Now 2023 Previous Articles Road Essays Road Reviews Author Black Authors Title Source Age Genre Series Format Inclusivity LGBTA Portfolio Artwork WIP

Recent posts


Month in review

Reviews
Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire
Ascender, Volume 2: The Dead Sea by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen
Bait and Witch by Angela M. Sanders
Black Canary: Ignite by Meg Cabot and Cara McGee
Clues to the Universe by Christina Li
Delicious in Dungeon, Volume 6 by Ryoko Kui
Five Unicorn Flush by T.J. Berry
Ghost-Spider, Volume 2: Party People by Seanan McGuire and Ig Guara (Illustrations)
Happily Ever Afters by Elise Bryant
The Haunting of Rookward House by Darcy Coates
Hide and Seek by Sarah Mlynowski, Lauren Myracle and Emily Jenkins
The Hound of Florence by Felix Salten
Legend in Green Velvet by Elizabeth Peters
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
Magic and Macaroons by Bailey Cates
The Meet-Cute Project by Rhiannon Richardson
Mighty Jack and the Goblin King by Ben Hatke
Mistletoe Man by Susan Wittig Albert
My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life by Rachel Cohn
No Such Thing as Ghosts by Ursula Vernon
Oh My Gods! by Stephanie Cooke, Insha Fitzpatrick, and Juliana Moon (Illustrations)
On What Grounds by Cleo Coyle (re-read)
Roman and Jewel by Dana L. Davis
Shopaholic to the Stars by Sophie Kinsella
Sky Island by L. Frank Baum
Something Borrowed by Richelle Mead
Spoiler Alert by Olivia Dade
Spore by Alex Scarrow
Stella's Stellar Hair by Yesenia Moises
These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong
Winter of Secrets by Vicki Delany

Miscellaneous
December 2020 Sources

December 2020 Summary

Previous month



Rating System

5 stars: Completely enjoyable or compelling
4 stars: Good but flawed
3 stars: Average
2 stars: OK
1 star: Did not finish

Reading Challenges

Canadian Book Challenge: 2023-2024

Beat the Backlist 2023

Artwork
Chicken Art



Privacy policy

This blog does not collect personal data. It doesn't set cookies. Email addresses are used to respond to comments or "contact us" messages and then deleted.


My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life: 01/04/21

My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life

My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life by Rachel Cohn reads like a YA mashup of Lost in Translation and Annie, if she had been reunited with a long lost father, rather than adopted by a wealthy man. Elle Zoellner on her sixteenth birthday is taken out of foster care and flown to Tokyo to live with Kenji Takahari.

Elle isn't ready for the huge cultural shift of living in a different country, in a luxury tower (that her family owns), going to an elite private school. Sure, she has a thick binder of what to do and what not to do, but she's still overwhelmed, and understandably pissy through the early days of her stay.

One of the awkward plot points is Elle's mixed heritage. Not only does she have an American mother and a Japanese mother, but her mother is Black. Rachel Cohn is neither Japanese nor Black and some of Elle's observations, experiences, and interactions come off as awkward.

Frankly the big themes: a girl living in foster care being plopped into the middle of a wealthy family she didn't know she had could have just as easily been set in the United States. The cultural differences of one region/class vs. another region/class could easily have been done without leaving the country.

Four stars

Comments (0)


Lab puppy
Name:
Email (won't be posted):
Blog URL:
Comment:

Twitter Tumblr Mastadon Flickr Facebook Facebook Contact me

1997-2023 Sarah Sammis