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Twisted Series #1
Twisted
Book by Zafra, Jessica
268 pages, Bookprint
First published January 1, 1995
45 people are currently reading
1435 people want to read
About the author
Jessica Zafra
29 books330 followersJessica Zafra (born 1965) is a fiction writer, columnist, editor, publisher and former television and radio show host. She is known for her sharp and witty writing style. Her most popular books are the Twisted series, a collection of her essays as a columnist for newspaper Today (now Manila Standard Today), as well as from her time as editor and publisher of the magazine Flip. She currently writes a weekly column for The Philippine Star which is called, Emotional Weather Report. She resides in Metro Manila, Philippines, where she is working on her first novel. She also managed the Eraserheads during the 90's.
Her work often are about current events (both Philippine and international), tennis, movies, music, cats, books, technology and her personal life. Her work has been the subject of academic study. The main ingredient to her work is often fun cynicism and irony.
Find out more about her here.
Her work often are about current events (both Philippine and international), tennis, movies, music, cats, books, technology and her personal life. Her work has been the subject of academic study. The main ingredient to her work is often fun cynicism and irony.
Find out more about her here.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
September 18, 2012
This is my problem with books that are actually collections of newspaper articles of the author: reading them once again feels like a total waste of time. I know that some people love the idea of having a collection of the articles that they used to read on a regular basis. They cherish the compilations as prized possessions because they are reminders of the days when those people read and enjoyed those works. Oh, I read this one on the same day I got my first menstrual period. Oh, I read this one while on a bus going to the my first job, etc. I don't. I have three thousand plus physical books at home and my wife is already complaining that books are now taking over our lives. Also, novels or stories that I enjoyed a lot are permanently etched in my heart and I don't need to see the books to be reminded of them.
Also, since the essays or the stories were written in the distant past, they now become outdated. The popular events, movies, books, music, politicians, showbiz personalities and sport players during the time when the articles were written now seem to be ancient and irrelevant. Well, some of the subjects are now considered as classic or icons but that could only happen if the author has a good judgement on what to write, i.e., immortalize. If the author has a populist taste who tends to go with the fads (after all, she has to write what sells, I understand that), then after a decade or two, the article will already have this icky trashy feel.
Don't get me wrong. I am not bashing this book. Jessica Zafra is dear to me. She is just a year younger than me. She graduated from the same grade school where my own daughter graduated from. I love her witty and acerbic prose. I used to buy that now-closed newspaper called Today where the essays in this book originally appeared. I associate these essays with the first year of my marriage when my wife and I were still childless and Today was being delivered by a newspaper delivery man every morning to our doorstep. The reason why this paper and not PDI or The Manila Bulletin? Not only because it was the cheapest newspaper during that time when we were still struggling on building our love nest and family but also because of course, this entertaining daily column by then a budding writer, Jessica Zafra.
In other words, I love Jessica Zafra. I love her attitude in life. I even made sure to catch her in youth-oriented axed TV weekly show over at Channel 5. But I rather read her fresh rather than her frozen chemically-treated "history" books.
Somebody has to draft a law to put expiration dates to this kind of books!
Also, since the essays or the stories were written in the distant past, they now become outdated. The popular events, movies, books, music, politicians, showbiz personalities and sport players during the time when the articles were written now seem to be ancient and irrelevant. Well, some of the subjects are now considered as classic or icons but that could only happen if the author has a good judgement on what to write, i.e., immortalize. If the author has a populist taste who tends to go with the fads (after all, she has to write what sells, I understand that), then after a decade or two, the article will already have this icky trashy feel.
Don't get me wrong. I am not bashing this book. Jessica Zafra is dear to me. She is just a year younger than me. She graduated from the same grade school where my own daughter graduated from. I love her witty and acerbic prose. I used to buy that now-closed newspaper called Today where the essays in this book originally appeared. I associate these essays with the first year of my marriage when my wife and I were still childless and Today was being delivered by a newspaper delivery man every morning to our doorstep. The reason why this paper and not PDI or The Manila Bulletin? Not only because it was the cheapest newspaper during that time when we were still struggling on building our love nest and family but also because of course, this entertaining daily column by then a budding writer, Jessica Zafra.
In other words, I love Jessica Zafra. I love her attitude in life. I even made sure to catch her in youth-oriented axed TV weekly show over at Channel 5. But I rather read her fresh rather than her frozen chemically-treated "history" books.
Somebody has to draft a law to put expiration dates to this kind of books!
April 1, 2011
A re-read, but definitely, going back the the freshness of her prose years before she climbed to stardom, is worth the sitting.
October 30, 2021
If this were the 90s, Jessica would probably whack me in the head because I won't shut up about her. But this is the 20s, and Twisted is no longer in print but on Substack, and we're friends. Friends in a way that I message her in real time as I read her, if only to send her the two posters of "Lord, Give Me a Lover!" by Daria Ramirez or reminisce about R.E.M., Pearl Jam, and concerts.
It is fitting that Twisted 25 is called an anniversary edition because anniversaries are meaningful only to those who take part in the occasion, in what is being remembered. And reading a selection from her Twisted column in the mid-90s (books 1-3) in this form, thematically instead of chronologically, reminds me that Jessica was the first person I associated the word "writer" with. I was 7 or 8? Twisted made me want to be one, made me think that a writer can conjure exciting lives and immortalise boredom. Like most kids then, I couldn't afford the books so I resorted to newspaper clippings in the school library.
Now I'm older and have done a bit of writing myself, I read the collection and, expecting it to have aged, was floored by how much I needed a laugh, by how readable it was, by how it slapped me when I closed the book to rest. Aging, of course, is not always a bad thing (yes, I hear you, "wait until you get rayuma"), even in prose. And if age means transporting you to colourful times and places in the past, sure, give me books that wear their age on their sleeve. Give me those ridiculous takes, if only to be entertained.
Albert, my partner, could attest to this: I was laughing like a madman—guffawing even—as the writing carried with it madness, ironies, bitterness, fun, zing, shallowness, noise, confusion, etc. of the times, the popular culture and political issues we cared and ranted about and wanted to escape from, the bad movies, the good music, our uneventful lives before digital ate all us up and turned us into zombies. In true 90s fashion, while reading, I discovered the radio built in my CD player was actually working, and at one point the station played "Nightswimming." In college, I would meet people who disliked Jessica vehemently (*cough* misogyny *cough*), and it made me admire her more because it's not that writers cannot please everyone: Writers must not please everyone.
What Twisted 25 sharpens for me is that writing is impossible without risks, and those risks are present here for the readers of today to call out and correct. If your idea of irony comes from Alanis Morissette, then you will most likely take offence. But if you can step back a bit and see that every essay is fiction and the voice in it, because it's mad, wants to drag you to places—to Hong Kong and Los Angeles, to those bars in Manila that no longer exist, to the steep mountains and back with all the dirt you can get, to *shudder* Arnel Salgado's vicinity—then you might appreciate a laugh, or two, or a hundred. (I'm stopping myself from discussing "blogging"—you know that thing from the 2000s, the form I played with as a budding writer, and how blogging, come to think of it, is considered analog now, too, and how Jessica predates blogging and Mocha Uson.)
Dear Jessica, live long. I mean, literally. We still have to live somewhere away from here, meet Stipe, watch concerts with our grandma knees. Also, to you I owe that Varda and Demy are with me now.
It is fitting that Twisted 25 is called an anniversary edition because anniversaries are meaningful only to those who take part in the occasion, in what is being remembered. And reading a selection from her Twisted column in the mid-90s (books 1-3) in this form, thematically instead of chronologically, reminds me that Jessica was the first person I associated the word "writer" with. I was 7 or 8? Twisted made me want to be one, made me think that a writer can conjure exciting lives and immortalise boredom. Like most kids then, I couldn't afford the books so I resorted to newspaper clippings in the school library.
Now I'm older and have done a bit of writing myself, I read the collection and, expecting it to have aged, was floored by how much I needed a laugh, by how readable it was, by how it slapped me when I closed the book to rest. Aging, of course, is not always a bad thing (yes, I hear you, "wait until you get rayuma"), even in prose. And if age means transporting you to colourful times and places in the past, sure, give me books that wear their age on their sleeve. Give me those ridiculous takes, if only to be entertained.
Albert, my partner, could attest to this: I was laughing like a madman—guffawing even—as the writing carried with it madness, ironies, bitterness, fun, zing, shallowness, noise, confusion, etc. of the times, the popular culture and political issues we cared and ranted about and wanted to escape from, the bad movies, the good music, our uneventful lives before digital ate all us up and turned us into zombies. In true 90s fashion, while reading, I discovered the radio built in my CD player was actually working, and at one point the station played "Nightswimming." In college, I would meet people who disliked Jessica vehemently (*cough* misogyny *cough*), and it made me admire her more because it's not that writers cannot please everyone: Writers must not please everyone.
What Twisted 25 sharpens for me is that writing is impossible without risks, and those risks are present here for the readers of today to call out and correct. If your idea of irony comes from Alanis Morissette, then you will most likely take offence. But if you can step back a bit and see that every essay is fiction and the voice in it, because it's mad, wants to drag you to places—to Hong Kong and Los Angeles, to those bars in Manila that no longer exist, to the steep mountains and back with all the dirt you can get, to *shudder* Arnel Salgado's vicinity—then you might appreciate a laugh, or two, or a hundred. (I'm stopping myself from discussing "blogging"—you know that thing from the 2000s, the form I played with as a budding writer, and how blogging, come to think of it, is considered analog now, too, and how Jessica predates blogging and Mocha Uson.)
Dear Jessica, live long. I mean, literally. We still have to live somewhere away from here, meet Stipe, watch concerts with our grandma knees. Also, to you I owe that Varda and Demy are with me now.
June 18, 2010
So funny! From Manananggal terrorizes Manila to Twisted 8 1/2, she never fails to entertain and inform.
November 7, 2012
Jessica Zafra could write about the most mundane topic and still make it interesting with her humor and sharp wit.
January 29, 2016
If Chandler Bing was a girl, this would pass as his journal. Tackling the bane of everyday living in Manila, Jessica Zafra's collection of articles voices out the frustrations of those of us living under the awful Metropolitan circumstances, be it Manila or somewhere else. It's a guilty pleasure, and raises important topics - even touching in politics and religion - without sounding too self-absorbed, and most of all, without breaking that dry sarcastic tone.
May 25, 2008
i may have been, at times, irked with how she writes about herself too much but she writes engagingly. so read, i still do.
November 18, 2009
Back in the days, I used to hero-worship Zafra for her acerbic humor.
July 7, 2011
yah! no doubt i love jessica zafra.
March 30, 2012
Super great essays!
April 29, 2013
Sarcasm at its finest. Gotta love her humor.
November 12, 2012
SALYMAR'S REVIEW
Coming soon...
http://www.goodreads.com/starryfields
Coming soon...
http://www.goodreads.com/starryfields
February 9, 2013
She may be cynical and sarcastic, but she talks a lot of sense and is a really gifted writer. I'm so glad i discovered you, jessica. :)
July 29, 2009
Hilarious! Read it from cover to cover. Jessica's sarcasm stings!
April 21, 2016
The first in a series. She writes with mordacious attitude!
March 17, 2022
I asked a Filipino friend to recommend a book that sheds some light on life in the Philippines, and this is what she gave me.
It's a collection of humorous and satirical essays written by a very outspoken and blunt, very Gen-X, somewhat crass, self-deprecating Manila native. The essays are definitely entertaining, though I think I'm the wrong generation to fully appreciate them, and all the little Tagalog expressions are lost on me. But much of the humor crosses boundaries of age and culture, and it's easy to laugh at the ridiculous situations she works her way into.
This was exactly the kind of recommendation I was hoping for, and it accomplished my goal of getting just a little insight into life in Manila.
It's a collection of humorous and satirical essays written by a very outspoken and blunt, very Gen-X, somewhat crass, self-deprecating Manila native. The essays are definitely entertaining, though I think I'm the wrong generation to fully appreciate them, and all the little Tagalog expressions are lost on me. But much of the humor crosses boundaries of age and culture, and it's easy to laugh at the ridiculous situations she works her way into.
This was exactly the kind of recommendation I was hoping for, and it accomplished my goal of getting just a little insight into life in Manila.
November 7, 2024
Sadly, this type of collection will always be prone to be dated. The pieces are not timeless. Nevertheless this collection of essays by Jessica Zafra is sharp, witty, and completely unfiltered. Zafra tackles everything from politics to pop culture with a biting sense of humor and a fearless perspective. Twisted is like having coffee with your most outspoken friend who isn’t afraid to say exactly what she thinks. Zafra’s writing is smart, balancing insight with sarcasm in a way that makes you think and laugh in equal measure. Perfect for passing time for those who enjoy their dose of skepticism with their social commentary.
April 14, 2023
I believe Jessica Zafra's books have sold more than any locally-based Filipino writer to date. This was her first of the Twisted series that spawned seven, eight more Twisted books, concluding with Twisted Travels (I think). Acerbic, biting wit. Wicked. I never read Filipiniana writers before. But looking for her latest books in the Filipiniana aisles made me realize what I was missing.
July 9, 2018
An easy favorite.
Want to read
June 26, 2019Oķ
October 7, 2019
ano to? Diary ng Panget ? mukhang pinag lumaang artikulo ang laman nito na dekada na ang nakalipas. buti nalang binasa ko lang sa National Bookstore . nasayang oras ko sa pagbabasa .
January 27, 2022
Read it ages ago so i dont remember
Read
February 25, 2024nice book
August 8, 2024
Her wit is legendary!
December 28, 2023
I loved the author’s style and the sense of irony, but without Philippines pop-culture and modern history knowledge this book doesn’t really make sense.
Many subjects the author raised were quite cliché, but anyway, it is a pleasant reading in general, and it’s my first book from a Philippino author!
Many subjects the author raised were quite cliché, but anyway, it is a pleasant reading in general, and it’s my first book from a Philippino author!
August 17, 2008
I was curious about her. She's weird and cool at the same time.
September 10, 2008
Find her weird and cool all at the same time.
February 3, 2012
I worship you, Jessica.
August 1, 2011
First Jessica Zafra book I read back in high school. It was fun reading her funny, sometimes sarcastic, thoughts about lots of things.
Want to read
May 22, 2012I really love Jessica Zafra's wit in writing..
Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews