The Year We Became Invincible

FOREWORDI’ve found that one of the easiest forms of escape these days is to simply pick up a good YA book and lose yourself in it. I'm an adult, but I’m not alone in loving books for “Young Adults.” It’s probably because I sometimes feel I am living in different worlds. There’s the actual world, one that requires me to act like the adult that I am; but when I'm reading YA, even the contemporary ones (not fantasy, not dystopia), I'm transported to another world—one where I am the main character at exactly that point in her life, which I understand because I was, at some point, that person, too. And I know, when it comes down to it, I still am (YA at heart). Camille Li, the smart young lady you’ll meet in this book, is a teen herself. She lives in a world of expectations. She’s from a family of immigrants and feels it despite knowing no other home. She has to fit in but also stand out. Ballet is her medium, what she can use to show grace and strength; but it is also the first to remind her of her physical and emotional limits. She finds her own escape in a world where, possibly, only she could decide who she becomes, and she hopes she can find people who will appreciate that. The way her story is told is through letters to a future love, like letters to a world she doesn’t belong to yet, but is finding a way to be part of. Camille has that in common with her author, Mae Coyiuto. Mae is (slightly) older than Camille and knows a thing or two about living in two worlds. Living in two countries and being a young person with young person concerns, saddled with an adult-sized drive to accomplish things, Mae is a young adult writing Young Adult. But that’s not this book’s only qualification. In fact, this feels like Mae (slightly older and wiser than Camille) sending a reassuring message back to her protagonist, and to all of us who are able to tap into our YA selves. Filipino readers have a lot of YA titles from all over the world to choose from, if they want to escape and relive this feeling. I think it’s very important that they have Filipino voices among that selection. When I encounter Filipino authors writing YA, it excites me when what they do doesn’t fall exactly under the same category as those that came before it. I’m glad Mae has written this book and put it out there. It’s important that we know that YA can be written this way, too. Mina V. Esguerra