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3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
I did finish the book, but... I was so disappointed at the cliches and the poor quality.
And I say that as a lover of Japanese mythology and Japanese culture. Sigh.
And I say that as a lover of Japanese mythology and Japanese culture. Sigh.
Probably in the minority. But I thoroughly enjoyed that. review to come.
Actually is 3.5 stars because it was pretty good I just didn't enjoy some elements of the story like characters or the plot seemed pretty much the same throughout the book with some minor tweaks.
ORIGINAL REVIEW AT WHATEVER YOU CAN STILL BETRAY.
The first few chapters, well okay, about one third of the book all I could think about was "Kami-sama, this girl is obsessed!" I knew she was intrigues with the boy with all the bad-boy, brooding, hidden sweetness/closet saint mysteriousness about him but she was borderline stalking him. She WAS stalking him! Was this a knee-jerk reaction to being out of one's element? All of the signs said he was trouble and she ran to him anyway - in spectacular style I might add.
You ran desperately, scaled a wall, hang on to a tree and challenged the guy. The guy just smirked at you and point out that he could see your panties.
I laughed out loud at that because THAT was a typical anime scene. Of course the typical anime couple from here henceforth enjoys a competitive and love-hate relationship like what happened between Hikari and Kei of the anime S·A(スペシャル·エー) or betwen Alice and Natsume in Gakuen Alice.
Ink tried to capture that feeling with Tomohiro and Katie's relationship but it fell short. Tomohiro's character was well-thought out and developed steadily but his development was dragged down by Katie's character which tried to be complex but just ended up annoying.
Main character aside, I loved the story and I loved the concept. I've been missing Japan since I came home last December and I've been reading any book regarding the country every chance I get. And so here we are.
The book looks at a new perspective of the Shinto mythology and here the kami's descendants are able to manipulate ink through drawing and calligraphy. It builds upon the premise that the word kami means God or more closely, spirits that dwell all around us and also paper as well; but let me point out that the words employ different kanji - 神 (god/spirit) , 紙 (paper). And so does hair - 髪 (kami). Both kanji may have evolved quite differently. I cannot quite connect those two but I am just going to roll with it.
And for the most part, I loved it. Sun created something that I hadn't come upon before and for the first book, I'm giving it:
The first few chapters, well okay, about one third of the book all I could think about was "Kami-sama, this girl is obsessed!" I knew she was intrigues with the boy with all the bad-boy, brooding, hidden sweetness/closet saint mysteriousness about him but she was borderline stalking him. She WAS stalking him! Was this a knee-jerk reaction to being out of one's element? All of the signs said he was trouble and she ran to him anyway - in spectacular style I might add.
You ran desperately, scaled a wall, hang on to a tree and challenged the guy. The guy just smirked at you and point out that he could see your panties.
I laughed out loud at that because THAT was a typical anime scene. Of course the typical anime couple from here henceforth enjoys a competitive and love-hate relationship like what happened between Hikari and Kei of the anime S·A(スペシャル·エー) or betwen Alice and Natsume in Gakuen Alice.
Ink tried to capture that feeling with Tomohiro and Katie's relationship but it fell short. Tomohiro's character was well-thought out and developed steadily but his development was dragged down by Katie's character which tried to be complex but just ended up annoying.
Main character aside, I loved the story and I loved the concept. I've been missing Japan since I came home last December and I've been reading any book regarding the country every chance I get. And so here we are.
The book looks at a new perspective of the Shinto mythology and here the kami's descendants are able to manipulate ink through drawing and calligraphy. It builds upon the premise that the word kami means God or more closely, spirits that dwell all around us and also paper as well; but let me point out that the words employ different kanji - 神 (god/spirit) , 紙 (paper). And so does hair - 髪 (kami). Both kanji may have evolved quite differently. I cannot quite connect those two but I am just going to roll with it.
And for the most part, I loved it. Sun created something that I hadn't come upon before and for the first book, I'm giving it:
INK is an enjoyable book. I liked the use of Japanese mythology, which I haven't seen used in books often. The main character was like-able enough, but the "I'm bad for you, stay away" love interest trope isn't anything new but I thought it was nicely done. I disliked the overuse of Japanese words. I found it unnecessary to replace words in what seemed like every other sentence with ones in Japanese. I don't know Japanese and sometimes I couldn't use context clues so I had to go to the glossary in the back of the book, which I found annoying, or go on not knowing what was said, which I found even more annoying. That was my main complaint but otherwise the story is pretty good.
I have had this book on my shelf FOREVER and I decided that in 2016, it was finally time to read it. I have no idea why I waited so long because I have had it pretty much since its release, but I guess that it just kept falling back on my TBR. Anyway, this book has a really interesting premise with the inclusion of Japanese culture. I used to have a lot of Japanese friends growing up and my elementary school was actually majority Japanese students, so this book really brought me back to that part of my childhood. From the delicious aspects of the food to the little bits of Japanese language thrown it, it was a great reading experience and from what I can tell, pretty authentic. Reading the acknowledgements shows how much work Sun did into researching this world and that part of this novel pulled off really well.
Katie was our main character and ended up being my only major problem with the book. She is a foreigner in Japan, which of course would be a difficult transition, but I had a problem distinguishing her from any other main character. Sure, she’s brave and smart and has unique powers – but what fantasy lead doesn’t? I really was not a huge fan of her character and just wished that she had been given some unique feature that I could take away from, especially in her personality. Also, she falls in love with Tomohiro, a bad boy. I liked their early relationship with all the back and forth banter, but it developed way too quickly after that and became a lot of insta-love. Especially at the end of the book, that is so obvious. I wanted her to separate herself a little bit from him in her decisions, but that didn’t work out. I hope that their relationship expands some more in the next book and also that Katie really flourishes as a character.
The plot was really amazing and what I enjoyed the most. I was a little confused with the idea at first, but I think that I caught on by the end of the book. Tomohiro has the power of ink and can make drawings come to life. Super cool, right?? I loved reading about all the things that he could draw (being artistically untalented myself) and the consequences of that. There are all types of Japanese mythologies involved here and I liked learning about that too because I don’t really know too much about it. The addition of the Japanese gangsters and the twist at the end also added to lots of enemies for Katie and Tomohiro by the end. With the next book, I am really hoping that there is some more of that involved!
Overall, I enjoyed this book. It was a fun, fast-paced read and I loved the inclusion of Japanese culture and mythology. The major downsides that I had were the insta-love romance and the main character, but I am looking forward to seeing what happens in the next book!
Katie was our main character and ended up being my only major problem with the book. She is a foreigner in Japan, which of course would be a difficult transition, but I had a problem distinguishing her from any other main character. Sure, she’s brave and smart and has unique powers – but what fantasy lead doesn’t? I really was not a huge fan of her character and just wished that she had been given some unique feature that I could take away from, especially in her personality. Also, she falls in love with Tomohiro, a bad boy. I liked their early relationship with all the back and forth banter, but it developed way too quickly after that and became a lot of insta-love. Especially at the end of the book, that is so obvious. I wanted her to separate herself a little bit from him in her decisions, but that didn’t work out. I hope that their relationship expands some more in the next book and also that Katie really flourishes as a character.
The plot was really amazing and what I enjoyed the most. I was a little confused with the idea at first, but I think that I caught on by the end of the book. Tomohiro has the power of ink and can make drawings come to life. Super cool, right?? I loved reading about all the things that he could draw (being artistically untalented myself) and the consequences of that. There are all types of Japanese mythologies involved here and I liked learning about that too because I don’t really know too much about it. The addition of the Japanese gangsters and the twist at the end also added to lots of enemies for Katie and Tomohiro by the end. With the next book, I am really hoping that there is some more of that involved!
Overall, I enjoyed this book. It was a fun, fast-paced read and I loved the inclusion of Japanese culture and mythology. The major downsides that I had were the insta-love romance and the main character, but I am looking forward to seeing what happens in the next book!
Let me start off with this question. TWILIGHT, IS THIS YOU?
I'm sure Ms. Sun here had good intentions starting off with this book. I mean, a book taking place in Japan and based off Japanese folklore? Who wouldn't want to read about that? There was also this Inkheart-y aspect to it. Drawing images and having them come to life. How cool is that?! However, after several pages into this book, I realized it was taking the wrong turn. This book would have been marvelous if it weren't for the Young Adult Paranormal Novel formula followed. Don't know what this formula is? Let me explain:
Girl meets boy. Boy is mysterious. Boy has some supernatural power. Girl still insists on seeing boy though he is dangerous. Girl causes boy and his control over his power to go out of hand whenever they are together
Does that not sound familiar to you? *cough* Twilight *cough* Let me draw out the parallels.
• Protagonist
• Katie has to cardboard friends, which she will soon abandon for someone else. Also, did I mention that one of them have a minor crush on Katie?
• Katie meets
• Katie believes that deep down inside Tomo is good and sets out to fix him though he is a major jerk to her. But she excuses all of this by claiming that he is only being rude to her to "protect" her. Ugh, this makes me want to slam my head repetitively against the wall.
• Whenever Katie is around Tomo, he is unable to keep his
The list goes on but I do not want to bore you with all these similarities. This is basically Twilight but in Japan.
Also, this book does seem to provide the perfect plot for your typical drama or anime.
Besides its striking similarity to Twilight, there were also some things ticking me off about Ink.
First off, how did Katie get so fluent in Japanese in only four to five months? I am in my third year of French and if you were to throw me in France, I would not be able to even commit small talk with a Parisian? Katie was able to carry on some lengthy conversations and read the Japanese newspaper without a dictionary at her side. How?! Another thing, Katie switches back and forth from talking in English and Japanese. I was so confused at when she was speaking what.
Katie also had some serous stalking issues. She was basically like Adam Levine in his Animals music video. She followed Tomohiro EVERYWHERE before getting to know him. He told her to stay away but she still watched him like a hawk. But I guess that's a turn-on for him, creepy stalker girls. She held crazy suspicions about Tomo with no evidence except that she thinks that she might have seen one of his drawings move. She was so eager to find out what he was up to. It was like she was out to find some conspiracy.
There was one thing I somewhat liked though. Jun's character was pretty cool besides the fact that he's crazy with the idea of world domination. Honey, I'm sorry to say but that plan is not going to work.
Ink sunk way below my expectations but maybe the second book will redeem it? Who knows? I'll give it a second chance.
so this book was hard to get into. I felt like the main character made a lot of stupid decisions and the first 50 or so pages I was just getting so much second hand embarrassment. I did really enjoy the mythology and all the Japanese culture. I was a little confused with some of it though If the Kami only went into hiding at the end of WW2 then why does nobody remember them? I loved the Japanese words spread throughout the book. I'm really interested in finding out what Katie is and how she connects to everything.
ARC received from the publisher in exchange for an honest opinion.
Why I abandoned Ink: Just. Just give me a minute. I don’t understand why a book I was so excited for turned into a migraine-inducer. Let’s go old school and deal with the good, the bad and the ugly. Sound like a plan? Great!
The good: Amanda Sun certainly knows her Japanese culture. The country is depicted beautifully and the writing style is simply breathtaking. I could feel the cherry blossoms brushing at my cheeks, I felt the awkward shame having to go and take my school slippers off because I’d forgotten. I sat at the same table as the other school kids and drowned under the foreign words I just couldn’t understand.
The bad: *Technically* there is nothing bad about Ink so let’s just get straight to the ugly...
The ugly: Katie is one of the most intense MCs I’ve ever come across in a book. She leaps onto something trivial and shakes it about like a dog with a bone. Tomo just has to look at her and then walk past and she gets it into her head that he has it in for her. Strike One. Then we have her leaving school one day and Tomo gets his bike and cycles off. Katie takes this as him “trying to keep her at a distance”. Eh, no! He’s leaving school for the day, just like all the other students. Unless they’re keeping you at a distance too? Judging by your determined focus (putting it nicely) I’m not at all surprised. Normally it’s the males in YA that seem to have a penchant forstalking following showing an interest in the female but in Ink, it’s the complete opposite.
As for our “love interest” Tomohiro, I really can’t see the attraction. He’s quite bland and abrupt which normally has girls everywhere fanning themselves but not this reader. He’s barely even said two words to Katie before telling her to stay away from him (completely unrelated to the stalking) and as soon as shefollows happens to go to the same abandoned building as him, he basically tells her that because she didn’t listen in the first place, she doesn’t have to stay away anymore.
All in all, I ditched Ink at only 23% after a lot of head shaking because this book could have been AMAZING. I’d still give Amanda Sun’s future novels a try because I did like the writing style but not this at all.
Why I abandoned Ink: Just. Just give me a minute. I don’t understand why a book I was so excited for turned into a migraine-inducer. Let’s go old school and deal with the good, the bad and the ugly. Sound like a plan? Great!
The good: Amanda Sun certainly knows her Japanese culture. The country is depicted beautifully and the writing style is simply breathtaking. I could feel the cherry blossoms brushing at my cheeks, I felt the awkward shame having to go and take my school slippers off because I’d forgotten. I sat at the same table as the other school kids and drowned under the foreign words I just couldn’t understand.
The bad: *Technically* there is nothing bad about Ink so let’s just get straight to the ugly...
The ugly: Katie is one of the most intense MCs I’ve ever come across in a book. She leaps onto something trivial and shakes it about like a dog with a bone. Tomo just has to look at her and then walk past and she gets it into her head that he has it in for her. Strike One. Then we have her leaving school one day and Tomo gets his bike and cycles off. Katie takes this as him “trying to keep her at a distance”. Eh, no! He’s leaving school for the day, just like all the other students. Unless they’re keeping you at a distance too? Judging by your determined focus (putting it nicely) I’m not at all surprised. Normally it’s the males in YA that seem to have a penchant for
As for our “love interest” Tomohiro, I really can’t see the attraction. He’s quite bland and abrupt which normally has girls everywhere fanning themselves but not this reader. He’s barely even said two words to Katie before telling her to stay away from him (completely unrelated to the stalking) and as soon as she
All in all, I ditched Ink at only 23% after a lot of head shaking because this book could have been AMAZING. I’d still give Amanda Sun’s future novels a try because I did like the writing style but not this at all.
