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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
Every single character in this book is insufferable, why does this have such good reviews/ratings.
I was going to write a review that just said “No thanks.” But here I go instead because I decided to stay up until 2am finishing it for my reading challenge rather than DNFing it or stopping and going to bed knowing that I’d have to finish it after I woke up.
God, where do I even begin.
A part of it might be that I am not Japanese. I don’t have super strict parents (they’re surprisingly chill for Latinx immigrants though) and I don’t know too much about Japanese tradition, which this book relies on for one of its plot points. The mom just pisses me off, super close minded and trying to be all ~selfless~ and ~it’s not about my happiness it’s about caring for the family~ which I totally understand as a traditional take for any culture, but as Gen Z I feel obligated to hate that idea. I have friends with strict parents though so I get the annoyance with all the friends’ parents. But it got redundant after a while. Anyway that’s just one thing.
Sana. Pisses me off. I don’t like her at all, she was nice at first but she kept getting worse and worse and worse throughout the book and I was getting so sick of her because she didn’t even get what she deserved I guess. Almost the entire book she knows about her dad’s “affair” and just refuses to do anything about it. Which, okay, I get that because it’s really tough to deal with. But she’s constantly going on and on about how she’ll tell her mom and confront her dad and then she doesn’t. Again, would be fine, but it happens SO OFTEN.
Sana does that a lot and that’s what I despise. She wants to speak out against all the stereotyping against her, but instead she just goes with it and stays silent and perpetuates stereotypes about other people. She wants to communicate with her girlfriend but instead backs out and does the stupidest thing ever which leaves everyone unhappy.
The thing is, this book had some good ideas. Discussing racism in the forms of stereotypes, and racism/prejudice within different POC groups? That’s something I encounter so often. Discussing cheating? Well meh. The spoiler part is that it’s kinda technically just an open relationship?????? Like it’s not cheating because the mom consented to it???? But the mom’s staying monogamous??? That part was interesting. The issue is the execution. Let’s see.
I got so annoyed at the amount of times there are stupid remarks because Sana is Asian and no one really does anything about it. Literally her closest guy friend is a person who, upon seeing her for the first time, immediately assumes she’ll be buddy buddy with the other Asian girls. The issue isn’t that she does that, I get it, my friend group is 80% POC. The issue is that the guy never really has to make up for that comment.
The thing is too a lot of people who made those stereotypes were Latinx, and people who make shitty comments about Latinx people were Asian. But my God, was it handled so poorly. Let’s see. There’s a scene where Sana goes off on a tangent doing nothing but saying that all of Jamie’s friends were not working hard enough and then acting like they were being oppressed, which leads to a bunch of racist remarks. This was to a group of Mexicans which included HER GIRLFRIEND. But nooo Jamie was ~different~ and Sana ~didn’t mean the things she said in a racist way~ SURPRISE. IT BECAME RACIST WHEN YOU STOPPED TALKING ABOUT JAMIE’S FRIENDS SPECIFICALLY AND STARTED TALKING ABOUT MEXICANS AS A WHOLE. And I’m not Mexican but I am Latina. I’m privileged enough to not have any of those kinds of stereotypes pushed on me, aside from maybe a few comments about body hair and drug dealing. I’m lucky. But so often in media isn’t the Latina girl just a stupid girl with big boobs, the Latino man a suspicious buff guy who’s done crime? It hits pretty hard. That’s my personal problem but the issue isn’t the comments she made, it’s the reaction of everyone around her. Christina may have been a bitch, but I was on her side by the end of Sana’s rambling. My big question is HOW DID JAMIE NOT BREAK UP WITH HER? After all that crap she said about her friends? I’d be damned if I let some asshole talk about my friends the way she did. But noooo they had a totally underwhelming ~talk~ and everything was okay at the end. Maybe I skipped over it but did she even apologize to Christina and the others?????
Okay now which part? Oh yes. The CHEATING. That whole part bothered me so much I went from 3 stars to 2 stars. And then I said if Sana and Jamie end up together at the end, I’ll give it 1 star. Look where we are.
Like, is she stupid? Does she not realize how she’s acting like (what she assumes) her parents are acting like? Oh yes, my girlfriend is going out with her ex so instead of talking to her about how uncomfortable it makes me I’m going to cheat on her with my friend WHOM I HAVE NO FEELINGS FOR.
Hold the hell up. Jamie was in the wrong for acting all smitten over her hot ex. She was. And for not rejecting her offer to go out even though the only reason Jamie was willing to go in the first place was not even for the ex, but to get a letter of recommendation from the ex’s dad. That was wrong of her.
BUT MAN DID SANA BLOW IT OUT OF PROPORTION AND FUCK IT UP EVEN MORE. Holy hell!!!!!
There’s a point where she LITERALLY says “it’s not cheating if (you think) theyre cheating.” Okay brushing aside that “you think,” YES IT WOULD STILL BE CHEATING IF THE OTHER IS CHEATING. AND IN THIS CASE YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE JUST YOUR PARANOIA AND LACK OF COMMUNICATION. Sana kisses Caleb and goes on DATES with him??? Just to get back at Jamie for MAYBE going out with her ex????? What is the matter with her????
And adding on to that, she is a lesbian. Sana, a lesbian, kissing a boy to get back at her girlfriend. Does the author not realize what horrible stereotypes this shows????????? Sana did not even like Caleb but she kissed him just to SEE if maybe she just hadn’t met the right guy?? WHAT THE HELL IS THAT NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!
And she was pressured by her friends into doing this!The blatant lesbophobia on display that got resolved with a simple “I’m sorry” and that’s it! Are you serious!
Oh yeah, the FRIENDS. They are so bland all I could remember is that Elaine liked Jimmy. Did I even remember the right name? Anyways, they were all so ANNOYING and OVERLY PUSHY. Like where the hell were their boundaries? Constantly bothering Sana about Caleb and even when she said she didn’t like him that way beCAUSE SHE WAS A LESBIAN they still pressured her into giving him a chance??? Oh hell no. Again, heteronormativity and BLATANT LESBOPHOBIA! Their reaction to her coming out was “that’ll be so good for college admissions I’m jealous” which AGAIN WAS NOT RESOLVED PROPERLY. They pushed her into kissing him because “it’s so much better than kissing girls!” wtf???
So many little comments, racist or homophobic or overall just so closedminded that were just brushed aside or resolved with one line.
Like after Jamie broke up with Sana? She was miserable for what, a week or two? But then everything was a okay? It was fine for Sana to try and reconcile with Caleb and Jamie after what she had put them through, but it was rushed. Caleb had a decent reaction But Jamie? Hell no. Sana, instead of trying to have a reasonable talk with Jamie maybe asking to be ACQUAINTANCES at least for a bit so she can earn her trust back, decides to have a BIG ROMANTIC GESTURE! Fun fact about me, I hate big romantic gestures. Reading a poem in front of a trig class? Embarrassing. The poems on the locker? Whatever. But what pissed me off is that it WORKED! And they got back together. What, all trust is back so quickly? Sana needed a LOT more time to grow and reflect on what she did. She got some time, but it was all her her her and her family and her feeling miserable and barely of how much Caleb must be hurting or how much Jamie must be hurting. SANA DID THAT TO HER KNOWING THAT JAMIE IS FRAGILE A BIT HAVING HAD HER HEART BROKEN ONCE BEFORE ARE YOU KIDDING ME.
Anyways so uh let’s see. The whole thing with the parents was such a huge yikes for me. They were essentially in some sort of open relationship! They married for the sake of family honour but consented to pursuing the ones they truly loved! That’s fine! But then why was it pushed at being cheating the whole time. The whole time I expected the dad to be the ahole cheater but NO it was SANA. The dad was following his heart awwwwww. Okay fine. Decent idea again. But it was hard for me to see the dad as noble after all that. You can’t give me a whole book of cheating scumbag lying dad only to do a 180 last minute and say he was doing the right thing. Can’t do that. Sorry.
It was funny when the mom said “gay don’t come out of cabinet” or something like that, felt like something my mom would do.
And I know I complained earlier about the culture differences but that’s just in terms of enjoyment. I liked learning about it.
The romance was okay at the beginning. I was never really rooting for them though because it was boring and annoying at the same time? I tried to convince myself it was cute but. Oh well.
Won’t read this book again though.
God, where do I even begin.
A part of it might be that I am not Japanese. I don’t have super strict parents (they’re surprisingly chill for Latinx immigrants though) and I don’t know too much about Japanese tradition, which this book relies on for one of its plot points. The mom just pisses me off, super close minded and trying to be all ~selfless~ and ~it’s not about my happiness it’s about caring for the family~ which I totally understand as a traditional take for any culture, but as Gen Z I feel obligated to hate that idea. I have friends with strict parents though so I get the annoyance with all the friends’ parents. But it got redundant after a while. Anyway that’s just one thing.
Sana. Pisses me off. I don’t like her at all, she was nice at first but she kept getting worse and worse and worse throughout the book and I was getting so sick of her because she didn’t even get what she deserved I guess. Almost the entire book she knows about her dad’s “affair” and just refuses to do anything about it. Which, okay, I get that because it’s really tough to deal with. But she’s constantly going on and on about how she’ll tell her mom and confront her dad and then she doesn’t. Again, would be fine, but it happens SO OFTEN.
Sana does that a lot and that’s what I despise. She wants to speak out against all the stereotyping against her, but instead she just goes with it and stays silent and perpetuates stereotypes about other people. She wants to communicate with her girlfriend but instead backs out and does the stupidest thing ever which leaves everyone unhappy.
The thing is, this book had some good ideas. Discussing racism in the forms of stereotypes, and racism/prejudice within different POC groups? That’s something I encounter so often. Discussing cheating? Well meh. The spoiler part is that it’s kinda technically just an open relationship?????? Like it’s not cheating because the mom consented to it???? But the mom’s staying monogamous??? That part was interesting. The issue is the execution. Let’s see.
I got so annoyed at the amount of times there are stupid remarks because Sana is Asian and no one really does anything about it. Literally her closest guy friend is a person who, upon seeing her for the first time, immediately assumes she’ll be buddy buddy with the other Asian girls. The issue isn’t that she does that, I get it, my friend group is 80% POC. The issue is that the guy never really has to make up for that comment.
The thing is too a lot of people who made those stereotypes were Latinx, and people who make shitty comments about Latinx people were Asian. But my God, was it handled so poorly. Let’s see. There’s a scene where Sana goes off on a tangent doing nothing but saying that all of Jamie’s friends were not working hard enough and then acting like they were being oppressed, which leads to a bunch of racist remarks. This was to a group of Mexicans which included HER GIRLFRIEND. But nooo Jamie was ~different~ and Sana ~didn’t mean the things she said in a racist way~ SURPRISE. IT BECAME RACIST WHEN YOU STOPPED TALKING ABOUT JAMIE’S FRIENDS SPECIFICALLY AND STARTED TALKING ABOUT MEXICANS AS A WHOLE. And I’m not Mexican but I am Latina. I’m privileged enough to not have any of those kinds of stereotypes pushed on me, aside from maybe a few comments about body hair and drug dealing. I’m lucky. But so often in media isn’t the Latina girl just a stupid girl with big boobs, the Latino man a suspicious buff guy who’s done crime? It hits pretty hard. That’s my personal problem but the issue isn’t the comments she made, it’s the reaction of everyone around her. Christina may have been a bitch, but I was on her side by the end of Sana’s rambling. My big question is HOW DID JAMIE NOT BREAK UP WITH HER? After all that crap she said about her friends? I’d be damned if I let some asshole talk about my friends the way she did. But noooo they had a totally underwhelming ~talk~ and everything was okay at the end. Maybe I skipped over it but did she even apologize to Christina and the others?????
Okay now which part? Oh yes. The CHEATING. That whole part bothered me so much I went from 3 stars to 2 stars. And then I said if Sana and Jamie end up together at the end, I’ll give it 1 star. Look where we are.
Like, is she stupid? Does she not realize how she’s acting like (what she assumes) her parents are acting like? Oh yes, my girlfriend is going out with her ex so instead of talking to her about how uncomfortable it makes me I’m going to cheat on her with my friend WHOM I HAVE NO FEELINGS FOR.
Hold the hell up. Jamie was in the wrong for acting all smitten over her hot ex. She was. And for not rejecting her offer to go out even though the only reason Jamie was willing to go in the first place was not even for the ex, but to get a letter of recommendation from the ex’s dad. That was wrong of her.
BUT MAN DID SANA BLOW IT OUT OF PROPORTION AND FUCK IT UP EVEN MORE. Holy hell!!!!!
There’s a point where she LITERALLY says “it’s not cheating if (you think) theyre cheating.” Okay brushing aside that “you think,” YES IT WOULD STILL BE CHEATING IF THE OTHER IS CHEATING. AND IN THIS CASE YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE JUST YOUR PARANOIA AND LACK OF COMMUNICATION. Sana kisses Caleb and goes on DATES with him??? Just to get back at Jamie for MAYBE going out with her ex????? What is the matter with her????
And adding on to that, she is a lesbian. Sana, a lesbian, kissing a boy to get back at her girlfriend. Does the author not realize what horrible stereotypes this shows????????? Sana did not even like Caleb but she kissed him just to SEE if maybe she just hadn’t met the right guy?? WHAT THE HELL IS THAT NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!
And she was pressured by her friends into doing this!The blatant lesbophobia on display that got resolved with a simple “I’m sorry” and that’s it! Are you serious!
Oh yeah, the FRIENDS. They are so bland all I could remember is that Elaine liked Jimmy. Did I even remember the right name? Anyways, they were all so ANNOYING and OVERLY PUSHY. Like where the hell were their boundaries? Constantly bothering Sana about Caleb and even when she said she didn’t like him that way beCAUSE SHE WAS A LESBIAN they still pressured her into giving him a chance??? Oh hell no. Again, heteronormativity and BLATANT LESBOPHOBIA! Their reaction to her coming out was “that’ll be so good for college admissions I’m jealous” which AGAIN WAS NOT RESOLVED PROPERLY. They pushed her into kissing him because “it’s so much better than kissing girls!” wtf???
So many little comments, racist or homophobic or overall just so closedminded that were just brushed aside or resolved with one line.
Like after Jamie broke up with Sana? She was miserable for what, a week or two? But then everything was a okay? It was fine for Sana to try and reconcile with Caleb and Jamie after what she had put them through, but it was rushed. Caleb had a decent reaction But Jamie? Hell no. Sana, instead of trying to have a reasonable talk with Jamie maybe asking to be ACQUAINTANCES at least for a bit so she can earn her trust back, decides to have a BIG ROMANTIC GESTURE! Fun fact about me, I hate big romantic gestures. Reading a poem in front of a trig class? Embarrassing. The poems on the locker? Whatever. But what pissed me off is that it WORKED! And they got back together. What, all trust is back so quickly? Sana needed a LOT more time to grow and reflect on what she did. She got some time, but it was all her her her and her family and her feeling miserable and barely of how much Caleb must be hurting or how much Jamie must be hurting. SANA DID THAT TO HER KNOWING THAT JAMIE IS FRAGILE A BIT HAVING HAD HER HEART BROKEN ONCE BEFORE ARE YOU KIDDING ME.
Anyways so uh let’s see. The whole thing with the parents was such a huge yikes for me. They were essentially in some sort of open relationship! They married for the sake of family honour but consented to pursuing the ones they truly loved! That’s fine! But then why was it pushed at being cheating the whole time. The whole time I expected the dad to be the ahole cheater but NO it was SANA. The dad was following his heart awwwwww. Okay fine. Decent idea again. But it was hard for me to see the dad as noble after all that. You can’t give me a whole book of cheating scumbag lying dad only to do a 180 last minute and say he was doing the right thing. Can’t do that. Sorry.
It was funny when the mom said “gay don’t come out of cabinet” or something like that, felt like something my mom would do.
And I know I complained earlier about the culture differences but that’s just in terms of enjoyment. I liked learning about it.
The romance was okay at the beginning. I was never really rooting for them though because it was boring and annoying at the same time? I tried to convince myself it was cute but. Oh well.
Won’t read this book again though.
This book was different than many other YA I've read in its honest and complex portrayal of race, all within the context of a burgeoning lesbian romance. Sana is a believable and relatable protagonist, caught between trying to satisfy her strict parents and also feel like part of her peer group. I loved the tie-ins with poetry and the way Sana was able to find herself in the words of others.
dnf for now- just not what i wanna read rn and i didn’t really like the start so
This book was ... interesting. I was really excited before reading it because it looked like a cute contemporary romance - it wasn't.
One thing I appreciated was that it opened dialogues about the intersection of racism and sexuality, as well as racism between different groups of people. Neither of this is discussed much in YA. It's Not Like It's a Secret definitely has value in the discussions it can open in this regard.
The plot, however, was a bit frustrating.
Sana's an interesting character because she's very inactive. She only takes action at a few opportune moments in the plot - kissing Caleb - and at the end, which shows her character growth. This is something else I appreciated, because she learned from her experiences and tried desperately to make up for it. I know Sana's actions weren't meant to be malicious. Sana was well-written enough for me to not hate her, so I do have a bit of sympathy for her.
I still feel like she shouldn't have been let off so easily by the author. I can accept her father's relationship (which turned out to be an open relationship that Sana's mother knew about) because there was communication between everyone. Sana's dishonesty I'm a bit more iffy on.
But this was an insight into issues that aren't discussed much in YA, and I do think it's worth reading.
One thing I appreciated was that it opened dialogues about the intersection of racism and sexuality, as well as racism between different groups of people. Neither of this is discussed much in YA. It's Not Like It's a Secret definitely has value in the discussions it can open in this regard.
The plot, however, was a bit frustrating.
Spoiler
Jamie and Sana get together, Sana gets scared that Jamie cheated on her and is going to break up, so she cheats on Jamie with a guy named Caleb, and does not confront either of them about it, all while Sana is keeping quiet about her father's infidelity. Sana kind of spiralled out of control with her relationships, and while I'm glad it had a happy ending, I did feel like it was a bit unrealistic.Sana's an interesting character because she's very inactive. She only takes action at a few opportune moments in the plot - kissing Caleb - and at the end, which shows her character growth. This is something else I appreciated, because she learned from her experiences and tried desperately to make up for it. I know Sana's actions weren't meant to be malicious. Sana was well-written enough for me to not hate her, so I do have a bit of sympathy for her.
I still feel like she shouldn't have been let off so easily by the author. I can accept her father's relationship (which turned out to be an open relationship that Sana's mother knew about) because there was communication between everyone. Sana's dishonesty I'm a bit more iffy on.
But this was an insight into issues that aren't discussed much in YA, and I do think it's worth reading.
DNF
I had to put it down. i hated some of the choices Sana made and i could not continue
I had to put it down. i hated some of the choices Sana made and i could not continue
could've been better, :didn't rlly lik the main couple by the end, a lot of things aren't addressed.
