Elaine Castillo

Girlie is working as a content moderator, looking at the worst social media throws up in order to decide if it's bad enough to be removed, when she's headhunted to do live content moderation with a virtual reality company. The money's so good that she can't say no, especially since her paycheck is paying the mortgage on her mother's Las Vegas home and she feels obligated to help out many in her extended Filipino family. And she's also drawn to the head of moderation for this company, the show more enigmatic William.

This was an uneven book, but one I also enjoyed quite a bit once it settled down into letting the characters breathe. Girlie is initially a difficult character to get to know--she's so concerned with performing her various roles and in remaining aloof, that she remains a cipher until well into the book. This is, despite the virtual reality trimmings, a romance novel about two lonely and isolated people falling in love, and that part of it, which is to say the main part, is well done. And the imaginary virtual reality world is also well thought out and is probably what a large corporation would come up with, less Westworld than theme park. There were places in the novel where Castillo gives a lot of space to something, like weight-lifting, only for it never to be mentioned again, almost as though some sections were developed, not as part of the novel, but as their own thing. A warning that Girlie's area of specialization in her initial job was child sex abuse and her work is described with an attention to detail. show less

An excellent novel about immigration, family, love, romance, deceit, kindness, culture, and lives chosen.

Hero dropped out of medical school to join a revolutionary group in her native Philippines. Ten years later she is captured and jailed for two years. Upon her release she is disowned by her upper-class parents. Shortly after she is sent (illegally) to live with her favorite uncle and his family in Milpitas. And thus begins her third life. In the American suburbs, in a house, running show more mundane errands with her 8-year-old cousin, finally meeting friends and a girlfriend, hanging out, eating the same food and speaking the same languages she always has. It is comfortable and also fairly odd, as she constantly wonders about her co-revolutionaries, her parents, her aunt--how are they, where are they, what are they doing now?

Castillo does a great job illustrating suburban San Jose in the 1990s. Strip malls that are all the same yet so different to those that hang out or work at their particular strip mall. The hours of work put in by those trying to support so many people in different countries, the loss of job status among immigrants, the trying to do more so your children can have more. Is it all worth it?

This may be the first of a trilogy. I hope so. show less

It would be easy to read Moderation‘s synopsis and gloss over the early trigger warnings that are there in plain sight. I saw them and was ready for ‘rip-the-bandaid-off’ grittiness. But even so, I still found Castillo’s matter-of-fact depiction of the job of a social media content moderator confronting.

What exacerbates the impact on readers, I think, is the recklessly raw and fatalistic inner-most thoughts of this novel’s enigmatic narrator, coupled with Castillo’s at times show more complex prose and multi-stream sentencing. This narrative is heavy on barbed social and cultural commentary too.

Suffice to say, the first half of Moderation is full on and not always pleasant, not at all what you’d expect from a romcom. So I fully expect this to be a ‘DNF’ for some. But like a car crash in slow motion, in its own very dark humoured way it was a beguiling challenge. Plus, in respect to William, Girlie’s match in terms of scarred soul and self-moderated exterior, there was potential for light on the horizon, so I persisted and am very glad that I did.

As is often the way in life, journeys through darkness can make the light when it does arrive feel all the more special — and so it was the case in Moderation when the romantic storyline gained traction. Continue reading: https://www.bookloverbookreviews.com/2025/10/moderation-elaine-castillo.html show less

The author uses the framework of a romance novel to critique the ways that capitalism and technology exploit individuals, especially immigrants, and society as a whole. There are (surprisingly?) several hilarious scenes interspersed with these heavy themes, and the net result is a well written, incisive novel that offers something for all readers. Recommended for all libraries.