A review by debdatta
Ink by Amanda Sun

3.0

I have been wanting to read this book ever since I heard about it about two months back. So, when my request got approved on netgalley, I was super excited!

After her mother’s untimely death, Katie Greene is forced to move to Japan and live with her aunt till her grandparents can claim her custody. Settling in a different continent, where food, language and culture are completely different from what Katie is used to is no easy job. And doing the same while still grieving for the loss of her mother is even more difficult, but once Katie lands there, she finds that she is quite good at adapting. With the help of her aunt, her friend Yuki & Tanaka and cram school, she picks up the language quite fast an soon starts to settle in. Soon, she discovers the school’s pretty but mysterious boy Tomohiro was up to something. The more she discovered about him, the more she was attracted to him. But Tomohiro’s powers spiral whenever she is near him which in turn puts them both at risk.

I will get out my not so favourite parts first. I have issues with the plot’s slow build up from the very beginning. Not much happens till about three quarter of the book passes you by. I also like the protagonists’ friends to play important roles. Though Ishakawa had a role to play, Yuki and Tanaka felt like wallflowers in the novel and I wished more involvement on their behalf. And Jun was predictable.

What I did like was the setting in Japan. I learnt quite a bit about the culture there. I had heard about students having to clean up the school after hours as a part of character building exercise. So, seeing that part being incorporated into the story was kinda nice. It was also a chance for me to learn about kendo, a bit about Japanese food and few words of the language too. The references to Japanese mythology were interesting. The writing style in general was quite good. It was what made me going irrespective of the slow start.

I wish though that the author would have answered a few ‘whats’ involving Katie in this book instead of making us wait to find out in the next instalment. But these unanswered questions and the lack of the explanations are also the reason why I will be picking up the next instalment.