Nbs recommends top literary picks

LOVE MAY FAIL

By Matthew Quick

P699

MANILA, Philippines - Portia Kane is having a meltdown. After escaping her ritzy Florida life and her cheating pornographer husband, she finds herself transported back to South Jersey, where things remain largely unchanged from her unhappy childhood. In need of saving herself, she sets out to find and resurrect a beloved high school English teacher who has retired after a horrific scandal. This is a story of the great highs and lows of existence: the heartache and daring choices it takes to become the person you know (deep down) you are meant to be.

THE UNCOUPLING

By Meg Wolitzer

P555

When the elliptical new drama teacher at Stellar Plains High School chooses Lysistrata as the school play-the comedy by Aristophanes in which women stop having sex with men in order to end a war-a strange spell seems to be cast over the school. Or, at least, over the women. One by one throughout the high school community, perfectly healthy, normal women and teenage girls turn away from their husbands and boyfriends in the bedroom, for reasons they don’t really understand. As the women worry over their loss of passion and the men become by turns unhappy, offended, and above all, confused, both sides are forced to look at their shared history, and at their sexual selves in a new light.

LOOKING BACK 9: DEMONYO TABLES

By Ambeth R. Ocampo

P120

Finding a devil in a table carving means going beyond textbooks to look at objects. Eash Artifact, no matter how seemingly insignificant as a low denomination coin, has a story to tell. All it takes is a curious historian who will coax the history from the object.

THE MANGO BRIDE: FILIPINO EDITION

By Marivi Soliven

P299

Banished by her wealthy Filipino family in Manila, Amparo Guerrero travels to Oakland, California, to forge a new life. Like Amparo, Beverly Obejas — an impoverished Filipina waitress — forsakes Manila and comes to Oakland as a mail-order bride in search of a better life. As Amparo works to build the immigrant’s dream, she becomes entangled in the chaos of Beverly’s immigrant nightmare. Their unexpected collision forces them both to make terrible choices and confront a life-changing secret, but through it all they hold fast to family, in all its enduring and surprising transformations.

THE GOODBYE GIRL:

MGA IBA’T IBANG KWENTO NG KASENTIHAN

By Noreen Capili

P185

The Goodbye Girl is a compilation of short, witty, and heartwarming essays about heartache, heartbreak, and moving on. Noringai introduces readers to the five types of “goodbye girl”: the invisible girl, the other girl, the heartbroken girl, the bitter girl, and finally, the new girl. It is her hope that readers can “find comfort, hope, and even humor in every story,” and make them realize that what they are feeling “may be universal, but it’s just temporary.”