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3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
After some pretty disappointing reads consecutively, especially in the romantasy genre, it was nice to pick something up that was fun and enjoyable, even if it wasn't an all-time favorite.
I really liked Katie and Tomo's relationship, it felt realistic, if a bit quick. They had some really sweet and soft moments that definitely gave me a bit of that butterfly feeling, while also having fun and snappy banter.
The Japanese setting was great too. I always love reading stories of a girl traveling to a foreign country and falling in love with the culture. It's a way for someone, like myself, who can't travel to these places. And it also helps that I'm already super interested in Japan, and have watched my fair share of JDramas and read a ton of shoujo manga haha.
I really liked Katie and Tomo's relationship, it felt realistic, if a bit quick. They had some really sweet and soft moments that definitely gave me a bit of that butterfly feeling, while also having fun and snappy banter.
The Japanese setting was great too. I always love reading stories of a girl traveling to a foreign country and falling in love with the culture. It's a way for someone, like myself, who can't travel to these places. And it also helps that I'm already super interested in Japan, and have watched my fair share of JDramas and read a ton of shoujo manga haha.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Ink...I truly have mixed feelings about Ink.
I love that Ink is set in Japan. I love that Katie is living in Japan with her aunt while she's waiting to find out if she'll be able to live with her grandparents. I love that she's been there long enough that she understands the culture and is making progress with learning Japanese. I love the focus on Japanese mythology and how the Kami are the focus of the book.
However, the thing I love about Ink are also the things I don't like. It's all very confusing, and it's why I have mixed feelings. The fact that it's set in Japan and focuses on Japanese mythology is refreshing. It's nice to see mythology that's not Greek. It's nice that Katie has picked up on Japanese, and that there is a word of Japanese here and there. It really makes me feel like I'm in Japan, and right in the middle of things. I wasn't expecting that, and there were a couple times when I had to google something because I wasn't sure what something meant. For the most part, I was able to figure out a word or two, based on what was going on, but it wasn't until the end when I realized there was a glossary! Which is actually nice, but given I read Ink on my computer, I didn't actually catch that. Still, it was nice to have it there.
There were a few sketches throughout book, and they were beautiful! Unfortunately, the first picture didn't want to load on my Nook, so I ended up reading it on my laptop. In the end, it wasn't a big deal, but it's entirely possible that me not liking the book as much as I was expecting might be because I was distracted by other things.
I didn't pay too much attention to the characters. Katie has some special connection to the Kami, but we don't learn what it is yet. I did like that she wasn't Kami but had a connection, and I liked seeing Katie try to figure out what was going on with Tomo. It really was nice to learn about the Kami and to learn a little bit more about Japanese mythology.
Final Thoughts: I loved that this mythology re-telling focused on Japanese mythology and how I felt like I really was in Japan, going through a typical day for Katie. I really did like that Katie's life was pretty ordinary, even though she and people she knew had connections to Japanese gods. I found myself getting a little distracted by the random Japanese throughout the novel and by the really pretty sketches throughout the book, and I'm not completely sure I gave Ink the attention it deserves. Still, it was really refreshing and unique in comparison to a lot of the other paranormal/mythology re-tellings I've read, so Ink gets 3 stars.
I love that Ink is set in Japan. I love that Katie is living in Japan with her aunt while she's waiting to find out if she'll be able to live with her grandparents. I love that she's been there long enough that she understands the culture and is making progress with learning Japanese. I love the focus on Japanese mythology and how the Kami are the focus of the book.
However, the thing I love about Ink are also the things I don't like. It's all very confusing, and it's why I have mixed feelings. The fact that it's set in Japan and focuses on Japanese mythology is refreshing. It's nice to see mythology that's not Greek. It's nice that Katie has picked up on Japanese, and that there is a word of Japanese here and there. It really makes me feel like I'm in Japan, and right in the middle of things. I wasn't expecting that, and there were a couple times when I had to google something because I wasn't sure what something meant. For the most part, I was able to figure out a word or two, based on what was going on, but it wasn't until the end when I realized there was a glossary! Which is actually nice, but given I read Ink on my computer, I didn't actually catch that. Still, it was nice to have it there.
There were a few sketches throughout book, and they were beautiful! Unfortunately, the first picture didn't want to load on my Nook, so I ended up reading it on my laptop. In the end, it wasn't a big deal, but it's entirely possible that me not liking the book as much as I was expecting might be because I was distracted by other things.
I didn't pay too much attention to the characters. Katie has some special connection to the Kami, but we don't learn what it is yet. I did like that she wasn't Kami but had a connection, and I liked seeing Katie try to figure out what was going on with Tomo. It really was nice to learn about the Kami and to learn a little bit more about Japanese mythology.
Final Thoughts: I loved that this mythology re-telling focused on Japanese mythology and how I felt like I really was in Japan, going through a typical day for Katie. I really did like that Katie's life was pretty ordinary, even though she and people she knew had connections to Japanese gods. I found myself getting a little distracted by the random Japanese throughout the novel and by the really pretty sketches throughout the book, and I'm not completely sure I gave Ink the attention it deserves. Still, it was really refreshing and unique in comparison to a lot of the other paranormal/mythology re-tellings I've read, so Ink gets 3 stars.
Series rating: A very unsure 2.5 stars
I’m really conflicted on this series. One the one hand it presented a mostly accurate view of life in Japan which is sorely lacking in English novels and introduced a lot of cool Japanese mythology. On the other hand, it bungled up a lot of the fine details, the mythology is forced as hell, and the plot is basically Twilight.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
A girl moves to a new place because of parent reasons where she is instantly drawn to a boy who is dangerous and described as bad for her. Hell, Tomo even tries to push her away early on and they have the forest clearing reveal of his powers. I wonder if his copper hair sparkles…
So the basic plot is nothing special; girl meets boy, boy has powers, girl must help boy with powers to save the world. I wanted to call this Tiger’s Curse in Japan but honestly Amanda Sun knows WAY more about Japan than Colleen Houck even knows exists. That said, the constant smattering of Japanese gets incredibly tedious. I live in Japan and speak a passable amount of Japanese but I found it really distracting. I understand using the original Japanese words for objects or things we have no literal translation for but for individual phrases? In theory, some 95% of the dialogue is in Japanese and is just being presented in English for our benefit so then writing certain phrases in Japanese to make them stick out seems pointless. And no, they aren’t phrases which have a meaning that doesn’t properly translate. Writing “Gomen” then immediately following it with “I’m sorry” just seems like you want to up your word count.
As for the Japanese life portrayed I get the feeling that Sun watches a lot of Japanese dramas. The details about life are right but turned up a notch on the unrealistic, over dramatic scale. Take the scene when Katie jumps into a tree to yell a proclamation to Tomo, who she barely knows, and forgets she’s wearing a skirt and thus flashing everyone. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that exact scene in a dozen manga/anime. But in real life? People just don’t act like that. Also PDA is really not a thing here. There’s more PDA in these books than I’ve seen in two years living in Japan.
The characters are sadly quite uninteresting. I can relate to Katie’s blonde-girl-in-Japan struggles but she doesn’t have nearly enough of them. Oh, she studied 5 months of Japanese in America before coming? Clearly she knows enough to study in a regular Japanese high school with no special assistance. Uso! There’s also a few lines devoted to how the cultural differences between Americans and Japanese will affect her relationship with Tomo before it’s hastily pushed under the kotatsu for our happy relationship to continue. Katie’s relationship with Tomo itself is rather problematic in that she bases her decision to. She’s self-aware enough to know this is unhealthy but does it anyways. In fact, almost all her decisions center around Tomo who by the end of the series she’s only known about a year. Yup, sounds like Twilight.
The other characters are kind of a loss too. Jun was an interesting character until book 2 when he Yuki and Tanaka are easily the most likeable characters but as the series goes on they get pushed further and further to the background until they’re almost nonexistent. Again, sounds like Twilight.
The mythology is pretty interesting in that it takes from real myths and makes a fun “what if” story out of them. Unfortunately, this gets westernized in some aspects such as Susanou being referred to as the gatekeeper of hell and thus evil. Susanou is 1) not the gatekeeper of hell (that’s his mom Izanami) 2) the underworld does not equal Christian hell and 3) Susanou is not evil, at least no more than anyone else. That said, it is a nice way to introduce Japanese mythology to an audience that may be unfamiliar with it.
The biggest problem comes in Katie being I think the author came at this more from a perspective of “I want to share this amazing culture/history I got to experience” rather than “let me use an exotic setting to sell books!” but it was probably still a bad choice. If the Katie being special element was removed I think the story could still work just fine. Meh.
In the end, I found the series not all that engaging and a bit of a struggle to finish but it did encourage me to work harder on my Japanese. I guess I recommend it if you want a combination of Twilight, Tiger's Curse, and Japan without much camp value.
I’m really conflicted on this series. One the one hand it presented a mostly accurate view of life in Japan which is sorely lacking in English novels and introduced a lot of cool Japanese mythology. On the other hand, it bungled up a lot of the fine details, the mythology is forced as hell, and the plot is basically Twilight.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
A girl moves to a new place because of parent reasons where she is instantly drawn to a boy who is dangerous and described as bad for her. Hell, Tomo even tries to push her away early on and they have the forest clearing reveal of his powers. I wonder if his copper hair sparkles…
So the basic plot is nothing special; girl meets boy, boy has powers, girl must help boy with powers to save the world. I wanted to call this Tiger’s Curse in Japan but honestly Amanda Sun knows WAY more about Japan than Colleen Houck even knows exists. That said, the constant smattering of Japanese gets incredibly tedious. I live in Japan and speak a passable amount of Japanese but I found it really distracting. I understand using the original Japanese words for objects or things we have no literal translation for but for individual phrases? In theory, some 95% of the dialogue is in Japanese and is just being presented in English for our benefit so then writing certain phrases in Japanese to make them stick out seems pointless. And no, they aren’t phrases which have a meaning that doesn’t properly translate. Writing “Gomen” then immediately following it with “I’m sorry” just seems like you want to up your word count.
As for the Japanese life portrayed I get the feeling that Sun watches a lot of Japanese dramas. The details about life are right but turned up a notch on the unrealistic, over dramatic scale. Take the scene when Katie jumps into a tree to yell a proclamation to Tomo, who she barely knows, and forgets she’s wearing a skirt and thus flashing everyone. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that exact scene in a dozen manga/anime. But in real life? People just don’t act like that. Also PDA is really not a thing here. There’s more PDA in these books than I’ve seen in two years living in Japan.
The characters are sadly quite uninteresting. I can relate to Katie’s blonde-girl-in-Japan struggles but she doesn’t have nearly enough of them. Oh, she studied 5 months of Japanese in America before coming? Clearly she knows enough to study in a regular Japanese high school with no special assistance. Uso! There’s also a few lines devoted to how the cultural differences between Americans and Japanese will affect her relationship with Tomo before it’s hastily pushed under the kotatsu for our happy relationship to continue. Katie’s relationship with Tomo itself is rather problematic in that she bases her decision to
Spoiler
continue living in Japan completely on himSpoiler
She also regularly notes that he is dangerous, capable of hurting or killing her and even refers to him as a “demon” in intrusive thoughts for the bulk of a book.The other characters are kind of a loss too. Jun was an interesting character until book 2 when he
Spoiler
gets turned to flat villain along with Shiori both of whom get hasty redemptions in the end that make no sense. Ishikawa goes the opposite direction as starting out flat villain and growing a personality over the books (also yay LGBTQ representation!)The mythology is pretty interesting in that it takes from real myths and makes a fun “what if” story out of them. Unfortunately, this gets westernized in some aspects such as Susanou being referred to as the gatekeeper of hell and thus evil. Susanou is 1) not the gatekeeper of hell (that’s his mom Izanami) 2) the underworld does not equal Christian hell and 3) Susanou is not evil, at least no more than anyone else.
Spoiler
Over the course of the story Amateratsu is much more evil than anyone else and she’s supposed to be the “good guy”.The biggest problem comes in Katie being
Spoiler
the avatar of Amateratsu despite being a very blonde white girl. The reasoning for why is a kind of forced “oh when your mom was pregnant she ate Kami fruit” since Katie by her own admission obviously doesn’t have a drop of Japanese blood in her. By the end of the series she’s kind of the special in that she’s the avatar of Amateratsu who is supposed to betray Tomo and complete this unending chain of betrayal and death and that does bother me even if it is somewhat averted in the end.In the end, I found the series not all that engaging and a bit of a struggle to finish but it did encourage me to work harder on my Japanese. I guess I recommend it if you want a combination of Twilight, Tiger's Curse, and Japan without much camp value.
After the death of her mother, Katie Green moves to Japan to live with her Aunt Diane. Although learning the Japanese customs and language was difficult for her at first, Katie began to make friends, especially Yuu Tomohirso. She first met him briefly while curiously watching him break up with his ex-girlfriend. As she tried to sneak out of the room, Katie picked up a crumpled paper Yuu threw on the ground which had a drawing of a young pregnant girl. Interesting, the ink drawing moved on the paper and the young girl looked up at Katie. As Katie struggled with her curiosity she began to follow Yuu to a deserted park to watch him draw. Eventually, Yuu invited Katie to sit with him and a friendship began. As this relationship bloomed and secrets shared, they began to realize the special bond between them; putting them both in danger. Katie must decide if staying in Japan to face this danger is worth her love and friendship for Yuu or to run to safety in Canada with her grandparents.
As I read this story, I felt I was reading a manga. Most manga has a twisted triangle with a touch of action and humor. However, with the animation of Yuu's drawings, having this in illustrated form may have been difficult. I liked how I could get more of the story with the use of words and imagery rather than pictures. Besides learning the Japanese language creatively used throughout the book and their customs, I was able to learn of folklore I have never read about. Although the story is typical to the young adult genre with a love story and a possible triangle, the unique fantasy theme and Japanese storyline makes this novel unique. I would purchase this for my high school library and to recommend it to the students who love manga.
Thank you Net Galley
As I read this story, I felt I was reading a manga. Most manga has a twisted triangle with a touch of action and humor. However, with the animation of Yuu's drawings, having this in illustrated form may have been difficult. I liked how I could get more of the story with the use of words and imagery rather than pictures. Besides learning the Japanese language creatively used throughout the book and their customs, I was able to learn of folklore I have never read about. Although the story is typical to the young adult genre with a love story and a possible triangle, the unique fantasy theme and Japanese storyline makes this novel unique. I would purchase this for my high school library and to recommend it to the students who love manga.
Thank you Net Galley
Just as great the second time around, if not better!
Imagination with japanese background! Worth reading and for learning new words!!!
This book was so good I nearly cried when it was over. It was so, so unique and it's one of the best books I've read this year. Thank you, Miss Sun, for this book, and I can't wait for the sequel!
