Review: Ang mga kaibigan ni Mama Susan

Who needs enemies when you've got friends like the ones Mama Susan has?

In Ang mga kaibigan ni Mama Susan (which roughly translates as Mama Susan's friends), Bob Ong takes us back to the late 90s for an interesting take on horror.

As you flip through the book's pages, you find yourself reading the journal of Gilberto, a.k.a. Galo. The first half of the journal provides the humor in this story: Galo's misadventures in college, late 90s stuff (the Backstreet Boys, Tamagotchis, pagers, MTB, etc.) and his relationship with his Aunt Auring and Uncle Dindo, which is comparable to Harry Potter and the Dursleys.


On the other hand, the second half paves the way for the scary events that are about to take place in the province of Tarmanes, courtesy of  Galo's grandmother, Mama Susan, and her church buddies.

If you're expecting to get loads of laughter out of this book, due to Ong's history of writing the likes of ABNKKBSNPLAko?! and Bakit Baliktad Magbasa ng Libro ang mga Pilipino?, you're in for a disappointment. And that probably works to the book's advantage. Going through word per word, waiting for punchlines that will never come, the book's scare factor will catch you off guard.

But not in the way Stephen King can frighten you, or the way those Pinoy horror pocketbooks can give you nightmares. At its best, I can compare Ang mga kaibigan ni Mama Susan to a B-Horror movie. It doesn't make you jump out of your seat or make your heart pound faster, but its pacing can partially make you hold your breath with its decent serving of suspense. And even that can also hurt the the book. There are some parts of the story where you can't afford putting down the book. Doing so will stop the momentum, and unfortunately, picking up where you left off is not going to give you the same experience a particular scene intended to deliver. I was in the middle of a protagonist-escaping-from-the-antagonist scene when my mother asked me to run an errand. No matter how many times I went over the same page, I never got to relive the scary feeling prior to my mom's interruption.

One thing bugging me though is the abundance of loose ends on the last few pages towards the end. There's just so many questions left unanswered. I know Bob's just trying to pull a Chris Nolan here, leaving readers to go figure things out for themselves,  but while this makes for a good ending, sadly, it makes the story difficult to follow.

Of course, a Bob Ong book isn't complete without a satirical message. The author took a shot at Catholics, people's dependence on technology, and even hops on the 2012-doomsday bandwagon at some point.

Ang mga kaibigan ni Mama Susan  is not exactly a must-have, but having it in your library doesn't hurt, especially if your collecting Ong's works. The first pages would seem like a trip down memory lane for those who were around the late 90s, and the scare factor is passable. It still qualifies as a good read and shows the author's promise at writing tragedies. If you liked Macarthur, then this book should be up your alley. I'm still hoping Bob Ong would return to his wisecracking ways in his next book. Until then, I'm going to make sure I go to mass on time. And you need to read this book to figure that one out.