impractical uses of cake

I am piping in on a Monday evening to say that Yeoh Jo-Ann’s Impractical Uses of Cake is such a good read. Kinikilig ako nakakairita, but I wouldn’t necessarily shelve this book under capital-R romance because doing so would be an act of grave misclassification, like throwing a teaspoon into a pile of serving forks or displaying a Paramore vinyl under a flickering sign that says Heavy Metal.

Or, you know — claiming that the Marcoses and their ilk are “public servants.” Yuck. Yuckity yuckity yuck.

(I am of course aware that “yuck” doesn’t quite capture the shitshow that was the Philippine quote elections unquote, but I have also accepted that daring to find the right words to process what happened necessitates a heavy dose of optimism and a stable headspace, neither of which I possess at the moment or probably ever. So yuck it is.)

The book isn’t yuck though. Quite the opposite. Impractical Uses of Cake goes beyond interrogating the eternal aches of being a middle-class 30-something in a highly urbanized city. Cake — can I call it Cake? close kami? — also traces the intersections between homelessness and mental illness and the visible social disparities that are so often ignored in industrialized countries — heck, even in non-industrialized countries.

(Also, I think I have a crush on the protagonist Sukhin, only because he cooks and he bakes, and the jowa of my dreams is someone who can feed me on demand, char not char.)

Anyway, s’time to sleep. I just wanted to log something quick tonight to remind myself that I am still capable of enjoying things that are not related to work. Like books, man. Books and cake. And beer. Books and cake and beer.

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Featured photo from Pexels. Book cover from The Website That Shall Not Be Named.