Status Updates From Smaller and Smaller Circles

Going through this reread a bit quicker than I'd like to since I need to read it for class D:

Did we really just meet the killer already... I wish I read the novella instead of the expanded edition, this one feels too uneven and I don't appreciate the achievement-dropping manner of describing characters -- that she studied in some fancy school tells us nothing of what she's like and what she's here for.

Philippine literature in English is a tricky thing. Sometimes I find the references a bit jarring, like it's the wrong language or the wrong reference. Sometimes I feel there is more telling than showing in this prose. I can't lose myself in it completely because the writing sticks out. But I'm seeing it through.

I'm embarrassed that I've only encountered this book now, when it's been around for a long while. I guess my idea of Philippine lit is less contemporary than I thought -- it's slightly jarring to read a Western-style novel set in the country. I'm not used to this painfully accurate familiarity with context and setting.