“All right,” she said. “And you can call me Naya.”“I’m Ben. And if my presence makes you uncomfortable, you don’t need to call me anything. I will be quiet as a mouse.”“I don’t like mice.”“I will be as quiet as your favorite quiet thing.”
It was supposed to be a good day for Naya. Her passion is traveling, her hobby is discovering cool things to see and do, and taking people on tours of Metro Manila is her only job right now. An extra person at the last minute isn't ideal, especially if the person is a former colleague and the subject of the day's hottest political trash fire. But work is work, and she decides to let him stay in the tour.
She's hoping she won't regret it. He's hoping his day turns around. What kind of day could it be? Maybe the best kind.
This was the most beautiful exploration of Manila. I felt like Mina V. Esguerra let me in in a love letter that she had made for the city. The wonderful love story made it even more exciting and I left the book wanting more from this couple and this tour. I adored reading about older characters who have nothing figured out and who felt incredibly relatable to me. I really appreciate how amazingly written they were. They felt realistic, fully-fledged and level headed. It had a maturity I don't see in a lot of books and I thought the discussions that they had were handled with a lot of care for the topic. I don't have the same interests as these characters but I could feel the love and passion that they had for what they liked. I also felt the attraction that they had and their dynamics were really well constructed. The characterization was amazing and I was constantly rooting for their happiness.
The entire thing, from the start, felt so realistic. It didn't sell something that wouldn't happen in real life. Their personalities were so different but at the same time they fit together very well. Naya was strong and interesting and Ben was a sweetheart who had a lot of questions and almost no answers but who did the best he could to achieve what he wanted. The thing that I loved the most about this book was how optimistic it felt. I loved the message. How there are good days and bad days but you have the capacity to make good days happen. It talked about the balance of those things and also the balance of doing something you love and doing something that gets you paid, it's also about the balance between them, who were at different stages in their lives but who were still looking for the thing that would make them truly happy. It was so adorable and cute!
Even though it started very slow for me and I had some problems with the pacing, in general this book made me incredibly happy in their own search for their happiness, which is something that a lot of us can relate to. Make good days by reading this book right now!!
