A review by haia_929
Now and Zen by Linda Gerber
2.0
This is a trimmed down version of my review, to view the full review visit The Book Ramble.
When Nori Tanaka signs up for SASS all she's looking for is an escape from the reality of her parent's impending divorce. What she finds in Japan is new friends, new family, and a lot of complication. She quickly gets entangled in a love triangle, hurts some friends, and spirals from the fear of her family falling apart. When she goes for a week long home stay with her distant relatives Nori begins to deal with her home life, the mistakes she's made, and the disconnect she's felt in Japan all along. Can she take what she learns in Kyoto and fix everything before she has to go home?
The book is corny and heavy on that fake-y teen drama that often clogs up the YA world. There is some serious contemplation on aspects of culture in this book that a lot of other SASS books kind of miss the mark on as well. I mean...this one does to but there is some interesting stuff about the divide that faces people like Nori who are ethnically Japanese but raised in America so they don't feel like they fit in either place. I just wish that had been more important than the ridiculous love triangle. It was that cheesiness and bad plotting that really let this book down.
Nori spends most of her time in Japan lying about who she is, and getting tangled in a complicated set of relationships with 2 fairly uninteresting and unlikable guys from the SASS program. This quickly becomes the focus of the book and we wind up ignoring the issues that really matter like Nori's parent's divorce and the sort of cultural dissonance Nori is feeling on her first trip to Japan.
The writing is simple in this book. It's an easy read, especially as it focuses on those kinds of predictable teen romance aspects. The whole thing only takes a couple hours to read. It was enjoyable for the most part I just felt left down by the lack of depth to anything in this book
It's an alright read, I'm just too disappointed to rate it any higher than this. The SASS books are all just sort of enjoyable but still bad books so this comes as no surprise.
When Nori Tanaka signs up for SASS all she's looking for is an escape from the reality of her parent's impending divorce. What she finds in Japan is new friends, new family, and a lot of complication. She quickly gets entangled in a love triangle, hurts some friends, and spirals from the fear of her family falling apart. When she goes for a week long home stay with her distant relatives Nori begins to deal with her home life, the mistakes she's made, and the disconnect she's felt in Japan all along. Can she take what she learns in Kyoto and fix everything before she has to go home?
The book is corny and heavy on that fake-y teen drama that often clogs up the YA world. There is some serious contemplation on aspects of culture in this book that a lot of other SASS books kind of miss the mark on as well. I mean...this one does to but there is some interesting stuff about the divide that faces people like Nori who are ethnically Japanese but raised in America so they don't feel like they fit in either place. I just wish that had been more important than the ridiculous love triangle. It was that cheesiness and bad plotting that really let this book down.
Nori spends most of her time in Japan lying about who she is, and getting tangled in a complicated set of relationships with 2 fairly uninteresting and unlikable guys from the SASS program. This quickly becomes the focus of the book and we wind up ignoring the issues that really matter like Nori's parent's divorce and the sort of cultural dissonance Nori is feeling on her first trip to Japan.
The writing is simple in this book. It's an easy read, especially as it focuses on those kinds of predictable teen romance aspects. The whole thing only takes a couple hours to read. It was enjoyable for the most part I just felt left down by the lack of depth to anything in this book
It's an alright read, I'm just too disappointed to rate it any higher than this. The SASS books are all just sort of enjoyable but still bad books so this comes as no surprise.