My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life

Description:

"I'm here to take you to live with your father. In Tokyo, Japan! Happy birthday!" In the Land of the Rising Sun, where high culture meets high kitsch, and fashion and technology are at the forefront of the First World's future, the foreign-born teen elite attend ICS—the International Collegiate School of Tokyo. Their accents are fluid. Their homes are ridiculously posh. Their sports games often involve a (private) plane trip to another country. They miss school because of jet lag and visa issues. When they get in trouble, they seek diplomatic immunity. Enter foster-kid-out-of-water Elle Zoellner, who, on her sixteenth birthday discovers that her long-lost father, Kenji Takahari, is actually a Japanese hotel mogul and wants her to come live with him. Um, yes, please! Elle jets off first class from Washington D.C. to Tokyo, which seems like a dream come true. Until she meets her enigmatic father, her way-too-fab aunt, and her hyper-critical grandmother, who seems to wish Elle didn't exist. In an effort to please her new family, Elle falls in with the Ex-Brats, a troupe of uber-cool international kids who spend money like it's air. But when she starts to crush on a boy named Ryuu, who's frozen out by the Brats and despised by her new family, her already tenuous living situation just might implode. My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life is about learning what it is to be a family, and finding the inner strength to be yourself, even in the most extreme circumstances.

My Thoughts:

YA authors are doing a great job of highlighting often marginalized protagonists and making them the moral center of the very diverse and booming multicultural YA literature scene. I am enjoying how books like To All the Boys I've Loved Before and this book, My Flawless. . .  highlight multicultural characters who seek to embrace and normalize their different cultural backgrounds and values as part of their coming of age stories. They are not trying to abandon one culture for another, but seek to understand as well as respect each side of themselves. This is not about melting into a generic American pot, but embracing and owning what makes each character special. Hooray!

This book could have been a Mean Girls in Tokyo, or ExPats (Ex Brats) behaving badly in a foreign country, or even Gossip Girl goes toJapan. I am glad it did not go in that direction. In fact it is almost flawless. My big hole in this story is that I really wanted to hear from the mother. Again, almost flawless.

A digital advanced copy provided by Net Galley and the publisher for an honest review.