Isamlq's Reviews > There Will Come a Time

There Will Come A Time…

OK... I am not quite sure why I get excited whenever I come across a protagonist whose upbringing (could/might) run parallel to mine, but I always do. (Perhaps it’s because rare is the moment when I come across a Filipino-anything in YA?) My excitement was only furthered by another parallel: he’s a fraternal twin! Because really, dude, was this book written for me?

Then reality/reason seeped through (or more likely, his story became clearer to me): outside those two things: this book wasn’t all I was hoping it was going to be. The Pinoy flavor that could have been has been much diluted. I mean, sure there are nods to Pinoy stuff mostly in talk of food and lingo and kin yet, in the effect, we have little nods and little else. And if I were honest: the same is really a non-issue here.

While I’d have loved it more if things veered toward him and a connection to who his parents are as well as they’re experience and how all that affects the first, well, that’s not what this story is about. Instead the point here is how he is in fact exactly like any other kid. And who he, as “brother” (not simply “Filipino” brother,) deals with what he’s been dealt with… and that’s OK too because there’s accuracy in that portrayal: that grief isn’t geographic, that loss and attachment aren’t just because of where your parents come form or how you’re brought up. It’s simpler than that: because bottom line there is connection and attachment as well as reaction to loss of the same.

Making things even more “universal” is him and his want-don’t want thing going on with him and the other girl who’s has always been there. It’s not as easy as first presented… the connection between them. If the first aspect of the story is heartbreaking, you’d think some of what soothes would be served up here. It’s not. Nothing in fact in this is easy for him: seeing her in a different light given the shifts in their position in relation to each other is not heartbreaking but runs more along the twin lines of confusing and frustrating.

Overall, this was OK.
Thank you, Edelweiss!