Scan barcode
A review by bibliotropic
Rain by Amanda Sun
3.0
The continuation of the Paper Gods series picks up 2 weeks after the previous novel left off, with Katie deciding to stay in Japan to be with Tomohiro and to learn more about her relation to the ink. But things take a turn for the worse when Tomohiro reveals he’s having greater trouble controlling his powers, Jun’s loyalties are less clear, and Katie herself finds out things about her heritage that make her question where she’s meant to be even more.
Rain was very much “Second verse, same as the first,” which means that if you enjoyed Ink, you’ll very likely enjoy Rain just as much. Same strengths, same weaknesses. I’m still enjoying the portrayal of Japan, though every so often there’s linguistic quirks that I’m not sure work so well in translation — most of the characters speak Japanese unless otherwise stated, which is translated into English for the sake of the reader, only every once in a while an English idiom will be thrown in, and I’m never sure whether I’m just supposed to assume the general intent was translated into something the reader will find more familiar rather than the author including Japanese idioms, or whether I’m meant to assume that the author assumes the same phrase crosses language barriers. More likely the former, since Sun thus far seems pretty decent when it comes to language, dropping Japanese words and phrases into the text in a way that makes for a highly entertaining vocab-building lesson, but those things have always thrown me out of the groove, in part because I’ve read so many books involving other cultures and other languages that utterly fail to understand that these things have their own norms and aren’t just North America with funny writing.
It got increasingly difficult for me to keep a handle on the characters, though. Certain characters strengthened, were made more secure and easy to grasp, but others seemed to practically flip on their heads and turn into the opposite of what I’d come to understand. Shiori goes from a sweet girl with an unrequited crush to a venomous backbiter. Ikeda goes from a tough but wary woman to much of the same. Jun goes from a nice guy with uncertain loyalties to someone who says he’ll take over the world by any means necessary, and at that point I was left wondering when some of these characters turned into caricatures. Ikeda and Shiori weren’t that developed to begin with, so their actions can be excused easily enough, but Jun seemed like he just suddenly lost his grip on reality and went full batshit-crazy.
That being said, I understand that this series takes many elements from shoujo anime, and that kind of twist isn’t entirely unexpected from that medium, so in that sense, I can understand the character shift a bit better. It’s still a bit jarring to read, though, and seems to come out of left field, even considering the events of the novel.
Rain was very much “Second verse, same as the first,” which means that if you enjoyed Ink, you’ll very likely enjoy Rain just as much. Same strengths, same weaknesses. I’m still enjoying the portrayal of Japan, though every so often there’s linguistic quirks that I’m not sure work so well in translation — most of the characters speak Japanese unless otherwise stated, which is translated into English for the sake of the reader, only every once in a while an English idiom will be thrown in, and I’m never sure whether I’m just supposed to assume the general intent was translated into something the reader will find more familiar rather than the author including Japanese idioms, or whether I’m meant to assume that the author assumes the same phrase crosses language barriers. More likely the former, since Sun thus far seems pretty decent when it comes to language, dropping Japanese words and phrases into the text in a way that makes for a highly entertaining vocab-building lesson, but those things have always thrown me out of the groove, in part because I’ve read so many books involving other cultures and other languages that utterly fail to understand that these things have their own norms and aren’t just North America with funny writing.
It got increasingly difficult for me to keep a handle on the characters, though. Certain characters strengthened, were made more secure and easy to grasp, but others seemed to practically flip on their heads and turn into the opposite of what I’d come to understand. Shiori goes from a sweet girl with an unrequited crush to a venomous backbiter. Ikeda goes from a tough but wary woman to much of the same. Jun goes from a nice guy with uncertain loyalties to someone who says he’ll take over the world by any means necessary, and at that point I was left wondering when some of these characters turned into caricatures. Ikeda and Shiori weren’t that developed to begin with, so their actions can be excused easily enough, but Jun seemed like he just suddenly lost his grip on reality and went full batshit-crazy.
That being said, I understand that this series takes many elements from shoujo anime, and that kind of twist isn’t entirely unexpected from that medium, so in that sense, I can understand the character shift a bit better. It’s still a bit jarring to read, though, and seems to come out of left field, even considering the events of the novel.