I am so excited to get to be apart of this tour by Turn the Page Tours. This book was beautiful and I loved every second of it. It was chockful of great characters that built a great friendship. This is a review and favorite quotes stop, so check out my thoughts below.
Check out information and links relating to the book and author below.
About
The Book:
Author: Harmony Becker
Publisher: First Second
Pub. Date: November 9, 2021
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary, Graphic Novel
Pages: ~350
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Book Depository
Bookshop Indiebound
A young adult graphic novel about three foreign exchange students and the pleasures, and difficulties, of adjusting to living in Japan.
Living in a new country is no walk in the park―Nao, Hyejung, and Tina can all attest to
that. The three of them became fast friends through living together in the Himawari
House in Tokyo and attending the same Japanese cram school. Nao came to Japan to
reconnect with her Japanese heritage, while Hyejung and Tina came to find freedom
and their own paths. Though each of them has her own motivations and challanges,
they all deal with language barriers, being a fish out of water, self discovery, love, and
family.
My Rating: 5/5 stars
Favorite Quotes:
About Harmony Becker:
My Review:
I am so very thankful that I was allowed to take part in a tour for this graphic novel. Thank you to everyone involved who allowed me to get a copy of this amazing. It was absolutely stunning, and I am so happy that I was able to read this.
I love the characters in this book. Nao, Hyejung, and Tina are amazing characters that are given enough time to feel fleshed out. No one’s backstories seemed forced or unreasonable. They’re all very sweet characters that you can root for.
Nao is the main character of the three. She feels out of place in Japan after feeling out of place in the US since she came from Japan. Her feelings, thoughts, and struggles were handled very well and helped tie me to the character. I loved all three of the characters, but Nao is probably my favorite. Her struggle was easy to understand, and you were with her since the beginning of the book.
I love the friendship built between the main three characters, and the two guys to a lesser extent. They mesh well together and bond over their shared experiences with family and moving to Japan. It was beautiful and honest and just so much fun.
One of the things I really enjoyed about the book is how they handled words that characters didn’t know. There was a scribble in place of the translated words or a person imaging what they thought the others were saying. It was a nice way to illustrate the translation/understanding issues without giving the answers to the readers and not the characters.
The artwork in this book was absolutely stunning. Each character was drawn differently enough where I didn’t struggle separating them. The food and buildings were also illustrated beautifully.
I loved everything about this book. The main characters, the side characters, the ties of friendship between them. It was all just great, and I would have been happy with spending a few more hundred pages with these characters.
"What's wrong wit' you? Why you think I'm gonna like FISH SPERM?"
"I'll protect that place with you."
"Stop trying to hug me."
"Let's go home lah. The flowers are stressing me out."
"It was real to me and isn't that enough?"
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