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A review by littlebookowl
Rain by Amanda Sun
4.0
I received this book for free from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
THE SHORT
Rain was a wonderful sequel which continued to keep the beauty and rich Japanese culture, mythology and setting alive. The characters continued to develop and surprise, leaving you conflicted about who you thought you could trust. This book had a nice, calm pace with some intense moments leading up to the conclusion - though the section around the middle did drag slightly. I think this was a great sequel which some surprises towards the end which will definitely lead to an intense third book!
THE LONG
The main thing which I love about this series is how strong and present the Japanese elements are in this book. Although I have not read many books set in countries outside of the U.S.A. or England (excluding fantasy worlds), for the ones I do come across, I find that the setting and cultural differences are somewhat lacking. Amanda Sun certainly has no problems here and highlights the beauty of Japan so wonderfully. Furthermore, Katie's struggles with adjusting to the culture and abiding by the expected social behaviours were very realistic.
That being said, some of her other mistakes and decisions began to get a bit irritating. She isn't as forthcoming with Tomo about some of the things she did as she probably should have been. This kind of correlates to the love triangle that isn't really a love triangle... things never progress far enough, but outside sources kind of make it into some form of a pentagon... but not quite. It's a weird situation.
There was so much mystery surrounding some of the characters - you could never really pinpoint whether they were helping Katie or working against here. There were plenty of surprises along the way, and my opinions of a few of the characters have drastically changed! I'm really intrigued to see how the characters continue to progress, and I can't wait to see what happens in the next book!
THE SHORT
Rain was a wonderful sequel which continued to keep the beauty and rich Japanese culture, mythology and setting alive. The characters continued to develop and surprise, leaving you conflicted about who you thought you could trust. This book had a nice, calm pace with some intense moments leading up to the conclusion - though the section around the middle did drag slightly. I think this was a great sequel which some surprises towards the end which will definitely lead to an intense third book!
THE LONG
The main thing which I love about this series is how strong and present the Japanese elements are in this book. Although I have not read many books set in countries outside of the U.S.A. or England (excluding fantasy worlds), for the ones I do come across, I find that the setting and cultural differences are somewhat lacking. Amanda Sun certainly has no problems here and highlights the beauty of Japan so wonderfully. Furthermore, Katie's struggles with adjusting to the culture and abiding by the expected social behaviours were very realistic.
That being said, some of her other mistakes and decisions began to get a bit irritating. She isn't as forthcoming with Tomo about some of the things she did as she probably should have been. This kind of correlates to the love triangle that isn't really a love triangle... things never progress far enough, but outside sources kind of make it into some form of a pentagon... but not quite. It's a weird situation.
There was so much mystery surrounding some of the characters - you could never really pinpoint whether they were helping Katie or working against here. There were plenty of surprises along the way, and my opinions of a few of the characters have drastically changed! I'm really intrigued to see how the characters continue to progress, and I can't wait to see what happens in the next book!