A Professional Lola

“So what brings you to the peens?”
Before I even begin, I never imagined reading this book and finding Bigfoot in it, nevermind a book in which Bigfoot referred to the Philippines as the “peens.” That sure made me laugh at how absurd it was.
I am so grateful to have received this collection of short stories as my first ARC to review. As a Filipino, I love to see an author with the same ethnic background as me share stories that feel like home. Although there were some places mentioned that I have never visited, some caricatures of types of people I have never met, and some events that I never imagined to be possible or happen to me, the overall collection felt so nostalgic. The absurdities of some events, the humor and the descriptions felt so human, but in the mundane of humanity, there were also sprinklings of magic.
Some themes such as being LGBTIA+ in a very traditional Filipino culture, making sacrifices for the ones you love, grief, internalized racism, and familial love were explored throughout the collection and I truly enjoyed reading these themes through a lens that I find so familiar to the way I was raised. Tuazon’s exploration of some of these topics pushed me to reflect on my own life and how I have conformed or broke away from the traditional culture. Have my actions been to my detriment, or am I breaking boundaries that need to be broken? These are some questions I found myself asking.
Inherent to most short story collections, there are stories that will resonate to some, and others that will fall a bit flat. Because of this, I’m rating this a 4 stars, however I think that is just something that I find with most, if not all short story collections. My favorite short stories were “Carabao," “Far From Home,” “Tiny Dancer,” and of course, the titular story, “Professional Lola.” Throughout all of the stories, the beautiful prose and descriptions provided by Tuazon were evident and enjoyable, even if some of the plots did not land for me.
Overall, I truly recommend this short story collection, especially if you are looking to read more stories with Filipino representation.

I absolutely love Filipino representation in literature. Filipino culture, traditions, superstitions, mannerisms, humor and love is so different from any other cultural group. In some way, you can categorize these stories as magical realism, but if you know Filipinos, you know that magic is part of their reality. We believe in the magical, otherworldly and supernatural and it is part of our everyday lives. These stories really manage to highlight that with a great sense of humor and a lot of heart.
At the same time, these stories live in between the Filipino and the American culture somewhere, it has the foreigners eye on the curiosities and explains it with the knowledge of the natives which makes them suitable and accessible to anyone.
The stories stay so lighthearted and tender even through heavy topics. Like in the last story “Carabao”, where a young child is trying to understand his grandfather's transitioning to a woman. And then the parallels that are drawn between his understanding of this and the Discovery rocket launch.The journey that needs to be made before it can land, just like the journey the relationship needs to take before there can be acceptance. It’s absolutely beautiful and it’s so well done.
Several stories pick up parallels like that so you get to see things from different angles and the message really comes across, but leaves us open ended still and doesn’t force anything on us. I loved spending time with professional lola, and I savored every last bite, every story.

Wow. This book was so nostalgic for me and kept me entertained the whole time. I am a Filipino myself and everything that was written in these short stories are so accurate. From the salt, lemon and vinegar to clean your chicken or any meat, Filipino witches and mythological creatures, lapu-lapu, blue crab, bilo-bilo it made me miss home so much whereas some parts made me emotional. And the love Filipinos have for each other and the connection we make for one another. THIS BOOK WAS EVERYTHING. I would definitely buy this for friends and family.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC. This took me a few hours to read!

I wasn't entirely sure what I was getting myself into when I started this book, but once I started reading I couldn't stop. As a Filipina-American with a love for magical realism, these short stories were very much aligned with my interests, and it was so refreshing to see myself represented in a simultaneously contemporary and surreal setting.

Beyond the fact of representation, I really liked the topics covered in the short stories, as well. There is a beautiful exploration of grief, family, and navigating queerness in the titular Professional Lola tale; working through the complicated nature of half-sibling relationships in After Bigfoot, and understanding a loved one's transition in Carabao. My personal favorite was probably Handog, which was centered on the strained relationship between a father and son & the ways they're able to connect (& not.)

The only thing that I didn't enjoy about some of the stories was the way some of them felt like they came to a bit more of an abrupt ending while reading them. However, I think that's more a fault of my constant desire to get more out of a short story than is in the nature of the genre, rather than a fault of this particular book itself. Reflecting on these stories a couple days after reading them (as well as revisiting them again after the first pass) allows them to settle much more satisfactorily to my mind.

Overall, I definitely recommend this for folks who are a fan of magical realism & even more so to those who are looking to read some emotional/exploratory stories, largely about family, that are deeply rooted in the Filipino-American experience. It was so delightful to see my own family/relationships reflected in these texts & I'm very grateful to E.P. Tuazon for sharing these with the world!

Absolutely loved this book. I didn't know I needed to read something like this, but I'm so glad I did. Would definitely recommend this to people!

A beautiful collection. Many of these stories spoke to me, as a person of the Filipinx diaspora. We need books like this. We all deserve books like this. I'm a big fan!