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This book and I are very compatible. Or we should have been, rather.
I feel like this is a book that would be irritating for people who don't know Japanese to read, especially when words aren't explained in dialogue or description, but for me, knowing Japanese made this aspect of the book delightful. The strongest element by far is the story's setting. Shizuoka! Sun is spot-on with her descriptions and research, and it was just refreshing to read.
But unfortunately, there was more I disliked about the book than I liked. The story has a slow and cliched beginning. Katie the Foreigner is attracted to Tomohiro because he's dangerous, so she starts stalking him, feeling as though he's hiding something and she has (unbelievably) the right to know what it is. She annoyed me quite a bit as a character, and that spoiled the book a lot for me.
(Also: in the interest of writing the book in English without confusing readers with a lot of Japanese, the author decided to have Katie pick up on Japanese extremely quick [though she is adverse to the language] and thus is speaking very complex and fluent Japanese and only ever stumbling on the word 'bleached.' The whole premise of this irritated me, because yes, while living in Japan you will learn the language quickly, but you need to be there for a decent length, come on, before you're that fluent. It's not a switch you flip. It would have been more believable if the Japanese characters were speaking English. [Not that it's common for high school students to speak fluent English, but they do study it from elementary school!])
The concept of "ink magic" was a really beautiful and intriguing element; I loved the addition of the actual illustrations in the book, and the little animations in the corner. However, the Kami thing fell short for me. Since this is set in Japan, of course the villains are the yakuza. The whole conflict had potential, but I found the execution a little tired; I just didn't care about Katie and Tomohiro as characters, so I didn't care what happened to them. Jun, surprise, turned out to be a cliche-spouting villain who wants to take over Japan, and that's when the story lost me entirely, I think.
This first half of this book, setting aside, is just not good. It reads like your average cliche high school romance--dangerous guy, clueless girl who goes after him anyway because he's stunning. And slight love-triangle with Jun, who we keep encountering! (By guzen! [coincidence]) I say slight, because though Katie notices how good-looking he is, whenever she's with him she just wants to escape so she can go stalk Tomohiro again.
sigh. But once the ink element is finally revealed, the book starts to pick up. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough to rescue the book on the whole, and it began to really drag. I was bored, and couldn't wait to be finished. Alas.
I feel like this is a book that would be irritating for people who don't know Japanese to read, especially when words aren't explained in dialogue or description, but for me, knowing Japanese made this aspect of the book delightful. The strongest element by far is the story's setting. Shizuoka! Sun is spot-on with her descriptions and research, and it was just refreshing to read.
But unfortunately, there was more I disliked about the book than I liked. The story has a slow and cliched beginning. Katie the Foreigner is attracted to Tomohiro because he's dangerous, so she starts stalking him, feeling as though he's hiding something and she has (unbelievably) the right to know what it is. She annoyed me quite a bit as a character, and that spoiled the book a lot for me.
(Also: in the interest of writing the book in English without confusing readers with a lot of Japanese, the author decided to have Katie pick up on Japanese extremely quick [though she is adverse to the language] and thus is speaking very complex and fluent Japanese and only ever stumbling on the word 'bleached.' The whole premise of this irritated me, because yes, while living in Japan you will learn the language quickly, but you need to be there for a decent length, come on, before you're that fluent. It's not a switch you flip. It would have been more believable if the Japanese characters were speaking English. [Not that it's common for high school students to speak fluent English, but they do study it from elementary school!])
The concept of "ink magic" was a really beautiful and intriguing element; I loved the addition of the actual illustrations in the book, and the little animations in the corner. However, the Kami thing fell short for me. Since this is set in Japan, of course the villains are the yakuza. The whole conflict had potential, but I found the execution a little tired; I just didn't care about Katie and Tomohiro as characters, so I didn't care what happened to them. Jun, surprise, turned out to be a cliche-spouting villain who wants to take over Japan, and that's when the story lost me entirely, I think.
This first half of this book, setting aside, is just not good. It reads like your average cliche high school romance--dangerous guy, clueless girl who goes after him anyway because he's stunning. And slight love-triangle with Jun, who we keep encountering! (By guzen! [coincidence]) I say slight, because though Katie notices how good-looking he is, whenever she's with him she just wants to escape so she can go stalk Tomohiro again.
sigh. But once the ink element is finally revealed, the book starts to pick up. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough to rescue the book on the whole, and it began to really drag. I was bored, and couldn't wait to be finished. Alas.