves.

Ever since she can remember, Vanessa Yu has been able to see people’s fortunes at the bottom of their teacups. To avoid blurting out their fortunes, she converts to coffee, but somehow fortunes escape and find a way to complicate her life and the ones of those around her. To add to this plight, her romance life is so nonexistent that her parents enlist the services of a matchmaking expert from Shanghai.

The day before her matchmaking appointment, Vanessa accidentally sees her own fate: death by traffic accident. She decides that she can’t truly live until she can find a way to get rid of her uncanny abilities. When her eccentric aunt, Evelyn, shows up with a tempting offer to whisk her away, Vanessa says au revoir to America and bonjour to Paris. While working at Evelyn’s tea stall at a Parisian antique market, Vanessa performs some matchmaking of her own, attempting to help reconnect her aunt with a lost love. As she learns more about herself and the root of her gifts, she realizes one thing to be true: knowing one’s destiny isn’t a curse, but being unable to change it is.

QUOTES FROM THE BOOK THAT I LOVE TO SHARE WITH ALL OF YOU 

There were so many quotable quotes from this book and as much as I want to put them all in here, I'm afraid I might let something slip and ruin the experience. These are four quotes that caught my eye. I would've bombarded all of you with the descriptive prowess of Roselle Lim when it comes to describing food, but I don't want to distract you from your work, lunch break isn't due until a few more hours. I mean, just imagine, she was able to describe a siopao (I think that's siopao, right?) in a way I've never thought of before. That's just amazeng 🙌👌 but you won't find it here, read the book people!

I mean, this quote, girl? Why do you want to hurt me this much. Is it too much to wish for something you know will never ever be yours? Maybe we can make it so, maybe we can change our fates, so hell with this quote! But it is a really good and hard-hitting quote though.

The best advice for all marupokpoks (kidding). But it's good to take note of this and spare ourselves the heartbreak that comes with loving someone who might not even jump a puddle of water for us.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Roselle Lim was born in the Philippines and immigrated to Canada as a child. She lived in north Scarborough in a diverse, Asian neighbourhood.

She found her love of writing by listening to her lola (paternal grandmother's) stories about Filipino folktales. Growing up in a household where Chinese superstition mingled with Filipino Catholicism, she devoured books about mythology, which shaped the fantasies in her novels.

An artist by nature, she considers writing as "painting with words."

Author links:

Author website — https://www.rosellelim.com/  

Goodreads — https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17917712.Roselle_Lim 

Instagram — http://instagram.com/rosellewriter 

Twitter — https://twitter.com/rosellewriter 

BUY THE BOOK

Amazon — https://amzn.to/2XRfETy 

B&N — https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/vanessa-yus-magical-paris-tea-shop-roselle-lim/1133013372

Book Depository — https://www.bookdepository.com/Vanessa-Yus-Magical-Paris-Tea-Shop-Roselle-Lim/9781984803276 

IndieBound —https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781984803276

Goodreads — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42190175-vanessa-yu-s-magical-paris-tea-shop

FOLLOW THE BLOG TOUR

A Definitive Ranking of My Favorite Ghibli FIlms of All Time

A Definitive Ranking of My Favorite Ghibli FIlms of All Time

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Studio Ghibli movies are bizarrely fantastic with story lines that are not exactly realistic, which it shouldn't be, since most of the films are of the magical realism genre. It's not just about the story on the surface, but goes deeper when you dive just a little bit more away from the surface, and these movies fall on the spectrum of charming fantasies to harrowing devastation of life.

Everything from the magic of its story telling through the visual richness of the animation to the beautiful MEN (hehe) and even the emotional wreck it has given me have all contributed to one fact: I LOVE STUDIO GHIBLI. So you should try watching 'em too. :)

Since Netflix has released, most, if not all of the 22 (I think?) movies from Studio Ghibli, a lot of fan arts and fan videos have been floating around my newsfeed and I'm just all heart-eyes for it, so I decided to make a list of my all time fave movies from the ones that I have already watched. So just a little disclaimer, I have only watched a few and from those, I have picked 7 of them as my fave Ghibli movies of all time.

When Marnie Was There

The movie doesn't feel "Ghibli" at all, but despite that, I still love its little impact on me. It was so serious!!! Or so I feel? I don't know, it's just that I didn't feel the magic of Ghibli in this one but the story is good and I kept on guessing and guessing. It was a story of resentment that spans generations and how you can never truly be freed of anger if you have unresolved issues deep inside your heart.

In this story we follow asthmatic Anna who is angry at everything. Her foster parent, her biological parents, herself and just everything. Anna's foster parent decided that she could use a break in the country side and then we see series of day dreaming where Anna met a "ghost" named Marnie and they became friends and I shouldn't say more because you gotta find out for yourself who is Marnie and why is she friends with Anna.

Ponyo

This movie is so simple yet heart warming and so endearing that all kids will actually love and enjoy watching it over and over again. Ponyo is the Japanimated adaptaion of The Little Mermaid, but here we have Ponyo who sometimes becomes a chicken ahahahhaa, well, she really does have chicken feet! So Sosuke lives in a house on top of a cliff, and he rescued a fish trapped in a jar, which we learn to be Ponyo herself. After this, Ponyo wanted to be human and so she was transformed little by little and became friends with Sosuke. The movie talks about something bigger than it might seem at first glance, something about ecological balance and the coexistence of nature and human itself and all the other stuff. But you can actually mind that on your 2nd rewatch and just enjoy the lush underwater scenery and the magic that Ponyo will surely capture you in on your first watch.

My Neighbor Totoro

Just like Ponyo, this is also a feel good movie for everyone of all ages and you'll just find yourself pretty much head over heels in love with the cuteness of Mei and the overall innocence of the whole movie.

Since everything that we can see in this list revolves around human and nature, Totoro is so cool since we see more Japanese culture in this one. We see how Japanese respects the spirit of nature and history that is bound on a place that was there even before humans have inhabited the place. Don't get me wrong, after finishing the movie I was like, that's it? Where's the story?? But it's not much about the climax but how the story was told and how it's just fun to watch a movie that is just pure exploration of how a child sees the world that not an adult could actually understand. Also, in the movie, the two  kids' father acknowledges the stories of the kids and never once told them that it's not real. He listens and trusts his daughters with an open mind even when he don't understand how could all that her daughters are saying could be true.

Spirited Away

When you watch this movie you'll really feel the "Ghibli" magic that I was saying. The story line, the way it was told is in its own way whimsical. The characters, even the ugly spirits, were unforgettable, as with the other ghibli characters. We have No Face and the baby that became a mouse and others, which are soo adorable.  Spirited away is not my number one fave, but it is my most memorable one because it was the first ever Ghibli that I have watched even when I was just watching it just because it's a cartoon!

So Spirited away follows the story of Chihiro who got lost on their way to their new house and made  wrong turn only to find themselves in an abandoned theme park, so they wandered, and this theme park lights up at night and all sorts of spirits were living there and there's this bath house where they come for refreshments and rest. During the first few minutes of Chihiro and her parents' wanderings, Chihiro found that her parents have become a pig and so she wound up working on the bath house saving everybody from whatever problems they found themselves stuck into.

Howl's Moving Castle

A young lady cursed to be old, a roving steampunk-esque castle, a mysterious and handsome wizard, what more could you ask for? Immediately even just after the first glimpse at the start of the movie, you'd know that Ghibli magic is in this movie and it surely is! Just look at the castle, the landscape the witch and you'd know what I'm talking about.

The story follows the story of Sophie who was cursed by the witch of the waste who wanted Howl's heart. Howl was the vain young man who steals the heart of every girl and this is his validation. Even when he is a powerful sorcerer or witch or whatever, he is still insecure and he would have nothing to live for when he loses this outward appearance he so dearly loves.

The movie is an action and romance and fantasy with its own little twists and turns that are somewhat confusing that I even have to read the book to understand only to find that the book is not so similar to the movie itself. If you want to have a little bit of a distraction from the reality even for just an hour or two, I think this is also a good one. It's a tale of loyalty and friendship and discovering self worth and all that.

Grave of the Fireflies

No, I can't watch it for another time. This is so heartbreaking and I just can't bear to watch it again. I've watched this twice already. Once a long long time ago and rewatched it because I can't remember some parts.

After my 2nd rewatch, I knew that I can't bear to witness its tragedy again but the story is so harrowing, it follows the story of two siblings Seita and Setsuko who were both struggling to get through the devastations of world war 2 in Japan. In the midst of America's bombings,t siblings got separated from their parents and have to find a way to manage amidst all the chaos. The film is inspired by events that happened in real life which made it all the more devastating.

Kiki's Delivery Service

In this world, if you are born into a family of witches, you must set out on a sort of training for a year. At first I thought that it was to go to a school or something but turns out that a witch has to find a town where no witch resides in and then hone her craft there. So our little witch, Kiki, with big dreams of settling down on a big town near an ocean and when she found it, it was entirely different from a quaint little town she's from where everyone knows and loves everyone. In a town as big as her "new home", she would have a lot of adjustments to make in order for her to "fit in". She has to learn to accept herself and her role no matter how small, for her to not get lost in an ocean of uncertainty and sadness.

You would admire Kiki's optimism and big dreams. She's very innocent with no idea of the harsh realities of the world out there. In this movie you can clearly see how naive but determined a young mind can be. You can step out of your own little world with a set of goals and plan only to find yourself thrusted into a very big world of uncertainty  which topples you off from what you initially planned out for yourself.

I also love how the film talked about a sort of slump, that even if you're born for something, there will be times when the fires of your passion dies down to embers and the only way to ignite them is to just take a breather  see the lush green nature, blue skies and relax. Nothing good comes out of forcing yourself when you're tired and just feeling like you're not being great at something you're supposed to be born with!

I think the number one on my list is not a chart topper on anybody else's but I can talk so much more about this film and what it taught me by the end of it so I love Kiki's delivery service, really, can't you tell?

SOOO what's your fave Studio Ghibli movie of all time?

7-5 4-3 2-1

BOOK REVIEW: Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

BOOK REVIEW: Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

Thursday, April 30, 2020

I feel like Memory Police has such profound meaning but I cannot dig a well deep enough  inside my brain where I could find that meaning. As of now, it's loss that comes to mind first then I'll just go along as I type this overthought review.

It's not my first time reading a novel from a Japanese author and so far, I found the way they tell a story direct, yet metaphorical and deeply sensational. I could just read it simply, but I still find that it holds so much meaning that is so BIG for my tiny brain to process immediately. 

So to summarize the gist of the story, there is an unnamed island where our narrator resides. In this island, the disappearance of random things is just a normal thing to get through on a day to day basis. For them, there's no point in holding on to something that has no meaning to them already. One day she finds out that a person close to her remembers and they tried to find a way for her to hide that person from the Memory Police.

For a reader who looks forward to character and plot development so much, this would be such a huge letdown. I was actually waiting for something to stir up in the gaping holed hearts of most of the people on the island. But as you might have guessed, that was never the intended purpose of the book. It was never meant to entertain and give answers to a curious mind. It was meant to be questioned and here I am answering all my questions through real life association. Am I supposed to analyze it like a requirement for an english class?? Am I overthinking things?? Maybe?

Also, for someone who reads -um- typical american novels or sci-fi or dystopian or whatever, it could be hard to swallow the ending of the book. It wouldn't satisfy the curiosity that we have for the whole duration of the story. Like, who were the memory police? What's the mechanism of the disappearances?? Where did the 'people who remembers' go? What?! Wha-? I need answers!.... Yet, after all the initial outbursts of emotion, when the mind wandered back to the story, there was something bitter and sweet and salty and sour about the book and the meaning buried deep within the words of the author is still, well, buried at the back of my head. hahahahhha my mind's still reeling but nothing's getting caught on the line.

Lastly, I just want to say that I was deeply impressed by a change of voice within the story. It was written so harrowingly beautiful that I decided that I wanted to follow this other story line that just popped up. I didn't realize my idiocy at first since the characters of the book were all shrouded in mystery. I thought the identities of these people would unravel themselves on the chapters to come only to find my mouth agape in surprise because I didn't realize I was reading fiction within a fiction. How did I miss that? 

Here are the bits and pieces of nonsense that I could come up with considering I am not an expert with nitpicking literary masterpieces.

LOSS & GIVING UP

It's hard for me to piece together the puzzles but I do understand that the whole disappearance thing depicts loss, and how the people who remains (the one who remembers) hold on to what is left. 

Everyone knows how hard letting go is - how hard it is to hold on when the one you're holding on to is already succumbing to the loss themselves (without a fight). It's tragic but it's reality and the way the book portrayed it is full of desolation. My heart was so sad the entire book.

EXTINCTION

Halfway through the story, the thing I associate with the disappearances was the extinction of animals and superannuated things. For example, in this lifetime, dinosaurs were long gone even before the existence of human beans, yet we remember them even if we don't have a use for them anymore. Or the floppy disks or walkman. We don't have use for those anymore, yet we remember that they existed.Wait, dunno what my point is. I don't know why the book has to forget the things that have disappeared, maybe this was a shallow association. lol, maybe there was more meaning to the disappearances. hahhhhaha

SILENCING VOICES

I thought the book would focus more on the memory police hence the title, but the memory poilce were only present at times and their history and the reason why they existed or how they came about weren't tackled. So looking back, I think that they signify the silencing of voices and can be applied through all sorts of life aspects. It could be about a child's opinion being silenced by an adult which could result to loss of assertiveness. Oooor government silencing the voices of its people therefore the loss of their right to free communication or speech or something like that.

The memory police could mean a lot of things and that's the only thing I could compare it to in real life.

THESE WERE MY NOTES DURING THE TIME I WAS READING THE NOVEL

The book seemed reminiscent and full of regret. In reality, a lot of things have been thinning in the world. Slowly crumbling and disappearing into ashes. I find that I'm afraid of how this book would end. What was this book trying to tell me?  OMG, I am quite nervous about R's intention. gurllllllll!!! I thought he was a spy at first but then again, I thought O-M-G! He has retained memories! And then, yep, that's it. He's a wanted man. There was this sort of feeling emanating from the words of the author. It was so direct, yet beautifully descriptive, it was like the words are honey bound to be consumed completely. The mystery that was put around the identity of the characters were mournfully depressing! They don't have names, yet I know them. I was briefly disconcerted by the fact that there were two stories, with one I've yet to unravel. I knew from the very beginning that there was something about the old man. I just dismissed the idea entirely but came back like a gust of wind and it made sense. He was wise not just because he's old but because he remembers.... everything. Oh wait, I've jumped to conclusions yet again. Oh goshhh, this is not turning out the way I thought it would. Wait what? Was it mentioned at first that the woman who lost her voice was the story that the protagonist was writing? I was trying to decipher the identity of that woman because I thought it was another POV! I was shocked when after a horrific turn of event, the protagonist suddenly stopped writing and I was like, WHAT!?!?!?!

REVIEW NOTES

HOW I MAKE TIME DOING WHAT I LOVE

HOW I MAKE TIME DOING WHAT I LOVE

Friday, January 31, 2020

For someone who works 8 hours a day and 6 days a week with a travel time of almost 3 hours back and forth everyday, how can one find the time to do hobbies and other creative outlets?

Slowly, in the past year, I was able to re-insert myself into the world of reading but wasn't able to fully immerse back into the writing and blogging (reviewing books) world. I was also able to take videos and compile them which, to my surprise, I enjoyed so much.

By the last half of 2019, I was able to turn myself around and do a lot of things that made me happy. Video editing (a little vlogging), reading, singing (doing covers), blogging, and kind'a journaling. Seems like a lot for a person who only have a day off per week, right? But looking back, it seems like I made a progress doing what I love in slow bits rather than doing everything at once, which is what I do since I am impatient, which I still am, but I'm slowly working on that one.

Here are the takes from my past and plans for my future and present little 'kinda' passion projects.

1.  READING AND REVIEWING

I love reading for a lot of reasons - past-time, learning cultures, looking back into past, love for words, etc. - and somehow, everytime I finish reading a good or even a not so good book, I have a lot of bottled up emotions that needs to get out  there. That was the reason why I write. I feel like writing things down and creating something and just seeing the outcome is my own form of happy pill.

I have a review blog that has been neglected for a year now but I still continued reviewing the books I read. Some of the reviews were on my phone and unfinished that was why I wasn't able to publish any last year, not even one.

My plan to resolve this, since I've always wanted to look back on what I felt when I read a certain book, is to have a collective review and/or make recommendation lists. I feel like I have to make it collective because sometimes I feel tired by venting out everything and I didn't know how to wrap everything up, that's why I wasn't able to finish any reviews for a while now. They were all bits and pieces of my emotions. Looooooong fragments.

This is what I'll do:

• Read whenever.

• Do collective review and fun lists.

• I'll post the single reviews on my old book blog and post the collectives on this blog, which I've decided to be about everything I love, including my life.

• Try making an outline of what should be included in the review if ever I decide to post a single review.

2. BLOGGING AND JOURNALING

This is separate and different from the book blogging because this would include life bits and mind pieces. I created a new blog late last year, which is this blog, where I can share my travels and decided that it would be my new creative outlet. I've decided to write down everything I love, just as I mentioned, and it involves everything from reading to writing to watching to traveling to eating to just about anything.

I remembered telling myself, "you somehow endure working for 6 days a week, barely having any time to rest and have a repose yet you will restrict yourself on the things that you wanted to experience?",  and that's the reason why every once in a while, I travel, meet up with friends, and eat out. This would be one of the motivation I could use to write on my blog and put something on my journal. Remind myself to never miss a memory!

This is what I'll do:

• Go out and explore. 

• Take out my camera more often and just snap good photos.

• Actually print out photos for the journal. hehe

• Take note of the when and  the where. Collect the tickets, save the stubs, get everything that can be stamped on a paper and just create!

• Follow aesthetic blogs with great contents for motivation and inspiration.

• Take it to pinterest to see beautiful journals.

3. KINDA VLOGGING & VIDEO EDITING

I love traveling, and for some reason, photographs are not enough for me to commemorate my experiences. I want to relive what I did through videos. Ever since I was in college, I've always wanted to capture special moments but I didn't compile them in a full video that's why a lot of those videos are nowhere to be found (I'm not good at organizing files). In the present time, I've devoted myself into compiling clips (some old, some new) into videos that I upload on youtube so I won't ever lose any moving memories ever again. To add into that, I've also made time to write some of those memories in this blog as well. Here's where some photos will go and where some of my experiences will be cemented and written for the interested people to read anytime.

Video editing is not easy and it takes up too much time but I realized that I was enjoying the creative process of video editing. Oh my, I don't have a good eye with creating aesthetic stuff but I am a creative spirit and I'm not giving up on that. 

Every Sunday (my rest day), if I wake up with motivation, I usually fire up the laptop along with my coffee and whatever food there may be, and try to edit some clips until I get tired of doing it. I only intend to finish a project when I'm excited to show my friends what I was up to. I don't ususally beat myself to a pulp just to finish a video because doing so would put me in a loooooong demotivated state. I have two separate mantra-like when I feel motivated and demotivated:

Motivated: "Even if no one watches your videos, one day you'll look back and laugh at all the shenanigans of your life episodes captured on 'tape'"

Demotivated: "No one is waiting for your vlog (except for friends), so you can upload anytime so just do it at your own pace. What you enjoy doing don't have to look like it's work."

This is what I'll do:

• Take more videos. Try to talk on videos. hehe.

• Don't push too hard on days when being a couch potato is a better idea.

• Travel more.

4. DOING COVERS & ACTUALLY LET PEOPLE HEAR IT.

I really love singing even when singing sometimes doesn't love me. Ever since I was in highschool, I would do covers using a computer's recorder then I moved on to using a phone recorder then recording inside the bathroom for that reverb effect.

I started posting my covers on soundcloud for a long time until I tried uploading clips on instagram then on youtube. By the time I was able to acquire a condenser microphone, I stopped posting on soundcloud and did not post anything anywhere at all, then started to post on IGTV and then on youtube. I wanted to have a video cover but for a long time, I can only ever have the courage to post audio only videos on youtube and IGTV. Maybe this year I'll get to try that and overcome my fear of judgement. I mean, everybody's gonna do it anyway, since youtube is a big thing now, right?

What I would do to create more covers is to list down songs I can actually sing well, try filming myself while singing, and have the guts to let people see and hear me sing. Don't judge me, don't judge me :(

For the last half of last year up to the past days, I was able to make these:

(｡◕‿◕｡)➜    4 BLOG POSTS!!!!

╰( ･ ᗜ ･ )➝ 11 YOUTUBE VIDEOS!!!

    (*❛‿❛)→     2 AUDIO COVERS ON YT & 3 ON IGTV

<(￣︶￣)↗   JOURNAL IS DECENT. HAHA

- - -

Taking time to do what you love shouldn't be a matter of finding the right time. The right time can be found in between the crevices of a busy day. Read during breaks and before bed, watch movies/series before dinner and while on the way to work, edit videos or do covers during rest days and holidays or journal during mini breaks at work. That's how I usually do it. That's how I manage to do what I am passionate about even when my week is approximately composed of 72 hours at work and at most 56 hours asleep (I don't know where the other hours went, don't question my math!).

Overall, I think the only way to get through a year and look back with big progress is to be happy with slow steps. I didn't even kow that I can look back on so much because I didn't care about the quantity at that time, I just went and write and read and edit and all that stuff. I promised myself not to give myself deadlines as if it is a work that I would be submitting. It's for myself and not for others and when I thought about it that way, I felt no pressure, just contentment that I was able to create then I'm off to my next great venture.