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Engkantasia #3
The Search for Adarna
Anna Waldorf-Ocampo wants to get away from the ever-present scrutiny that comes with her famous name. She will do anything to avoid dealing with her ruthless older half sister, Elizabeth, although she gets along with her belittled other half sister, Olivia. Tragedy strikes when their father is felled by a mysterious illness that has no cure. The family’s only hope lies in a bird called the Adarna, a mythical creature that can only be found in the Philippine jungle. The three sisters are each tasked to search for the elusive creature. Whoever retrieves it first will inherit their father’s billion-dollar empire, but they must hurry, or they will lose their father forever.
Paperback
Published September 1, 2019
3 people are currently reading
85 people want to read
About the author
Kristyn M. Levis
5 books46 followersDr Kristyn Maslog-Levis is an academic, communications officer and author with previous journalism experience.
She finished her masters degree in communication at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore under the ASEAN scholarship.
Kristyn completed her Doctor of Philosophy candidature with University of Technology Sydney for Creative Writing under the Australian Research Training Program, focusing on cultural diversity in middle-grade literature in Australia.
She finished her masters degree in communication at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore under the ASEAN scholarship.
Kristyn completed her Doctor of Philosophy candidature with University of Technology Sydney for Creative Writing under the Australian Research Training Program, focusing on cultural diversity in middle-grade literature in Australia.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 4, 2023
Some people isn't really a fan of what this book came out to be. There were those who said it isn't Filipino-focused enough, or something like the characters were such cliche or it was vastly different from the whole original folktale. To be honest though, the original tale of Ibong Adarna was a cluttered mash of incoherent events. This book managed to retell only the best parts of it (the first 1/3 of the original story), which was a smart move by K. M. Levis.
What I adore about this book are the flow of character interactions (especially with the 3 main characters), the nuances of their approach on everyday things, and the theme focusing on a dysfunctional family. In my opinion, it was decently paced, and I do enjoy their arcs and developments. I admit, many of the characters in this story are of overused tropes in fiction, and if read for the first time without much context on the original tale prior on doing so...the story would felt 'generic'. It was the novelty from the retelling of the original source material that I craved for. And for this book, it really delivered that fleeting euphoria.
I do understand the points of view on its criticisms, and I even agree to some. But these bits of imperfections were not enough to dethroned this book as my go-to casual & fun read. I would rate it an 8/10.
What I adore about this book are the flow of character interactions (especially with the 3 main characters), the nuances of their approach on everyday things, and the theme focusing on a dysfunctional family. In my opinion, it was decently paced, and I do enjoy their arcs and developments. I admit, many of the characters in this story are of overused tropes in fiction, and if read for the first time without much context on the original tale prior on doing so...the story would felt 'generic'. It was the novelty from the retelling of the original source material that I craved for. And for this book, it really delivered that fleeting euphoria.
I do understand the points of view on its criticisms, and I even agree to some. But these bits of imperfections were not enough to dethroned this book as my go-to casual & fun read. I would rate it an 8/10.
August 14, 2022
i definitely enjoyed reading this but i didn’t really connect w any of the characters and the ending was kind of disappointing. loved the concept though
November 19, 2025
The Ibong Adarna is a story known to almost every Filipino household. I grew up hearing the tale from my grandfather during those humid afternoons, before siesta (afternoon nap) time. It is also a required reading for seventh graders or first year high school so it is safe to say that the story is part of the Filipino culture.
I bought the Search for Adarna from the recent 2025 MIBF. The concept of retelling the Adarna tale has been on my mind lately, and when I saw the book, it piqued my interest. I was excited to see how K.M. Levis retells an essential Filipino tale in the modern sense. The book's premise seemed interesting enough: three sisters struggle to find the mythic Adarna to inherit their billionaire father's empire. This, coupled with the insight of how Adarna tale is culturally Filipino, led me to expect that the book will tackle the modern Filipino culture in its complexities, using the Adarna's tale as some sort of metaphor or allegory. Even the foreign sounding name of the main character promises intrigue as I thought it was a clever way to acknowledge the colonization in our country, and how Filipinos often adhere to white-washed standards and beliefs due to this.
But despite the potential, the book fell short of this. And I just couldn't help but be extremely disappointed at what it could have been.
The Writing Style
There is no doubt that K.M. Levis is capable of writing. But I don't think her writing style is interesting for readers. It's just very... "expository" to say the least.
The author provide no room for imagination, often dictating to the readers what the characters feel instead of letting them figure it out themselves. With the way she writes, you'd think she had never encountered the most cliché writing advice— "show don't tell."
A good writer distinguishes his or herself by knowing how to use subtext to color imagination and let readers read between the lines. This is simply not the case with The Search for Adarna. Levis always tell you how her characters feel— Olivia is sad, Anna is happy, Elizabeth is furious.
In times that she does describe the characters' expression, she uses the most cliché and overused lines in literary history (don't ask me how many times she used "tears streaming down her cheeks" phrase).
There is also little to no variety of sentences, rendering her prose tedious. And even the most obvious little details, she feels the need to write about again and again and again, making the prose redundant and borderline unbearable.
The Characters
The characters are no different from the prose itself in the manner of being expository. They are so bland, having little to no personality. Their diction are the same. They all speak the same way. And whatever distinct characteristic they have is so badly comical that they risk being a caricature of the trope they're trying to portray: the evil half sister, the evil wife, the good wife, the boy best friend. If you remove the dialogue tag, you won't know who is speaking to who because they all speak the same. A skyflakes cracker has more personality than these cardbord cutouts.
Their lead characters motives and intention are so ridiculous or inconsistent with the persona the author presented to us that I end up not buying them.
For example, do you really want me to believe that a billionaire, who has an entire resources and accumulated vast research information to capture the Adarna will risk his daughters' safety (whom he claims to love more than anything in the world) for the sake of fixing their relationship? You're telling me that this man, who runs a multi-billion empire, don't know any other way of resolving a family conflict without endangering his daughters. And who in their right mind would let their daughters go on a perilous journey, knowing that they know little to nothing about it? Shut the fuck up.
Also, some characters were not fleshed out properly for their motives and actions to make sense.
Simon (Opa) is an example of this. He is a villain that came out of nowhere because throughout the story, he was constantly ignored. Hell, we focus more on Asher than we do on him even though the latter is less consequential to the subsequent events. The author just used him to have a plot twist and subvert expectations without really building up his motives and fleshing out his characters for his action to make sense. He was just a cheap twist that doesn't elevate the plot or contribute to the themes at all.
I am also annoyed at how much the story focused on Anna and Asher's relationship when the author could've used the opportunity to focus more on the familial dysfunction and deepen each of the sister for their latter actions to make sense. Instead, this "fleshing out" of the sisters were shoehorned later in the story through heaps of flashbacks (which bore me to the bones). Asher was inconsequential to the story— he doesn't contribute anything to the theme. The actions he had committed could have been done by Anna's mother. The story could (and should) have gone on without him.
Little Miss Perfect Protagonist
Anna is a Mary Sue. There, I said it. She's the prettiest, the kindest, and the smartest among three sisters. Also, the most boring.
Anna has no flaws. What the author wants us to believe is her flaw is nothing but a reaction to what has been done to her.
Her flaw is something the author did not expect or even believe to be a flaw at all: Anna is a hypocrite. We are supposed to believe she is kind and humble and doesn't want the popularity and power that come with her name yet she use it constantly for her own gain. For instance, we are supposed to believe she's nice to the maids because she gives them her second hand computer or dresses. Really? Second hand computer and dresses when you could easily drop thousands of dollars to avenge yourself from petty misdeeds and high schooler fights? What an ass.
Also, if you think about it, Anna didn't work hard to get the Adarna, except when she was on the mission itself. There were no stakes for her. She didn't have to research hard or outsmart people to get information. All she had to do was get the low-hanging fruit— ask her fucking Uncle Rob which takes little effort. She lets Tamarah do her dirty work for her, nor even possessing the computer intelligence that the latter has. This was a missed opportunity to develop her character and make the readers see that even though she's flawed, there is more to her. What endears a character to the reader most often is the series of sacrifices and choices they make. Anna doesn't make any sacrifice at all in searching the Adarna. By this, I meant that Anna will lose nothing over the choices she made. For example, her missing school to search for Adarna was presented to be a problem. Yet, instead of showing us Anna's dislike for money and her love for her father by letting her choose to miss school, she just said that she will bribe their principal and teacher despite her "not liking to do things like that." What does that tell me about her character? That she's a hypocritical brat who likes to think she's kind and above all the dirty money stuff but will do it in a blink of an eye anyway because she wants to. At least Elizabeth is more open of her love with money. I respect her honesty more.
The Lack of Filipino Culture
Because the Adarna's tale was central to the story, surely the book will make use of the rich Filipino culture, right? Right?!
Wrong. Everything has been white-washed.
Whatever Filipino culture is in this book is limited to the clichés and iconography— Manila's poverty, the jeep, Filipinos' hospitality and Miss Universe.
Yep, you read that right. Of all the interesting and complext things that are in Filipino culture, the author settled herself with the clichés.
This is the most disappointing of all.
The Philippine Culture is not integral to the story, but instead exploited and used as an accessory you can disregard.
Even the protagonist, a Filipino-American, who could have been a point to discuss the lingering effects of colonization or at least carry its though is fully Americanized and not Filipino in anyway. Anna does not speak Tagalog nor any of the rich Filipino languages. She does not grow up experiencing the culture that made Filipino who they are. Her being a Filipino is surface-level, limited only to her mother who has the blood.
Such a waste. You have Ibong Adarna, a rich Filipino tale that reflects our Filipino-Spanish heritage culture and yet you chose to reinforce the white-washed and colonized mentality in the story out of a rich material that could have provided you more.
Even the pop culture references mostly Americanized. If you change the place where the Adarna has been hiding, nothing would change. That's how disposable the Filipino culture is in this book. It doesn't even try to explain why the Adarna is in the Philippines when similar legends have been reported in different cultures. It didn't even acknowledge that the Adarna tale is, in fact, a corrido— a poem or a song that was prevalent during the Spanish colonization in the Philippines.
What a wasted potential.
Conclusion
Suffice to say, I did not like the book. I was also heartbroken, thinking what it could have been had the author deepened the story. It had a huge potential, something that could open discussions on Philippine culture and let Filipinos see the beauty of their own. Instead, it's just another story that tells us we are no better as maids, drivers, and workers of the rich white billionaire. The most we could achieve is be their Miss Universe wife or their halfie daughter who can treat our culture as an inconsequential accessory you can take off at the end of the day.
I bought the Search for Adarna from the recent 2025 MIBF. The concept of retelling the Adarna tale has been on my mind lately, and when I saw the book, it piqued my interest. I was excited to see how K.M. Levis retells an essential Filipino tale in the modern sense. The book's premise seemed interesting enough: three sisters struggle to find the mythic Adarna to inherit their billionaire father's empire. This, coupled with the insight of how Adarna tale is culturally Filipino, led me to expect that the book will tackle the modern Filipino culture in its complexities, using the Adarna's tale as some sort of metaphor or allegory. Even the foreign sounding name of the main character promises intrigue as I thought it was a clever way to acknowledge the colonization in our country, and how Filipinos often adhere to white-washed standards and beliefs due to this.
But despite the potential, the book fell short of this. And I just couldn't help but be extremely disappointed at what it could have been.
The Writing Style
There is no doubt that K.M. Levis is capable of writing. But I don't think her writing style is interesting for readers. It's just very... "expository" to say the least.
The author provide no room for imagination, often dictating to the readers what the characters feel instead of letting them figure it out themselves. With the way she writes, you'd think she had never encountered the most cliché writing advice— "show don't tell."
A good writer distinguishes his or herself by knowing how to use subtext to color imagination and let readers read between the lines. This is simply not the case with The Search for Adarna. Levis always tell you how her characters feel— Olivia is sad, Anna is happy, Elizabeth is furious.
In times that she does describe the characters' expression, she uses the most cliché and overused lines in literary history (don't ask me how many times she used "tears streaming down her cheeks" phrase).
There is also little to no variety of sentences, rendering her prose tedious. And even the most obvious little details, she feels the need to write about again and again and again, making the prose redundant and borderline unbearable.
The Characters
The characters are no different from the prose itself in the manner of being expository. They are so bland, having little to no personality. Their diction are the same. They all speak the same way. And whatever distinct characteristic they have is so badly comical that they risk being a caricature of the trope they're trying to portray: the evil half sister, the evil wife, the good wife, the boy best friend. If you remove the dialogue tag, you won't know who is speaking to who because they all speak the same. A skyflakes cracker has more personality than these cardbord cutouts.
Their lead characters motives and intention are so ridiculous or inconsistent with the persona the author presented to us that I end up not buying them.
For example, do you really want me to believe that a billionaire, who has an entire resources and accumulated vast research information to capture the Adarna will risk his daughters' safety (whom he claims to love more than anything in the world) for the sake of fixing their relationship? You're telling me that this man, who runs a multi-billion empire, don't know any other way of resolving a family conflict without endangering his daughters. And who in their right mind would let their daughters go on a perilous journey, knowing that they know little to nothing about it? Shut the fuck up.
Also, some characters were not fleshed out properly for their motives and actions to make sense.
Simon (Opa) is an example of this. He is a villain that came out of nowhere because throughout the story, he was constantly ignored. Hell, we focus more on Asher than we do on him even though the latter is less consequential to the subsequent events. The author just used him to have a plot twist and subvert expectations without really building up his motives and fleshing out his characters for his action to make sense. He was just a cheap twist that doesn't elevate the plot or contribute to the themes at all.
I am also annoyed at how much the story focused on Anna and Asher's relationship when the author could've used the opportunity to focus more on the familial dysfunction and deepen each of the sister for their latter actions to make sense. Instead, this "fleshing out" of the sisters were shoehorned later in the story through heaps of flashbacks (which bore me to the bones). Asher was inconsequential to the story— he doesn't contribute anything to the theme. The actions he had committed could have been done by Anna's mother. The story could (and should) have gone on without him.
Little Miss Perfect Protagonist
Anna is a Mary Sue. There, I said it. She's the prettiest, the kindest, and the smartest among three sisters. Also, the most boring.
Anna has no flaws. What the author wants us to believe is her flaw is nothing but a reaction to what has been done to her.
Her flaw is something the author did not expect or even believe to be a flaw at all: Anna is a hypocrite. We are supposed to believe she is kind and humble and doesn't want the popularity and power that come with her name yet she use it constantly for her own gain. For instance, we are supposed to believe she's nice to the maids because she gives them her second hand computer or dresses. Really? Second hand computer and dresses when you could easily drop thousands of dollars to avenge yourself from petty misdeeds and high schooler fights? What an ass.
Also, if you think about it, Anna didn't work hard to get the Adarna, except when she was on the mission itself. There were no stakes for her. She didn't have to research hard or outsmart people to get information. All she had to do was get the low-hanging fruit— ask her fucking Uncle Rob which takes little effort. She lets Tamarah do her dirty work for her, nor even possessing the computer intelligence that the latter has. This was a missed opportunity to develop her character and make the readers see that even though she's flawed, there is more to her. What endears a character to the reader most often is the series of sacrifices and choices they make. Anna doesn't make any sacrifice at all in searching the Adarna. By this, I meant that Anna will lose nothing over the choices she made. For example, her missing school to search for Adarna was presented to be a problem. Yet, instead of showing us Anna's dislike for money and her love for her father by letting her choose to miss school, she just said that she will bribe their principal and teacher despite her "not liking to do things like that." What does that tell me about her character? That she's a hypocritical brat who likes to think she's kind and above all the dirty money stuff but will do it in a blink of an eye anyway because she wants to. At least Elizabeth is more open of her love with money. I respect her honesty more.
The Lack of Filipino Culture
Because the Adarna's tale was central to the story, surely the book will make use of the rich Filipino culture, right? Right?!
Wrong. Everything has been white-washed.
Whatever Filipino culture is in this book is limited to the clichés and iconography— Manila's poverty, the jeep, Filipinos' hospitality and Miss Universe.
Yep, you read that right. Of all the interesting and complext things that are in Filipino culture, the author settled herself with the clichés.
This is the most disappointing of all.
The Philippine Culture is not integral to the story, but instead exploited and used as an accessory you can disregard.
Even the protagonist, a Filipino-American, who could have been a point to discuss the lingering effects of colonization or at least carry its though is fully Americanized and not Filipino in anyway. Anna does not speak Tagalog nor any of the rich Filipino languages. She does not grow up experiencing the culture that made Filipino who they are. Her being a Filipino is surface-level, limited only to her mother who has the blood.
Such a waste. You have Ibong Adarna, a rich Filipino tale that reflects our Filipino-Spanish heritage culture and yet you chose to reinforce the white-washed and colonized mentality in the story out of a rich material that could have provided you more.
Even the pop culture references mostly Americanized. If you change the place where the Adarna has been hiding, nothing would change. That's how disposable the Filipino culture is in this book. It doesn't even try to explain why the Adarna is in the Philippines when similar legends have been reported in different cultures. It didn't even acknowledge that the Adarna tale is, in fact, a corrido— a poem or a song that was prevalent during the Spanish colonization in the Philippines.
What a wasted potential.
Conclusion
Suffice to say, I did not like the book. I was also heartbroken, thinking what it could have been had the author deepened the story. It had a huge potential, something that could open discussions on Philippine culture and let Filipinos see the beauty of their own. Instead, it's just another story that tells us we are no better as maids, drivers, and workers of the rich white billionaire. The most we could achieve is be their Miss Universe wife or their halfie daughter who can treat our culture as an inconsequential accessory you can take off at the end of the day.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 2, 2021
The characters in the book, including the protagonist, are bland and unrelatable, and their arcs are overused. I hoped to meet friends and family of all colors, shapes, and sizes with lots of personality - not a bunch of rich white people. There are no cultural references in the book apart from the Adarna. Overall, this book lacks the Filipino essence and flavor I was so greatly looking forward to.
February 16, 2022
The idea of giving a popular Philippine folklore a modern day touch made me purchase this book. I enjoyed it, except for some unnecessary backstories and forced interaction between characters. Also, love the book's cover art.
January 29, 2026
Basically the modern day retelling of Ibong Adarna but the princes are girls and the characters are white (it felt very westernized which was a bit diasppointing).
It was a good, fun read… but I agree with the other reviews, I hope more of Philippines’ culture was shown. I would’ve loved if it’s shown more of the girls loving and learning other Filipino cultures which was more than the “traffic in Manila,” “Philippines’ nightlife (Elizabeth’s journey)” and “countryside’s beauty.”
Eithet way, this was fun and interesting!
Ending felt like the book would have a part two but I don’t think it has one though. Someone please let me know if it has.
It was a good, fun read… but I agree with the other reviews, I hope more of Philippines’ culture was shown. I would’ve loved if it’s shown more of the girls loving and learning other Filipino cultures which was more than the “traffic in Manila,” “Philippines’ nightlife (Elizabeth’s journey)” and “countryside’s beauty.”
Eithet way, this was fun and interesting!
Ending felt like the book would have a part two but I don’t think it has one though. Someone please let me know if it has.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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