BOOK REVIEW: Lumayo Ka Nga Sa Akin by Bob Ong

This is the first book I finished reading while on vacation. Bob Ong has always been one of my favorite authors. His satires on everything Filipino are funny (obviously) and too true. In this book, he had made a "script" for several genres. One for action, one for horror, and one for the general love story or soap opera.

He exposed the idiocies of the plots and stories that almost did not change since the boob tube was introduced in the Philippines. It's not that I did not know this before (there's a reason I don't watch Philippine TV except for news, reality shows, and sports). It's just that he made it really plain and exaggerated for the readers to get the point. I remember in particular one Mara Clara remake episode that was being advertised. The scene was Clara was trying to make Mara eat shrimp knowing that the latter is allergic to it. What did Mara do? She cried, "Clara, waaaaggg!" Too stupid. We all know that is you would say any word in Tagalog that has the letter "A" in it, your mouth would open. She could just have shut her mouth and punched Clara in the face.

I manage to annoy all of my roommates when I watch all of the soap operas on TV because I can't help but comment everytime I see another stupid scene so I stay away from it for the preservation of our relationships. hahaha.

I highly recommend this book to all scriptwriters, moviemakers, and all Filipinos. We spend the most time in front of the TV, make sure your IQ do not drop 10 points everytime.