Today I'm tackling a book from a much hated genre: teen paranormal romance.
Don't worry there's no sparkly vampires here, so sit down and buckle up for Amanda Sun's Ink.
Don't worry there's no sparkly vampires here, so sit down and buckle up for Amanda Sun's Ink.
I'm going to start this out by saying that I am not Japanese nor do have any sort Japanese heritage. I'm pretty much the whitest person Canada has ever spat out. Consequently, my views and judgement of the representation of Japanese culture in this novel are obviously going to biased from my outsider’s perspective. Just something to keep in mind while reading.
Let’s start by talking about the cover, because I mostly picked this book up because of it. I really like it- I like the unique texture and I love the artwork. Seriously the image, presumably of the protagonist Katie Greene, is gorgeous. Major props to the artist whose name I could not find. If this were a print I’d totes buy a copy provided it was like a legal distribution etc. |
Furthermore, the style is certainly fitting with the story and the title; Ink. I have to say the title is a bit lame, but to be expected given the approach the publishing world has to Young Adult novels. I should just be grateful the cover doesn't feature some photo of a sad girl who doesn't need no man and may or may not be wearing a fancy dress. Or just a picture of feet/legs. (I cannot be the only one who has noticed the alarming number of novel covers featuring feet)
So right, the novel. Our story begins with the protagonist Katie Greene living in Japan with her aunt following the death of her mother. She accidentally spies on the resident tough guy Yuu Tomohiro breaking up with his girlfriend and when she because of her overly curious nature, she becomes entangled in the affairs of the descendants of the kami Amaterasu. All of this occurs while Katie also has to deal with adjusting to being a foreigner in Japan and the recent death of her mother.
I'm going to be honest, one of the reasons I bought this after picking it up was because it was set in Japan (also I had a gift card). In middle school I was one of those otaku nerds. I read Memoirs of a Geisha like eight times. Those years contain some of my most retrospectively embarrassing years.
Despite this, I still have a soft spot for Japanese culture. A recent non-fiction book I read and sincerely enjoyed was Hitching Rides With Buddha, a novel written by a Canadian who taught English in Japan. So obviously I was 100% on board for a Young Adult fantasy romance novel set in modern day Japan, even if I was expecting it to be rather cringe-worthy.
I was not expecting what I got.
The novel spends a lot of time developing Katie’s feelings of home-sickness and culture shock and how she comes to love the country she suddenly finds herself in. This is something that isn't just mentioned once or twice, but interspersed throughout.
Katie at the start of the novel feels uncomfortably noticeable, like she doesn't belong. She is painfully aware of her status as a gaijin, a foreigner. Her bento (lunch box) is filled with peanut butter sandwiches because she is unfamiliar with Japanese food and doesn't have any real desire to try. When her aunt greets her at home with the traditional ‘Okaeri’, Katie wants nothing to do with it- partly because she doesn't want her aunt stepping into her mother’s role but also because she wants nothing to do with the strange world she is thrust into.
By the end of the novel Katie greets her aunt with ‘Tadaima’ without even stopping to think and often mentions very casually the different Japanese foods she and her friends go to eat after school. While Katie is still a gaijin and is still aware of that, she feels more at home in Japan.
Another thing I surprised myself by liking was Katie and Tomohiro’s relationship.
Generally speaking, the relationships found in young adult novel are unhealthy and framed as romantic. I'm not even specifically referring to the Twilight saga here, open most teen fiction novels and you will find the romanization of an unequal, unhealthy relationship where the boys are controlling, rude and disrespectful towards the female characters who still like them because they’re just so attractive and have angsty sympathetic backstories.
(an aside: a sympathetic backstory does not make awful behaviour acceptable. That’s why Loki in the Avengers movie is still a villain despite all that happened in his past on Asgard)
Getting back to Katie and Tomohiro, I was surprised by how much I liked seeing their relationship grow. And I don’t just mean ‘gosh isn't it nice to see a relatively healthy teen relationship’ I mean it was actually enjoyable to read.
Katie and Tomohiro start out not liking each other all too much, as to be expected in a teen paranormal romance, but they come to like each other- though they still tease each other all the time. It feels natural, like the sort of things teens would actually say without being obnoxious.
Of course it can become a bit melodramatic at times, but nothing beyond what’s expected in this genre and it is made much more tolerable by their other interactions.
Katie's relationship with her aunt also develops slowly- obviously Katie isn't happy to be with her aunt who she previously wasn't close with and living in a strange country far from home rather than with her grandparents. By the end of the novel, though their relationship still has a ways to go, we leave the two of them with a feeling of hope. It feel like they're going to become closer and move on from the tragedy of Katie's mother's death together.
Katie's aunt Diane is also treated with a lot more dignity than other guardians in teen novels have been which is also nice to see.
I also appreciated how Japan itself was framed in this novel. I was expecting it to be framed stereotypically- either some exotic mystical land of culture, or like an otaku kawaii desu haven. It is shown as neither. Through Katie’s eyes, Japan is a foreign country with elements she is familiar with- gossip being a primary one- and many differences, such as the Japanese approach to high school education. Japan is therefore framed as something neither inherently better or worse than North America, but rather a place that is filled with fundamentally different cultural differences. As I mentioned, at the start Katie is not comfortable with the differences she encounters, but as time goes on she comes to accept them and in some cases enjoys them.
It’s certainly not the approach to culture shock I was expecting.
However, as I myself am not Japanese and only spent a very brief time there, I could be totally wrong- for all I know the representation is horrifically stereotypical if less overt than I’d expected.
Obviously no novel is perfect, and there are elements I didn't enjoy. The main one being the third character in our little love triangle, because of course there’s a love triangle.
His name is Jun. I honestly can say I don’t really give a fuck about Jun even though he keeps popping up like some aggravating jack-in-the box.
To be honest I suppose the reason I don’t care for Jun is because the whole love triangle thing just seems so forced and therefore paints him in a negative light for me. The quasi-romance thing with Katie just seems so contrived- I mean she finds him attractive and mentions it several times, but their conversations don’t seems to spark any sort of chemistry and honestly reading those parts was boring.
Jun himself is boring- he’s attractive and is good at kendo. That is it that’s the character.
The last thing you want is for an important character to be boring. And he is an important character- his actions certainly have greater consequences. But every time he showed up I thought ‘ugh this guy again’.
Overall Jun is a detractor as is some of the teen melodrama that can get to be a bit much, but I still really enjoyed this novel. If you’re a fan of teen paranormal romance without the horrible abusive relationships I’d suggest this novel to you. Alternatively if you are a fan of unfamiliar cultures (probably) being shown in a stereotype-free manner, I’d also suggest this. Just ignore Jun.
Ink is the property of Amanda Sun and the folks at Harlequin Teen
I'm going to be honest, one of the reasons I bought this after picking it up was because it was set in Japan (also I had a gift card). In middle school I was one of those otaku nerds. I read Memoirs of a Geisha like eight times. Those years contain some of my most retrospectively embarrassing years.
Despite this, I still have a soft spot for Japanese culture. A recent non-fiction book I read and sincerely enjoyed was Hitching Rides With Buddha, a novel written by a Canadian who taught English in Japan. So obviously I was 100% on board for a Young Adult fantasy romance novel set in modern day Japan, even if I was expecting it to be rather cringe-worthy.
I was not expecting what I got.
The novel spends a lot of time developing Katie’s feelings of home-sickness and culture shock and how she comes to love the country she suddenly finds herself in. This is something that isn't just mentioned once or twice, but interspersed throughout.
Katie at the start of the novel feels uncomfortably noticeable, like she doesn't belong. She is painfully aware of her status as a gaijin, a foreigner. Her bento (lunch box) is filled with peanut butter sandwiches because she is unfamiliar with Japanese food and doesn't have any real desire to try. When her aunt greets her at home with the traditional ‘Okaeri’, Katie wants nothing to do with it- partly because she doesn't want her aunt stepping into her mother’s role but also because she wants nothing to do with the strange world she is thrust into.
By the end of the novel Katie greets her aunt with ‘Tadaima’ without even stopping to think and often mentions very casually the different Japanese foods she and her friends go to eat after school. While Katie is still a gaijin and is still aware of that, she feels more at home in Japan.
Another thing I surprised myself by liking was Katie and Tomohiro’s relationship.
Generally speaking, the relationships found in young adult novel are unhealthy and framed as romantic. I'm not even specifically referring to the Twilight saga here, open most teen fiction novels and you will find the romanization of an unequal, unhealthy relationship where the boys are controlling, rude and disrespectful towards the female characters who still like them because they’re just so attractive and have angsty sympathetic backstories.
(an aside: a sympathetic backstory does not make awful behaviour acceptable. That’s why Loki in the Avengers movie is still a villain despite all that happened in his past on Asgard)
Getting back to Katie and Tomohiro, I was surprised by how much I liked seeing their relationship grow. And I don’t just mean ‘gosh isn't it nice to see a relatively healthy teen relationship’ I mean it was actually enjoyable to read.
Katie and Tomohiro start out not liking each other all too much, as to be expected in a teen paranormal romance, but they come to like each other- though they still tease each other all the time. It feels natural, like the sort of things teens would actually say without being obnoxious.
Of course it can become a bit melodramatic at times, but nothing beyond what’s expected in this genre and it is made much more tolerable by their other interactions.
Katie's relationship with her aunt also develops slowly- obviously Katie isn't happy to be with her aunt who she previously wasn't close with and living in a strange country far from home rather than with her grandparents. By the end of the novel, though their relationship still has a ways to go, we leave the two of them with a feeling of hope. It feel like they're going to become closer and move on from the tragedy of Katie's mother's death together.
Katie's aunt Diane is also treated with a lot more dignity than other guardians in teen novels have been which is also nice to see.
I also appreciated how Japan itself was framed in this novel. I was expecting it to be framed stereotypically- either some exotic mystical land of culture, or like an otaku kawaii desu haven. It is shown as neither. Through Katie’s eyes, Japan is a foreign country with elements she is familiar with- gossip being a primary one- and many differences, such as the Japanese approach to high school education. Japan is therefore framed as something neither inherently better or worse than North America, but rather a place that is filled with fundamentally different cultural differences. As I mentioned, at the start Katie is not comfortable with the differences she encounters, but as time goes on she comes to accept them and in some cases enjoys them.
It’s certainly not the approach to culture shock I was expecting.
However, as I myself am not Japanese and only spent a very brief time there, I could be totally wrong- for all I know the representation is horrifically stereotypical if less overt than I’d expected.
Obviously no novel is perfect, and there are elements I didn't enjoy. The main one being the third character in our little love triangle, because of course there’s a love triangle.
His name is Jun. I honestly can say I don’t really give a fuck about Jun even though he keeps popping up like some aggravating jack-in-the box.
To be honest I suppose the reason I don’t care for Jun is because the whole love triangle thing just seems so forced and therefore paints him in a negative light for me. The quasi-romance thing with Katie just seems so contrived- I mean she finds him attractive and mentions it several times, but their conversations don’t seems to spark any sort of chemistry and honestly reading those parts was boring.
Jun himself is boring- he’s attractive and is good at kendo. That is it that’s the character.
The last thing you want is for an important character to be boring. And he is an important character- his actions certainly have greater consequences. But every time he showed up I thought ‘ugh this guy again’.
Overall Jun is a detractor as is some of the teen melodrama that can get to be a bit much, but I still really enjoyed this novel. If you’re a fan of teen paranormal romance without the horrible abusive relationships I’d suggest this novel to you. Alternatively if you are a fan of unfamiliar cultures (probably) being shown in a stereotype-free manner, I’d also suggest this. Just ignore Jun.
Ink is the property of Amanda Sun and the folks at Harlequin Teen