Book Review

 

The Coucside Review :

“The Weight of Love and Letting Go in Malaikat Juga Tahu by Dee Lestari”

Dee Lestari’s Malaikat Juga Tahu, one of the short stories from her Rectoverso collection, is a quiet yet deeply emotional exploration of unspoken love. The story follows Abang, a man on the autism spectrum who falls in love with Leia, his younger brother’s girlfriend. Through simple yet tender narration, Dee paints Abang’s world with sincerity, his routines, his silences, and the way he experiences love differently, yet no less intensely. The writing is gentle but piercing, allowing readers to feel Abang’s confusion and longing without ever turning him into a symbol or pitying figure.

What makes this story so powerful is how subtle it is. Dee never forces emotion; instead, she lets it unfold naturally, in the pauses between words and the moments left unsaid. Abang’s feelings for Leia are pure, innocent, and painfully restrained. He understands love not through grand gestures, but through presence and quiet care. The title, Malaikat Juga Tahu (“Even Angels Know”), captures this perfectly, it’s about love that exists even when it cannot be spoken, and kindness that goes unnoticed by the world.

Dee Lestari’s writing shines in how she handles sensitivity. She doesn’t romanticize Abang’s condition, but instead humanizes him completely, showing that love, no matter how unconventional, still deserves to be felt and acknowledged. The simplicity of her language hides layers of emotion, making every line linger long after the story ends.

In the end, Malaikat Juga Tahu is not just about love, it’s about the quiet strength it takes to let someone go. It reminds us that love doesn’t always need to be understood or returned, it only needs to be felt. Like the rest of Rectoverso, this story speaks softly but leaves a lasting echo in the heart.

Film Review

 The Couchreview :

“When Time Refuses to Let Go: The Quiet Heartbreak of A Ghost Story (2017)”

Time doesn’t stop when someone we love is gone and A Ghost Story (2017) captures that painful truth with haunting beauty. The film opens with a simple story: a man dies suddenly, leaving his wife alone in their quiet house. But instead of moving on, his spirit stays behind, wrapped in a white sheet, watching as life continues without him. From the very beginning, the film feels less like a ghost story and more like a meditation on love and letting go. It asks a simple yet unsettling question: what happens to our love, our memories, when we’re no longer here to hold them?

What makes this movie stand out is how little it says. There are long stretches of silence, with barely any dialogue. Instead, the emotion comes through the stillness, the way the camera lingers on empty rooms, or how the wife silently grieves in the space they once shared. One of the most unforgettable moments is when she eats an entire pie alone, not because she’s hungry, but because she’s trying to fill the emptiness inside her. It’s a raw, human scene that says more about loss than words ever could.

As time moves forward, the ghost stays behind, watching strangers move into the house, watching the world change while he remains the same. There’s something deeply relatable about that, how we sometimes feel trapped in our memories, unable to move on while life rushes past us. The film uses time not as a background but as a character itself, stretching and collapsing until it feels endless. It’s both painful and beautiful, showing how memories can both comfort and imprison us.

In the end, A Ghost Story isn’t really about death, it’s about what it means to exist. It reminds us that everything we build, every love we hold, will eventually fade, but the feeling of it might linger somewhere, even if no one remembers. The film doesn’t offer answers, and that’s what makes it so human. It’s quiet, slow, and deeply moving—a story that lingers in your chest long after the credits roll, like a ghost that refuses to leave.