Abi Nako, or So I Thought is a memoir of Cruz’s first ten years in Davao City, where she moved after her heterosexual marriage had failed. It is about her efforts to rebuild her life as a single mother to
two children and her adventures in (re)fashioning herself as a writer and a lesbian in the face of her own false expectations.

As a memoir, the overarching narrative is concerned with starting over and dealing with the challenges of relocating to a distinctly Davao community. But with this memoir being a significant part of her process of becoming, Cruz also interrogates its form by approaching it in a nonlinear manner, with twenty stand-alone essays as chapters and some graphic elements.

“Jhoanna Cruz writes with audacity on the tightrope between self-sensationalization and conventional gracefulness. In these personal essays where she imagines redemption, I am reminded of Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits. Indeed, Cruz emphasizes how one must write one’s own story, no matter how seemingly rough-hewn, always with bravado, ‘seeing the [readers’] look of half- incredulity and awe.’”

—shane carreon

“Jhoanna’s journey in Life and Love is to me an in-progress project and would likely require a sequel if she is to come full circle and at peace with herself. You need to read her for yourself.”

—Aida Santos

“Abi Nako is part essay, confession, part auto-detective work, a leap of love and faith. It sings off the page, intimate, questing, embedded in the local and the body. It gives us a way to live, make art, and dance.”

—Francesca Rendle-Shor