It's Not Like It's a Secret

Sana is a California transplant from Wisconsin; both her parents are immigrants from Japan, so despite feeling like she's a midwesterner, none of her friends think of her as one. There's a cringe-y scene early in the book where she cheers with her friends about being “midwestern farmer's daughters” and they tell her she's cute for thinking that, but she's Japanese, obv. I felt really bad for her. When her family moves to California, suddenly she's not the only Asian girl in a sea of whiteness. It's an interesting mix of having a place with your own people but also fighting the stereotypes of sticking with your own ethnicity. It's assumed she'll be friends with the other Asian kids, which annoys her, but she also finds to be true; having not had the opportunity to have friends like her before, she finds she really likes it. But she also tries to break that mold and be friends with people she's not assumed to like - like Jamie Ramirez and her Hispanic friends, and Caleb and his white goth friends.

The book also explores the way racism hits races differently; the Hispanic kids get hassled by cops while the Asian kids don't - though they also have things expected of them that the Hispanic kids don't. The book gets into cultural expectations as well - PDAs are not really a thing in Sana's world, so she's reluctant to be public about her affections at school, which drives misunderstandings.

It's only in the last few chapters that all the secrets come out, and Sana struggles to put things right.

One thing I really liked about the book is the narrative structure. At the beginning of the school year, Sana's English teacher gives them a project, which is to keep a journal to transcribe poems into and talk about what they mean to you. Chapters from Sana's poetry journal are interspersed with chapters of the narrative, and give some nice insight to how she's feeling. Her love interest, Jamie, also loves poetry, and it plays a large part in their relationship.

I quite enjoyed this book.

You can find all my reviews and more at Goddess in the Stacks.

4.5 stars. I loved this book - everything from the character development to the geographically (and demographically) correct depiction of the Bay Area.

3.5 stars

i am so torn on this book, i think it is a very good book overall, it handles its many themes in a good way in my opinion but one of the main topics didn't work out for me at all in the end. yup, you might have guessed it: it's the romance. trying to keep things as vague as possible but: i think we should accept the fact that YA novels don't always need to end with the main couple getting together.

i genuinely think that this novel in particular was about so many more things than just romance, that was never the end goal for me while i was reading it? i just wanted sana to be happy and maybe go through some character development and find a place in this new life - and she could have done that without having to get the girl at the end.
this is absolutely subjective but i just cannot understand why jamie would want sana back after sana cheated on her. it's not like they had been together for a long time at that point, like, i know it was complicated and compulsive heterosexuality probably but sana knew that it wasn't fair to jamie AND caleb and she regretted every single second of it and yet she still did it. i think i would have been able to accept jamie and sana getting back together at the end a bit more if sana had made the choice herself to be upfront about how she fucked up. i was really, really waiting for this moment where sana grows a bit and just says what she actually wants to say and that would have been the perfect moment. it made sana extremely unlikable to me in just a few scenes. i completely understand how hard it is to get smth to stop once it started and it feels like you have no control over it anymore but.. this was too much for me. the fact that sana was forced to confront this issue instead of getting over her anxieties about it herself just didn't vibe well with me. and it made me feel like sana didn't deserve to get the girl in the end, i'm sorry.

the ending felt a bit rushed like it often does in YA novels, i don't think we necessarily need an additional chapter that just quickly summarizes for the reader what happens to everyone and just ties everything up way too fast. either work it into the actual plot or just leave it open for imagination, make it feel like the characters will still have things to explore after the novel is over instead of rushing through as many things as you can. idk, that's just my personal preference in the end, i'm sure many people are glad when everything gets resolved, no matter how superficial or quick it is

but if i ignore my issues with the romance and the ending, then i really liked this book. the writing is great, the topics are being handled well for the most part and it is certainly interesting enough.
if you have the opportunity then i would still recommend reading it, especially if you are interested in a YA novel with a japanese-american protagonist.