Molly > Recent Status Updates

I just feel so bad for these characters. Like they were their own downfall. I'm glad that the brother is angry, but my god I wish the sister would get mad!

Wow now the police are going to search his electronics??????? This book is making me SO ANGRY because it makes NO SENSE.

IT IS SO FUCKING RIDICULOUS THAT ANYONE IS ASKING CARVER IF HE *HAD* TO TEXT MARS WHILE MARS WAS DRIVING. DID MARS HAVE TO FUCKING ANSWER!?!?!? NO. JFC! This entire premise is weak and I am SO disappointed with this book.

year. If he IS going abroad (maybe it will say later), why would he have applied in his 2nd year of high school? Do Juniors apply for college before their senior year? Especially a medical school? I'll keep an eye out to see if this gets explained, but I just feel like this is inaccurate.

medical school in the fall after he graduates from high school. This means that he's still in high school and will be starting his 3rd year. In Japan you start school in the spring (April 1st), so there's no way he'd be starting university in the fall unless it's abroad or maybe an international school in Japan (not sure how those work). ALSO he would not have taken entrance exams yet (you take them at the end of 3rd

I'm reading the arc, so maybe this got changed in the finished copy, but I'm not sure what's going on with this timeline. Kimi is in Japan on her spring break & the cherry blossoms are blooming... so I'm assuming this is late March/ early April. She just met Akira and he told her that he's on his own spring break, which means that it's still March because school starts in April. He also says that he's going to

I'm not even halfway through this book. I wanted to like it. The cover is beautiful. The story is intriguing. But it's such a mess. I'm rage reading right now to put all of these comments into a review. People need to know that this book is NOT ACCURATE.

Clearly the author did some textbook research about Japanese culture. But there are just so many absolutes. Like Japan has a low divorce rate so OF COURSE that means marriages are happier? UM NO???? Like, dive a little bit deeper please. Wow.

The MC ALSO seems to have some issue with his fragile masculinity. He's made multiple comments abt how he has a REASON for liking cherry blossoms and that basically "straight men need a REASON for liking flowers". There have also been other homophobic comments. It's really gross & the MC could have been unlikable WITHOUT this.

The MC is an asshole, I believe he's MEANT to be unlikeable, but I am damn sick of all of these sweeping generalizations he's making about "the Asians". Fucking hell, he keeps saying "oriental". This book is AT LEAST set after 2007. In LA. Not all Japanese women are demure. Not all Asian people are short.

Also this Japanese class is really unrealistic. The sensei has the students (all adults) choose Japanese names which would 99% of the time NOT happen. I asked over on twitter & 2 people told me that they did it in HIGH SCHOOL Japanese classes (usually with a white teacher). I asked my husband (who's from Japan) & he said that this would not fly with most Japanese people.

So far this book is a hot mess. There are a ton of typos & it could have really used more editing. But those are not my real issues. I've found multiple Japanese language mistakes which makes me think that nobody who actually speaks Japanese looked at this book.

This book is FULL of Japanese language mistakes & cultural inaccuracies. I’m basically rage reading at this point to write a scathing review.

Yeah calling your own grandma obaassn is totally normal, chill out book.

Yeah, no, beer vending machines are actually hard to come by. They aren’t in Shibuya station.

many parts of this book get it right & then there are these weird things like one of the JPN characters has trouble with reading & writing ENG but is great w/ speaking. I thought she’d lived abroad but she didn’t & even went to a JPN school. It’s odd that she’s great at spoken ENG when in general it’s the opposite. JPN students learn ENG reading/writing from Elementary school (I’m speaking as an ex-ENG convo teacher)

Um that literally is not how PASMO cards work. They cost 500yen to buy & only hold however much money you put onto them. So unless these cards have A LOT of money on them (which is stupid if you lose it) giving it to someone to sell is basically pointless. And pretty sure these kids don’t have commuter passes since they get driven to school...

I would really like to know how she knew it was SOY MILK if she doesn’t read Japanese...

Lmao okay so far there have been several Big Deals about “no shoes inside the house” & here they are in the living room & the sister’s branded shoes are described. Uh, okay.....

LMAO ummmmmm why is she taking Spanish class & not Japanese???

Have confirmed with a real live young adult in Japan that “gozaimasu” is not currently slang in Japan. It wasn’t while I was there either. And it doesn’t really make sense...

The romanji in this book is weird.

Strike 1: black ties are worn for funerals only.

Also Japan is famous for its complicated trash disposal. So.... that was wrong. Ya just don’t toss garbage in an incinerator????? Who the fuck has an incinerator????

Also why do they always ride the subway & never the JR? And why do they never have to change trains?

And if you’re going to write about another cultures funeral rites do a quick google search at the very least...

So far this has been pretty good with the Japan stuff... lots is very generic & vague tho. But damn, US authors, use the correct scales when writing foreign settings. A digital sign is not going to have the temp displayed in Fahrenheit. This kind of thing drives me crazy.

WAY TO BREAK MY HEART