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A review by indiekay
It's Not Like It's a Secret by Misa Sugiura
5.0
4.5 stars
I have a lot of thoughts about this one. It has a lot of bad reviews on here, and I think that comes down to the fact that if you're reading this expecting a romance story, you're going to be VERY disappointed. This does not fit the romance genre at all. This is YA literary fiction, in my opinion.
I think if I had read this as a teenager, it would have become a favourite of mine, right up there with Perks of Being a Wallflower. I think this book has a lot of important things to say.
This review contains spoilers.
So, Sana is a first generation Japanese-American, who is told at the beginning of the book by her mother that they're moving to California - Sana is, of course, mad about this. She's frustrated about the fact that she has no say in the matter. This is one of the big themes in this book: Sana's parents make the decisions, and Sana has no say in anything. When she tries to complain, she's told she's being selfish. She is told often in the book by her mother that she needs to have "Gaman" - she needs to endure with patience and dignity. Sana TRIES, but sometimes she wishes she could just throw a tantrum about things, when life is being unfair.
Well, since Sana is moving, she decides she's going to invite herself to a party for the first time. Her best friend has grown distant from her as they've grown up - her best friend goes to all the parties, has a boyfriend she's constantly with, etc etc. Sana wants to go to a party with said friend before she moves away for good. She drinks while at this party, and when she goes to the bathroom sees that her face is red and puffy from the alcohol, and she's mortified. When she goes back out and dances with the other kids, she sings along to a song and a classmate says a racist micro-aggression to Sana, that has Sana stopping in her tracks. This is another theme in the book - there are plenty of micro-aggressions, biases, stereotypes. Some directed at Sana, some directed by Sana or her mother towards other people.
Sana moves. The first big thing she realises when they get to California is that People of Colour are EVERYWHERE. She was the only Asian person in her old school, and now she lives in a place where, in any given room, POC outnumber white people. She's floored by this. When she goes to school the first day she meets a goth guy, Caleb, that points out the Asian girls as they walk in. He tells her something along the line of, "they're all exactly the same." and Sana gets offended, because YEAH they sounds super racist, Caleb. And then he says "you'll end up friends with them." because she's also Asian. Again, super racist, Caleb.
But... Well, Sana becomes friends with them. When she gets home she tells her mom about the new group, and her mom asks if any of them are Japanese. When Sana says they're mostly Vietnamese and Chinese, her mother says you can't trust Chinese people, and Sana is appalled. Like I said, loves of racist stereotypes in this book.
There's a girl Sana likes - a Mexican girl named Jamie that runs track. So Sana joins the track team so she can spend time with Jamie. They hit it off, and Jamie starts coming over to Sana's place after track meetups so they can do homework together. They end up getting together. Again, I don't feel like this book is a romance book, so the love plotline of this story didn't feel like the MAIN plotline for me. I didn't really have any feels one way or the other about wanting the characters to stay together - in fact, at some points, I was actually hoping they'd breakup, because there's some toxic relationship stuff coming up.
Sana's English class has to do a poetry book, and she and Jamie have a love of poetry in common, so they start this cute thing where they write a poem to each other in a journal they pass back and forth. I loved this. If I had a physical copy of this book instead of having listened to the audiobook, I would write out all the poems mentioned and slot those pages into the parts of the book where the poems are mentioned.
So lets talk about one of the messier parts of this book: Sana found out when she was 12 years old that her dad might be cheating on her mom. She didn't know what to do with this information, so she just tried to forget about it, and nothing bad happened, so she let it go. But in the present time, she looks at her dad's phone one day and sees a string of emojis from the same number she had seen when she was 12. She feels sick. Her dad has been cheating, all this time. What is she supposed to do with this information?
...........Ok I want to finish writing this but it's been half an hour and I need to do other stuff LOL. Anyway I think it's a good book, but not a good romance genre book. It's uncomfortable, it's messy, the character isn't always likeable. But it's GOOD. Give it a chance.
I have a lot of thoughts about this one. It has a lot of bad reviews on here, and I think that comes down to the fact that if you're reading this expecting a romance story, you're going to be VERY disappointed. This does not fit the romance genre at all. This is YA literary fiction, in my opinion.
I think if I had read this as a teenager, it would have become a favourite of mine, right up there with Perks of Being a Wallflower. I think this book has a lot of important things to say.
This review contains spoilers.
So, Sana is a first generation Japanese-American, who is told at the beginning of the book by her mother that they're moving to California - Sana is, of course, mad about this. She's frustrated about the fact that she has no say in the matter. This is one of the big themes in this book: Sana's parents make the decisions, and Sana has no say in anything. When she tries to complain, she's told she's being selfish. She is told often in the book by her mother that she needs to have "Gaman" - she needs to endure with patience and dignity. Sana TRIES, but sometimes she wishes she could just throw a tantrum about things, when life is being unfair.
Well, since Sana is moving, she decides she's going to invite herself to a party for the first time. Her best friend has grown distant from her as they've grown up - her best friend goes to all the parties, has a boyfriend she's constantly with, etc etc. Sana wants to go to a party with said friend before she moves away for good. She drinks while at this party, and when she goes to the bathroom sees that her face is red and puffy from the alcohol, and she's mortified. When she goes back out and dances with the other kids, she sings along to a song and a classmate says a racist micro-aggression to Sana, that has Sana stopping in her tracks. This is another theme in the book - there are plenty of micro-aggressions, biases, stereotypes. Some directed at Sana, some directed by Sana or her mother towards other people.
Sana moves. The first big thing she realises when they get to California is that People of Colour are EVERYWHERE. She was the only Asian person in her old school, and now she lives in a place where, in any given room, POC outnumber white people. She's floored by this. When she goes to school the first day she meets a goth guy, Caleb, that points out the Asian girls as they walk in. He tells her something along the line of, "they're all exactly the same." and Sana gets offended, because YEAH they sounds super racist, Caleb. And then he says "you'll end up friends with them." because she's also Asian. Again, super racist, Caleb.
But... Well, Sana becomes friends with them. When she gets home she tells her mom about the new group, and her mom asks if any of them are Japanese. When Sana says they're mostly Vietnamese and Chinese, her mother says you can't trust Chinese people, and Sana is appalled. Like I said, loves of racist stereotypes in this book.
There's a girl Sana likes - a Mexican girl named Jamie that runs track. So Sana joins the track team so she can spend time with Jamie. They hit it off, and Jamie starts coming over to Sana's place after track meetups so they can do homework together. They end up getting together. Again, I don't feel like this book is a romance book, so the love plotline of this story didn't feel like the MAIN plotline for me. I didn't really have any feels one way or the other about wanting the characters to stay together - in fact, at some points, I was actually hoping they'd breakup, because there's some toxic relationship stuff coming up.
Sana's English class has to do a poetry book, and she and Jamie have a love of poetry in common, so they start this cute thing where they write a poem to each other in a journal they pass back and forth. I loved this. If I had a physical copy of this book instead of having listened to the audiobook, I would write out all the poems mentioned and slot those pages into the parts of the book where the poems are mentioned.
So lets talk about one of the messier parts of this book: Sana found out when she was 12 years old that her dad might be cheating on her mom. She didn't know what to do with this information, so she just tried to forget about it, and nothing bad happened, so she let it go. But in the present time, she looks at her dad's phone one day and sees a string of emojis from the same number she had seen when she was 12. She feels sick. Her dad has been cheating, all this time. What is she supposed to do with this information?
...........Ok I want to finish writing this but it's been half an hour and I need to do other stuff LOL. Anyway I think it's a good book, but not a good romance genre book. It's uncomfortable, it's messy, the character isn't always likeable. But it's GOOD. Give it a chance.