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3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
It's funny how this is actually my first ever review of a book on here. I'll have some serious re-reading to do so I can review my other read books.
Anyway, apart from the fact that I picked this book up on a whim due to the beautiful cover at my local Barnes & Noble, I was intrigued by how it would merge two cultures together. Maybe the fact that right out of high school, I had an anime/manga love affair that lasted a good year. (Until I ran into Korean dramas and K-Pop ... bye-bye, my love for Japanese culture.) Regardless, the synopsis seemed promising.
I didn't realize just how cliché it was until I read a review that pointed out the obvious. An outcast girl, a mysterious yet dangerous boy with a troubled past, falling in love pretty instantaneously, all hell breaking loose because they are forbidden to be together.
It was pretty cliché and though Katie had a good set up of being a strong female lead, her lack of wanting change and pessimism did irk me. She was practically negative about everything and then became stalker to a boy she didn't even know. I found that unrealistic and very YA novel due to the fact that in real life, it wouldn't go well for you if you stalk your love interest. So yes, I was annoyed and even more so when your obvious love triangle started. Could there be a YA book where there is no love triangle? Getting together is hard on it's own, why add the sweet, nice guy that everyone internally wants to have won, but we know, won't? It's not necessary and once again not as realistic. Most of us are lucky to have one guy after us.
(Might as well follow the formula for your typical Korean drama. The second lead syndrome is strong with this one...)
I give it three stars because even if those clichés and her extreme stalking, can't-leave-the-guy-alone (seriously, the girl needed a pass time that did not revolve around knowing everything Tomo was up to), the few incerpts to the Shinto religions were quite interesting. I'm not sure if they are all correct, but it was enough to keep me reading. It kept interested enough to finish the book quickly, though I was a little disappointed with how it ended and how the excerpt to the second book began.
I'll probably finish the series to see how it all ends, but I do hope the next ones have some sort of more originality and fewer cliché plots and characters. Well, we can't change the main characters . . . maybe focus more on what Tomo really is and how his drawings come to life. Also, explain why Tomo is so troubled, why is he so special, and how the freak does Katie even have a connection to this? I hope it's not far-fetched because I might eye roll too much in the next installments. (Please get better, so much potential to being a complex and unique book.)
I just hope it doesn't make it into my "I Wish I Never Read It" list like Twilight and The List did.
Anyway, apart from the fact that I picked this book up on a whim due to the beautiful cover at my local Barnes & Noble, I was intrigued by how it would merge two cultures together. Maybe the fact that right out of high school, I had an anime/manga love affair that lasted a good year. (Until I ran into Korean dramas and K-Pop ... bye-bye, my love for Japanese culture.) Regardless, the synopsis seemed promising.
I didn't realize just how cliché it was until I read a review that pointed out the obvious. An outcast girl, a mysterious yet dangerous boy with a troubled past, falling in love pretty instantaneously, all hell breaking loose because they are forbidden to be together.
It was pretty cliché and though Katie had a good set up of being a strong female lead, her lack of wanting change and pessimism did irk me. She was practically negative about everything and then became stalker to a boy she didn't even know. I found that unrealistic and very YA novel due to the fact that in real life, it wouldn't go well for you if you stalk your love interest. So yes, I was annoyed and even more so when your obvious love triangle started. Could there be a YA book where there is no love triangle? Getting together is hard on it's own, why add the sweet, nice guy that everyone internally wants to have won, but we know, won't? It's not necessary and once again not as realistic. Most of us are lucky to have one guy after us.
(Might as well follow the formula for your typical Korean drama. The second lead syndrome is strong with this one...)
I give it three stars because even if those clichés and her extreme stalking, can't-leave-the-guy-alone (seriously, the girl needed a pass time that did not revolve around knowing everything Tomo was up to), the few incerpts to the Shinto religions were quite interesting. I'm not sure if they are all correct, but it was enough to keep me reading. It kept interested enough to finish the book quickly, though I was a little disappointed with how it ended and how the excerpt to the second book began.
I'll probably finish the series to see how it all ends, but I do hope the next ones have some sort of more originality and fewer cliché plots and characters. Well, we can't change the main characters . . . maybe focus more on what Tomo really is and how his drawings come to life. Also, explain why Tomo is so troubled, why is he so special, and how the freak does Katie even have a connection to this? I hope it's not far-fetched because I might eye roll too much in the next installments. (Please get better, so much potential to being a complex and unique book.)
I just hope it doesn't make it into my "I Wish I Never Read It" list like Twilight and The List did.
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The first thing that caught my eye about Ink was the cover, isn't it just gorgeous! Once I read the synopsis I decided it was one I definitely wanted to read.
Japanese mythology sounded like something a bit different, and I couldn't wait to learn a bit about them while enjoying a nice bit of YA fiction after a run of adult fiction.
The concept is definitely one of the big pluses for this novel. The Kali was something I had never heard of before, and the idea of paper gods and moving pictures intrigues me. I was disappointed though that there isn't more detail of the concepts in the novel. There is a good opportunity when Katie visits a shrine and talks to the caretaker, the conversation could have covered more, or she could have gone back and learned more (hence showing us) and it was a shame the author didn't take advantage of this.
The other disappointment for me was that I felt it could have done with a bit more editing to pull it together. The same adjectives are used repeatedly throughout which I became so aware of that it distracted me from reading. The other thing which interrupted my flow was that the scenes seemed a bit disjointed, one minute it's a deadly battle, the next they are chatting and I had to reread sections to try and work out why it changed.
The characters themselves are very typical of YA fiction. We have the central character Katie who seems to become obsessed with a guy at her new school Tomohiro. While the author does explain the growing obsession, it still seems a bit false and not that far from the dreaded insta-love, especially when he treats her badly. This relationship just didn't work for me. Unfortunately other than her thoughts on Tomohiro we don't really see much else of her character. She does learn about Japanese culture but most of it is in the pursuit of learning more about Tomo. The other characters are Tomo's best friend who is actually quite good as a character and I'd like to see more of him and Tomo without Katie in future novels, and Jun a boy from another school who bumps into Katie a lot. There are also the peripheral characters of Katie's two friends Yuki and Tanaka and her Aunt Diane who I felt weren't in it enough.
The premise of this book is definitely it's strong point and while it wasn't the best novel I believe it is a debut novel so there is potential for things to get better as the series goes on.
Japanese mythology sounded like something a bit different, and I couldn't wait to learn a bit about them while enjoying a nice bit of YA fiction after a run of adult fiction.
The concept is definitely one of the big pluses for this novel. The Kali was something I had never heard of before, and the idea of paper gods and moving pictures intrigues me. I was disappointed though that there isn't more detail of the concepts in the novel. There is a good opportunity when Katie visits a shrine and talks to the caretaker, the conversation could have covered more, or she could have gone back and learned more (hence showing us) and it was a shame the author didn't take advantage of this.
The other disappointment for me was that I felt it could have done with a bit more editing to pull it together. The same adjectives are used repeatedly throughout which I became so aware of that it distracted me from reading. The other thing which interrupted my flow was that the scenes seemed a bit disjointed, one minute it's a deadly battle, the next they are chatting and I had to reread sections to try and work out why it changed.
The characters themselves are very typical of YA fiction. We have the central character Katie who seems to become obsessed with a guy at her new school Tomohiro. While the author does explain the growing obsession, it still seems a bit false and not that far from the dreaded insta-love, especially when he treats her badly. This relationship just didn't work for me. Unfortunately other than her thoughts on Tomohiro we don't really see much else of her character. She does learn about Japanese culture but most of it is in the pursuit of learning more about Tomo. The other characters are Tomo's best friend who is actually quite good as a character and I'd like to see more of him and Tomo without Katie in future novels, and Jun a boy from another school who bumps into Katie a lot. There are also the peripheral characters of Katie's two friends Yuki and Tanaka and her Aunt Diane who I felt weren't in it enough.
The premise of this book is definitely it's strong point and while it wasn't the best novel I believe it is a debut novel so there is potential for things to get better as the series goes on.
Incredibly anime and massively fun, Amanda Sun's debut is a beautiful YA novel that invokes all the anime and manga tropes with love and affection. Cherry blossom festivals, kendo matches, tea ceremonies and calligraphy classes are all written with love and affection, and the author's experience and fondness for Japan shine through on the page. The inclusion of ink drawings to illustrate the text is a lovely bonus.
I read an uncorrected Advance Reader Copy of Ink a friend picked up for free at World Fantasy.
Katie was sent five months ago to Shizuoka from the US to live with her ESL Teacher Aunt after her mother died. Faced with a new school, a new home, a new *language*, Katie is doing her best to fit in while still mourning her mother's death.
She's not doing too shabby a job, really, but she still sticks out like a sore thumb with language and culture issues in her Japanese school. One day, she goes back to the entrance to get forgotten shoes, and comes upon two classmates engaged in a loud, public break up.
And she sees something strange sketched in his dropped notebook.
The guy-- Tomohiro-- is a bad boy and star Kendo player. Katie becomes a bit stalkerly in her attempt to find out the truth behind what Tomohiro does after school and what she actually saw in his notebook.
Little by little, she uncovers the truth about Tomohiro's drawings, his yakuza friend, and why he pushes away everyone who tries to get close to him....
Ink is a terrific edition to the YA Paranormal genre. Readers of YA series by Becca Fitzpatrick or Lauren Kate with bad-boy hero fetishes will totally get into Tomohiro-- he wields a mean Kendo sword, gets in fights with Yakuza, and yo-yos between needing people and cutting them down to size...not to mention his terrifying sketches....
As a person who has lived in Japan, Katie's experience with bento, conbini puddings, drunken flower-viewing parties, and scrubbing school toilets are spot-on depictions of Japanese life. The author's judicious sprinkling in of real Japanese slang even got the thumbs up from my Tokyo-boy husband.
The only thing that was a bit hard for me to swallow was how Katie had 5 months studying in Japan (and she went to cram school, but seemed to still have enough time to stalk Tomohiro and go to Kendo practice) and seemed to have absolutely no problem whatsoever keeping up with school work or the rapid-fire Japanese of her classmates.
There's a few nods to the language issue (she uses a translator to get the jist of a news article, which I was glad to see as there would be no way she'd have learned enough Kanji in 5 months to read at that level) but because of the skillful way the author plunged us into Katie's world as a blonde gaijin in Japan, I had higher expectations of how she'd handle the language problem.
I also was a bit foggy about Tomo's drawing power, and how he had control over some but not others and why they turned out the way they did, and also what Katie had to do with any of it. I didn't mind not putting off the resolution of Katie's true connection to the Ink to a later book, but I was a bit unhappy with her tendency to flip flop between thinking she had to save Tomo by staying away from him and then thinking she was the only person who could "stop" the Ink. (and why doesn't Katie realize what Tomo is doing when he takes her to the Love Hotel?)
However, these concerns are minor, and as someone particularly interested in paranormal/fantasy that depicts Japan on a level deeper than just superficial allusions to kimono and sushi, I think this is the start of a wonderful series. I hope to see the kami-and-power stuff more developed in a logical manner and also for the author to find a way to deal more realistically with the tricky language barrier issue in later books.
The romance and fight scenes, while a bit bloody, aren't anything I would keep my 5th grader away from. An author to keep an eye on.
This Book's Snack Rating: Wasabi peas for the addictive, salty crunch of Katie's authentic gaijin experiences in Shizuoka with the spicy bite of Tomo's mysterious magic
Katie was sent five months ago to Shizuoka from the US to live with her ESL Teacher Aunt after her mother died. Faced with a new school, a new home, a new *language*, Katie is doing her best to fit in while still mourning her mother's death.
She's not doing too shabby a job, really, but she still sticks out like a sore thumb with language and culture issues in her Japanese school. One day, she goes back to the entrance to get forgotten shoes, and comes upon two classmates engaged in a loud, public break up.
And she sees something strange sketched in his dropped notebook.
The guy-- Tomohiro-- is a bad boy and star Kendo player. Katie becomes a bit stalkerly in her attempt to find out the truth behind what Tomohiro does after school and what she actually saw in his notebook.
Little by little, she uncovers the truth about Tomohiro's drawings, his yakuza friend, and why he pushes away everyone who tries to get close to him....
Ink is a terrific edition to the YA Paranormal genre. Readers of YA series by Becca Fitzpatrick or Lauren Kate with bad-boy hero fetishes will totally get into Tomohiro-- he wields a mean Kendo sword, gets in fights with Yakuza, and yo-yos between needing people and cutting them down to size...not to mention his terrifying sketches....
As a person who has lived in Japan, Katie's experience with bento, conbini puddings, drunken flower-viewing parties, and scrubbing school toilets are spot-on depictions of Japanese life. The author's judicious sprinkling in of real Japanese slang even got the thumbs up from my Tokyo-boy husband.
The only thing that was a bit hard for me to swallow was how Katie had 5 months studying in Japan (and she went to cram school, but seemed to still have enough time to stalk Tomohiro and go to Kendo practice) and seemed to have absolutely no problem whatsoever keeping up with school work or the rapid-fire Japanese of her classmates.
There's a few nods to the language issue (she uses a translator to get the jist of a news article, which I was glad to see as there would be no way she'd have learned enough Kanji in 5 months to read at that level) but because of the skillful way the author plunged us into Katie's world as a blonde gaijin in Japan, I had higher expectations of how she'd handle the language problem.
I also was a bit foggy about Tomo's drawing power, and how he had control over some but not others and why they turned out the way they did, and also what Katie had to do with any of it. I didn't mind not putting off the resolution of Katie's true connection to the Ink to a later book, but I was a bit unhappy with her tendency to flip flop between thinking she had to save Tomo by staying away from him and then thinking she was the only person who could "stop" the Ink. (and why doesn't Katie realize what Tomo is doing when he takes her to the Love Hotel?)
However, these concerns are minor, and as someone particularly interested in paranormal/fantasy that depicts Japan on a level deeper than just superficial allusions to kimono and sushi, I think this is the start of a wonderful series. I hope to see the kami-and-power stuff more developed in a logical manner and also for the author to find a way to deal more realistically with the tricky language barrier issue in later books.
The romance and fight scenes, while a bit bloody, aren't anything I would keep my 5th grader away from. An author to keep an eye on.
This Book's Snack Rating: Wasabi peas for the addictive, salty crunch of Katie's authentic gaijin experiences in Shizuoka with the spicy bite of Tomo's mysterious magic
j'ai adoré.... Loved it.... It was kawaii and antantaru at the same time. Can't wait for book 2 :D
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I loved this book. It followed my love of Japanese culture, had a different idea for a supernatural twist and had an appropriate relationship for a book made for teenagers. I loved the main character and really felt for her. Can't wait for the sequel to learn more Japanese words and find out what Katie and Tomo are going to do next.
I don't know if I can finish this book, it's such a Typical Teen Movie. -_-
Girl whose mom just died (who does everybody have a dead parent now?) has to go live with her aunt in Japan and hates it. Not because she misses her friends and it's hard learning a new language and culture, but because she wanted to live with her grandparents.
So she's going to a Japanese high school, and it seems most of the cute boys have dyed hair (which, in real-life Japan...not so much, I'm told), and of course stumbles across the heartbreaker bad-boy and starts reacting way too dramatically to stupidly small things (he bumped into me and/or smirked! I must leap atop the school fence and publicly yell at him, because I am sassy!), which leads to a really stupid 'romance' that consists of her following him around spying and him saying 'quit it', right up until the 'you have to stay away from me, I'm dangerous' rears its cliche'd head. Then at one point he mentions visiting Paris and she's like "no way" and he says "mais bien sur, mademoiselle", and I kid you not, the next line is "and every nerve in my body tingled." And I facedesked, because French is NOT magic nerve-gas. Especially when you're already conversing in a foreign language, four words of another one should be less of a novelty. And she goes on to dismiss every questionable thing she's heard about him not because of any strong evidence casting it into doubt or the results of any investigation (that comes later), but because she likes him--that's not sweet, that's ignoring red flags, and it's a horrible thing to romanticize. This is the level of fluttery-eyed infatuation we're dealing with. It doesn't feel cute and romantic, it feels dumb. And of course there's the obligatory one or two other cute guys distracting her fluttery-eyed attention, who will doubtless form the corners a love triangle (or rectangle) eventually. But she's totally going to stick with Bad Boy, because we have so much in common because he also has a dead mom (*eye roll*).
And, if all that wasn't bad enough, I was promised a supernatural element but it was over 110 pages in before they came out and addressed that, which is TOO LONG.
This series was strongly recommended by lots of gushing fans, but I don't know if I can last through the rest of this.
Update: I persevered through to the end. It was not worth it.
Girl whose mom just died (who does everybody have a dead parent now?) has to go live with her aunt in Japan and hates it. Not because she misses her friends and it's hard learning a new language and culture, but because she wanted to live with her grandparents.
So she's going to a Japanese high school, and it seems most of the cute boys have dyed hair (which, in real-life Japan...not so much, I'm told), and of course stumbles across the heartbreaker bad-boy and starts reacting way too dramatically to stupidly small things (he bumped into me and/or smirked! I must leap atop the school fence and publicly yell at him, because I am sassy!), which leads to a really stupid 'romance' that consists of her following him around spying and him saying 'quit it', right up until the 'you have to stay away from me, I'm dangerous' rears its cliche'd head. Then at one point he mentions visiting Paris and she's like "no way" and he says "mais bien sur, mademoiselle", and I kid you not, the next line is "and every nerve in my body tingled." And I facedesked, because French is NOT magic nerve-gas. Especially when you're already conversing in a foreign language, four words of another one should be less of a novelty. And she goes on to dismiss every questionable thing she's heard about him not because of any strong evidence casting it into doubt or the results of any investigation (that comes later), but because she likes him--that's not sweet, that's ignoring red flags, and it's a horrible thing to romanticize. This is the level of fluttery-eyed infatuation we're dealing with. It doesn't feel cute and romantic, it feels dumb. And of course there's the obligatory one or two other cute guys distracting her fluttery-eyed attention, who will doubtless form the corners a love triangle (or rectangle) eventually. But she's totally going to stick with Bad Boy, because we have so much in common because he also has a dead mom (*eye roll*).
And, if all that wasn't bad enough, I was promised a supernatural element but it was over 110 pages in before they came out and addressed that, which is TOO LONG.
This series was strongly recommended by lots of gushing fans, but I don't know if I can last through the rest of this.
Update: I persevered through to the end. It was not worth it.