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A review by indiekay
Love & Other Natural Disasters by Misa Sugiura
3.0
This is the second Misa Sugiura book I've read - the first being It's Not Like it's a Secret. Both books have some similarities to them. But I found when I read INLIAS that I really didn't like the romance aspect of the story, but the family stuff was so compelling that I ended up enjoying the book a lot. I also found with that character that I understood her thought processes with decisions she made, and she had a lot of feelings around shame and expectations that I understood well.
I feel like Nozomi in this book has absolutely no concept of shame. Every decision she made had me screaming WHY DID YOU DO THAT. And I was so frustrated with her constantly. But with YA I usually give the character the benefit of the doubt and say "ok, well, they're a teenager. Teenagers do stupid shit." and that helps me calm down (there's a bit in the story near the end where Nozomi asks her dad, "Am I a terrible person?" and he responds, "You're a teenager." which had me going YES!)
The problem is is that this book was more romance-heavy than INLIAS, and I didn't find the family stuff nearly as compelling, so there's not a lot I can say I enjoyed about this? The ending had me going, "Yeah, I don't think these characters are going to be together for longer than 6 months, tops."
I feel like Nozomi in this book has absolutely no concept of shame. Every decision she made had me screaming WHY DID YOU DO THAT. And I was so frustrated with her constantly. But with YA I usually give the character the benefit of the doubt and say "ok, well, they're a teenager. Teenagers do stupid shit." and that helps me calm down (there's a bit in the story near the end where Nozomi asks her dad, "Am I a terrible person?" and he responds, "You're a teenager." which had me going YES!)
The problem is is that this book was more romance-heavy than INLIAS, and I didn't find the family stuff nearly as compelling, so there's not a lot I can say I enjoyed about this? The ending had me going, "Yeah, I don't think these characters are going to be together for longer than 6 months, tops."