Swept Off My Feet by Ines Bautista-YaoYoung Adult Contemporary Romance, Filipino Lit, Sports
September 19, 2017
Why my life sucks
by Geri Lazaro
1. My dad left when I was a kid.
2. My mom is in love (insert eye roll).
3. With a guy who is like 10 years younger than her!
4. My friends think he’s hot. (Gross)
5. I love ballet but our dance studio has a leak and we have to dance in this smelly studio that doubles as an aikido dojo.
6. There’s this Dojo guy who thinks the studio belongs to him.
7. Friends think Dojo guy is cute. (Ew.) (Okay, objectively maybe but still, ew.)
8. I’m failing algebra.
9. Need to quit either basketball or ballet. Or both.
10. Dojo guy keeps showing up! (Fine, he does aikido in the same building but whatever.)
11. Dojo guy is asking me to dance with him. And maybe he is as cute as my friends say.
12. I don't know what to do anymore!
Sports
The main characters Geri and Bas and their friends are into a few sport activities, which plays an integral part of their lives and story.
Reasons to read Swept Off My Feet
- Geri plays basketball, but her passion is ballet. You could feel her passion emanating from the page.
- Geri and Bas can ball against each other in some healthy one-one-one competition. (spoiler alert: Geri won! Bas was winded, but he tried.)
- Geri having to choose between her two loves: ballet and basketball, because her grades are suffering. This was a true depiction of what some student athletes face when juggling school with their activities.
- They integrated ballet with aikido for Bas's performance. This concept sounded pretty cool, and I wish that we could actually see how it looks like.
- Accurate portrayal teenage pains: navigating through school, home life, after school activities, friendships, life decisions, and emotions they've never felt before. It was an all too familiar nostalgic feeling.
- Tight-knit family dynamic, though not perfect nor typically traditional.
- Lessons of forgiveness in a multitude of ways.
- Challenges the asian academic excellence/straight A's stereotype. Geri struggled with math, and her working on bringing her grade up was a huge part of the story. It showed that no, asians are not automatically/effortlessly smart in every single subject. I related to her a lot because, like Geri, I too am Filipino who sucks at math. It was always my least favorite subject. Still is.
- Michael Jordan and Steph Curry idolization and appreciation. (I might be biased about Steph Curry as a Bay Area girl)
Tagalog
Salamat = thank you
Kuya = term of respect for older male relatives
Lola = grandma
Yaya = nanny
Naku = no direct translation; it's used as an expression of exasperation or frustration
Balikbayan = a box filled with stuff that one ships back home to Philippines
Merienda = light meal or snack
Favorite Quotes
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I loved watching women's sports. There was something so empowering about seeing girls do what many people tell us we can't or shouldn't be doing.
--Ines Bautista-Yao, Swept Off My Feet (pg. 53)
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I knew what I had to do to hit the goals I set for myself. I could see where I wanted to take myself.
--Ines Bautista-Yao, Swept Off My Feet (pg. 62)
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"[Y]ou dance like you're on air, and you play like you're on fire."
--Ines Bautista-Yao, Swept Off My Feet (pg. 82)
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When you're used to building a thick layer of granite around your feelings, it isn't easy to chip away at it to reveal the soft, vulnerable rawness underneath.
--Ines Bautista-Yao, Swept Off My Feet (pg. 110)
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The sensei introduced us, saying this was Bas's idea and that he wanted to do something different to show how aikido had changed his life. My eyes flew open and I stared at him. "I didn't know that's why we're doing this."
He smiled at me, all the earlier tension gone, as if he had made peace with the performance in the few seconds I had my eyes closed. "That's why there's no one else I want to dance with but you."
--Ines Bautista-Yao, Swept Off My Feet (pg. 134)
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It didn't matter if my dad had broken my heart. Because even if he had flown away, even if he had to leave us to find himself, I could forgive him. I could move on. And I could let go of the fear that all boys were going to hurt me the way he did.
--Ines Bautista-Yao, Swept Off My Feet (pg. 136)
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"How are we going to get to your car now?" I glanced down at my ballet shoes. "My feet will get soaked!"
"I'll carry you." Bas smirked.
"I don't think so."
"I'll find an umbrella. Maybe you can ride on my back?"
"This isn't a Korean drama, Bas."
--Ines Bautista-Yao, Swept Off My Feet (pg. 138)
That response was absolute gold. I actually LOL'd.
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"I never thought the inside of your head was such a war zone."
"You didn't know what you were getting into."
"Doesn't mean I still don't want to be here." He took my clammy hand in his warm one. "I never wanted to be anywhere else, Geri, since the first time I saw you dance."
--Ines Bautista-Yao, Swept Off My Feet (pg. 146)
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Bas is swoon-worthy.
Meet Ines Bautista-Yao
Ines Bautista-Yao is the author of One Crazy Summer, What’s in your Heart, Only A Kiss, and When Sparks Fly. She has also written several short stories. Among them are “Plain Vanilla,” “Flashbacks and Echoes” which is part of a compilation called All is Wanting, “A Captured Dream,” one of the four short stories in Sola Musica: Love Notes from a Festival, and “ ings I’ll Never Say,” part of the Summit Books anthology Coming of Age.
She is the former editor-in-chief of Candy and K-Zone magazines and a former high school and college English and Literature teacher. She is also a wife and mom and blogs about the many challenges and joys of motherhood at http://www. theeverydayprojectblog.com. Author Project (http://theeverydayprojectblog.com/inesbautistayao-author/) is a section in her blog devoted to the stories in her head.
She lives in the Philippines with her husband and two little girls. She posts on Instagram and tweets @inesbyao and her author page is facebook.com/inesbautistayao. Her e-books are available on Amazon and Buqo.ph.
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