Gihigugma, Ace of Hearts

 

Rating: 3 - meet cute, innocent, Filipinos in diaspora

My Thoughts: 

The publishers call this a Crazy Rich Asians meets Bend it Like Beckham. I don't agree. This is not about the uber rich Asians, and although Jomar is a tennis player in London, this is really about that awkward love. He is a good boy, a little clueless, a little lost. He comes from the Philippines straight to London without even securing a place to stay so always has that small fish in a big pond aspect about him. He is trying to keep his scholarship to go to college and play tennis, but he also seems to be the kind of lost puppy that people want to take under their wing, whether it is his new doubles partner, the James Bond nerd from the airport, or the security guard that coaches him until he gets fired for letting him into the stadium at night to practice. Others naturally gravitate towards him because he wears his heart on his sleeve and his says gushy things like "you are my home." 

Mitch, half-white, half Filipina, is an American who is a little more awkward than she should be considering her father lives in London and her mother in America. She should be more sophisticated as someone who constantly travels between families, but she is not. I could not quite figure her out. When it reveals what she is hiding, it is not enough for her to treat Jomar the way she does. As an American college student in London, I felt like she lost some of her American-ness in the middle of the book. 

Despite the minor issue I had with Mitch, I think this is a cute read. I read it from my phone in one sitting so that is a good sign that this is a read worthy, swoon worthy book for YA. Their relationship is very chaste and innocent, so this is good for younger YA too. The only other issue that I have is the cover. I am not sure why it looks like he is shirtless as this is not that kind of book. I would have had her kissing her hand as that happens  a lot. AND, put a shirt on. 

From the Publisher:

When Jomar's tennis ambitions crash into Mitchelle's wounded heart during one charmingly disastrous karaoke night, they'll discover that the biggest matches aren't played on courts—but in learning to love despite the ghosts of the past.

Jomar Montalbano thinks he's ready for anything. A rising tennis star from the Philippines, he lands in London with one suitcase, one college scholarship, and zero idea how to survive without rice. He's counting on a few wins—but definitely not falling for Mitchelle Tanner.

She's the quiet girl with a vintage camera, a craving for halo-halo, and a smile that hides as much as it shows. Half-American, half-Filipina, and fully impossible to read.

He's used to power and control—but around her, he's completely unstrung.

From vulnerable confessions in a darkroom's glow to rallies that feel like Wimbledon wins, Jomar discovers that love—like tennis—is all about timing, risk, and knowing when to fight for the point.

Set in London's rainy alleys and sunlit parks, woven with island warmth and humor, Gihigugma, Ace of Hearts is an adventure about home, heart, and the courage to choose love against all odds.

Love at eighteen isn't always a mistake. Sometimes, it's a miracle.

Publication Information:

Author: Melanie King-Smith

Publisher: MiLFY Books (September 30, 2025)

Print length: 234 pages

Reading age: 13-18

Everything We Never Had

 Stars: 5 like his other YA book Patron Saints of Nothing, this one should be in the classrooms. 

My Thoughts:

Like Patron Saints, Ribay gives us another deeply complex look at family, toxic masculinity, and the Filipino iexperience in America through the Maghabol males. 

With multiple narrators, we see the four Maghabol males as young men and as fathers and grandfathers in each other's stories. As narrators to their own stories, they don't understand the motives and intention of their fathers, however, this was a satisfyingly sorrowful read for me. I found myself waking up to read more because I wanted Enzo to talk to his lolo Emil and share things that Enzo's dad Chris never knew/understood, or even wanted to hear. I wanted Francisco to find some kind of happiness and success that I knew must have happened through Emil's story, but we don't see the in between times. We just know from the other stories. I love that strategy. As a reader, it helps me to stay fully engaged, which is why there is so much to do with this book in the English classroom. 

From the Publisher: 

Watsonville, 1930. Francisco Maghabol barely ekes out a living in the fields of California. As he spends what little money he earns at dance halls and faces increasing violence from white men in town, Francisco wonders if he should’ve never left the Philippines.

Stockton, 1965. Between school days full of prejudice from white students and teachers and night shifts working at his aunt’s restaurant, Emil refuses to follow in the footsteps of his labor organizer father, Francisco. He’s going to make it in this country no matter what or who he has to leave behind.

Denver, 1983. Chris is determined to prove that his overbearing father, Emil, can’t control him. However, when a missed assignment on “ancestral history” sends Chris off the football team and into the library, he discovers a desire to know more about Filipino history―even if his father dismisses his interest as unamerican and unimportant.

Philadelphia, 2020. Enzo struggles to keep his anxiety in check as a global pandemic breaks out and his abrasive grandfather moves in. While tensions are high between his dad and his lolo, Enzo’s daily walks with Lolo Emil have him wondering if maybe he can help bridge their decades-long rift.

Told in multiple perspectives, Everything We Never Had unfolds like a beautifully crafted nesting doll, where each Maghabol boy forges his own path amid heavy family and societal expectations, passing down his flaws, values, and virtues to the next generation, until it’s up to Enzo to see how he can braid all these strands and men together.

Publication Information:

Author: Randy Ribay

Publisher: Kokila (August 27, 2024)

Hardcover: 288 pages

ISBN-13: 978-0593461419

Grade level: 7-9

Patron Saints of Nothing

 

My Thoughts:

When this book showed up on NetGalley, it was just an excerpt, but this title kept calling me, whether I was at NCTE, an ALAN workshop or even the #disrupttext site so I grabbed the excerpt thinking that a little tease would be better than not reading it at all.

Sometimes for reasons I cannot fathom, my best decisions happen as chance or leaps of faith. This is one of those. As I head to the bookstore to pick up this book, I just needed to write down my thoughts first because this book needs to be talked about here in Hawaiʻi and I have not heard local librarians and teachers talking about this yet, despite the fact that 40% of our public school students identify as Filipino or part Filipono.  I just attended the Hawaii children's literature conference this month and as middle grade and high school teachers and librarians in Hawaiʻi we just have to do a better job of keeping up with what is being published and start getting more BIPOC, AAPI, Oceania authors in the hands of our local students.

Start with this one.  Use this as a  novel to replace some of the canonical pieces you have in the closet collecting dust. Use the #disrupttext guide for this book to get other ideas for your classroom. Use this book to start uncomfortable but necessary conversations around equity, family, kuleana. Read this. Use this. Pass it on. 

Besides being a great story, Randy Ribay's writing is so rich I found myself rereading certain images. One of my favorites is when the main character, Jay starts delving into the death of his cousin. His research just gets him so disturbed, but he is even more irritated when his white friend, Seth, seems to know more about what is going on in the Philippines than Jay who is half Filipino. 

"Man," he [Seth] says, shaking his head, "I forgot you're Filipino.". . ."You're basically white."

I stop, stung. "What do you mean by that?". . .

Seth: "I don't see color, man," he says. "We're all one race: the human race. That's all I meant."

"No it's not," I say. And even if it is, that's kind of f*#%ed up. First, to assume white is default. Second, to imply that difference equals bad instead of simply different.

I would love to pull an excerpt like this and start a p4c (philosophy for children) discussion where students come up with their own vanilla questions around this excerpt, vote on the question they want to talk about and have that student lead/start off the discussion.

I want to end my thoughts by going back to the book, as I do not want to just leave that excerpt without any kind of end. Basically Jay cannot let it go. He wants to know why Seth thinks he is white. Seth says to promise not to get offended and continues.

"You talk like everyone else. You dress like everyone else. And you, like, do the same stuff as everyone else.". . .

"What would you expect me to do?" I ask. "Walk around draped in the Philippine flag?" Jay then stomps off home as he realizes that Seth doesn't and can't understand why Jay is so upset.

It's a sad thing when you map the borders of a friendship and find it's a narrower country than you expected.

From the Publisher:

Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story.

Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth -- and the part he played in it.

As gripping as it is lyrical, Patron Saints of Nothing is a page-turning portrayal of the struggle to reconcile faith, family, and immigrant identity.