Happy Wednesday, everyone! Wednesdays also mean WWW Wednesday updates. WWW Wednesday is a bookish meme hosted originally by SAM@TAKING ON A WORLD OF WORDS. 

The mechanics for WWW Wednesday are quite simple: you just have to answer three questions:

  1. What are you currently reading?
  2. What have you finished reading?
  3. What will you read next?
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What are you currently reading?

It is already the middle of the week. How has your week been? I hope it’s going well and going in your desired direction. Today is also the first Wednesday of June. Woah. Time flies! We are slowly inching toward the middle of the year. Speaking of, how has the year been so far? I hope it’s going well for everybody. I hope it is going your way, and that you are being showered with blessings and good news. I hope the rest of the year will be prosperous, brimming with wealth, but more importantly, good health. I hope everyone is making progress on their goals and is on the way to achieving them. If it is going otherwise, I hope you will experience a reversal of fortune in the following months. More importantly, I hope everyone is doing well, in body, mind, and spirit. Reading goal update. I am already halfway through my goal of reading 100 books. I am way ahead of my target. I hope I can keep the momentum.

Currently, I am reading Ocean Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness, the Vietnamese-American poet’s sophomore novel. It was in 2019 that I first came across Vuong, when I included his debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, on my 2019 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List. The book, lyrical and somber, won me over. It made me look forward to Vuong’s fiction and nearly six years later, my prayer has been answered. The announcement of The Emperor of Gladness filled me with anticipation and thankfully, I was able to acquire a copy of the book. Like in his debut novel, Hai, the novel’s protagonist, traces his provenance to Vietnam. In a way, Hai mirrors Little Dog in several aspects. They both had shaky relationships with their mothers; they had stronger bonds with their grandmothers. I guess these details do not surprise me.

Anyway, Hai’s story is set in the town of East Gladness in Connecticut. The year was 2009. We first meet Hai standing on a bridge. He was on the brink of taking his own life. His reverie was broken by a shout from an elderly woman living near the bridge. Grazina Vitkus – we soon learn her name – managed to save Hai at the very last minute; Grazina even invited Hai into her home. We then learn that she is a widow suffering from dementia. She is also a Lithuanian refugee who fled her home country during the height of the war. Grazina misinterprets Hai’s name as “Hello,” which translates to “Labas” in her native tongue. Grazina was also under state care but her latest caretaker has not returned. This prompted her to ask Hai to be her caretaker; looking for a new one takes time. What expect will ensue is a story about found and dysfunctional families. I am looking forward to how Vuong will regal me in his latest novel. I just realized. The book is aligned with this month’s theme. June is Pride Month. To the members of the LGBTQ+ community, Happy Pride Month!

What have you finished reading?

While I have been making headways into my overall reading goal, I can’t say the same for some of my reading challenges. I have been lagging behind in most of them. Take the case of my 2025 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List. I guess this is expected because, historically, it has been a struggle to acquire copies of recently released books here in the Philippines, more so if the writer is not as popular here. It took me a trip to Singapore to acquire some of the books in the said list, including Santanu Bhattacharya’s Deviants. Before this year, I have not encountered the Indian-born writer. It was while researching for books to include on my own most anticipated 2025 releases list that I came across him and his sophomore novel. As Bhattacharya is Indian, it was just logical to include his latest novel in my ongoing foray into Asian literature; the three books in this update are the reasons why I extended my Asian literature venture.

I guess it was a no-brainer that the novel’s cover and title first appealed to me. This is the reason for the book’s inclusion in my 2025 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To list; it is the first book from the list I read. From the cover alone, one can surmise what the story is about. However, it does not fully prepare you for the tenderness and even somberness wrapped around the story. Basically, Deviants is the story of three generations of homosexual men in India. In the present, we meet seventeen-year-old Vivaan living in India’s Silicon Plateau. Through his smartphone, he experiences love for the first time. Although Vivaan was discreet, his parents knew he was gay. Nevertheless, they were supportive of him. Vivaan’s world unraveled when he met Zed through a dating app; this is a touchstone to modernity. It would also be Zed who will introduce Vivaan to a different world.

Indeed, the world Vivaan grew up in has changed drastically. A once stringently macho society has become more accepting of homosexuality. The same cannot be said of the era in which Vivaan’s uncle Mambro grew up. It was Mambro who prompted his nephew to record his thoughts – Vivaan’s story came in the form of notes – because he saw himself in his nephew. In the 1990s, Mambro was also navigating gay life in India. He recognized the challenges posed by society, hence, his desire to help his nephew navigate the same world. Vivaan’s great-uncle (or grand-mamu), Sukumar, was studying commerce in Kolkata. While the world Mambro grew up was already hostile to homosexuality, Sukumar’s India was even more so. The year is 1977. Because of section 377 of the penal code – it hovers above the story – he was barred from fully expressing himself. He found expression through sculpting. Through three different but equally interesting characters, Bhattacharya provides insights into the life and struggles of gay men in modern India. Deviants is also a story about finding love and acceptance in a world that abhors it.

From India to Malaysia. From one work of queer fiction to another. It was without design that I had two works of LGBTQ+ literature on my 2025 Top 10 Books I Look Forward To List. I just wanted to read Tash Aw’s The South because it is written by a Malaysian writer; it is part of my concerted effort to extend my venture into Southeast Asian literature. Sadly, like most of the region, my foray into Malaysian literature is not as extensive as I would want it to be. When I came across The South while researching for books to include in my most anticipated 2025 book releases, the book immediately piqued my interest. Without ado, I added it to my own list, making it the second book from the list I read. It is also just the third new book I read this year.

The first book in what the Malaysian writer plans to be a quartet, The South introduces the Lim family. The patriarch, Jack Lim is a professor who married Sui Ching, one of his students, fifteen years his junior. As the saying goes, the fruit does not fall far from the tree. Jack’s parents had the same age gap. Living in the capital, Jack and Sui Ching had three adolescent children: Lina, Yin, and Jay. The crux of the story was when Sui Ching inherited the Lim ancestral home from her father-in-law; while Sui Ching had a lukewarm relationship with her in-laws, she did manage to connect with her father-in-law. With her inheritance, the family travels one summer to Johor Bahru to assess the farm being run by Fong, Jack’s illegitimate half-brother; it was in a state of disrepair. A persistent drought had ruined harvests, driving them into debt. Amenities were scarce, and even the nearest town had been devastated by the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

The rigors of rural life posed a challenge to the family. The same, however, cannot be said for Jay who was about to turn seventeen. Asked by his father to help the laborers, Jay relished the change in pace and the atmosphere. He also found interest in helping the laborers. However, one person piqued his interest: Chuan, Fong’s dashing nineteen-year-old son. As a reader, this attraction is expected—the novel opens with Jay and Chuan having sex for the first time in the orchard. Their blossoming relationship becomes the novel’s emotional core. The build-up of palpable sexual tension forms the backbone of the narrative, while the historical backdrop of the late 1990s adds depth and nuance. The changes sweeping Malaysia in the 1990s serve as background to Jay and Chuan’s love affair. Unmitigated development is the elephant in the room as Malaysian rainforests – considered the oldest in the world – are being transformed in the guise of development. The world does not bat an eye because it is not the Amazon, as one character noted. Further, the other family members also had their moments of introspection. Overall, The South is a compelling read which makes me look forward to the succeeding books in the quartet.

What will you read next?