- This post contains a gifted item -
I read one of Sarah Kuhn's books, I Love You So Mochi, back in 2019 and I reviewed it which you can check it out here. Rereading my review has made me realise how much I love Sarah's writing, there is something truly special about it and I rediscovered that with From Little Tokyo, With Love. 
Blurb
"Celebrated author Sarah Kuhn reinvents the modern fairy tale in this intensely personal yet hilarious novel of a girl whose search for a storybook ending takes her to unexpected places in both her beloved LA neighborhood and her own guarded heart.
If Rika's life seems like the beginning of a familiar fairy tale--being an orphan with two bossy cousins and working away in her aunts' business--she would be the first to reject that foolish notion. After all, she loves her family (even if her cousins were named after Disney characters), and with her biracial background, amazing judo skills and red-hot temper, she doesn't quite fit the princess mold.
All that changes the instant she locks eyes with Grace Kimura, America's reigning rom-com sweetheart, during the Nikkei Week Festival. From there, Rika embarks on a madcap adventure of hope and happiness--searching for clues that Grace is her long-lost mother, exploring Little Tokyo's hidden treasures with cute actor Hank Chen, and maybe...finally finding a sense of belonging.
But fairy tales are fiction and the real world isn't so kind. Rika knows she's setting herself up for disappointment, because happy endings don't happen to girls like her. Should she walk away before she gets in even deeper, or let herself be swept away?"
My Review
I love the young adult genre and I always find myself gravitating towards it in the Spring and Summer months so this book arrived at the perfect time. As I mentioned at the beginning, there is something so special about Sarah's writing. I think it's due to the that she discusses deeper and harder topics and issues on an easy to understand and digestible level. In From Little Tokyo, With Love, we follow Rika on her path to finding that she can have her own happy ever after and this book is going to be very special to all of the communities that are featured within this book.
As we follow Rika, without giving away too many spoilers, it discusses racism and discrimination as well as issues of abandonment and homophobia. One of the main characters in this book has panic attacks and as someone who has had them in the past and struggled with them for years, I thought it was handled well and with care which I appreciated. Rika and Henry are both biracial characters and throughout the book you follow some their experiences and feelings and how they are finding their people. I really loved the way Rika was written, she has a temper and in a lot of books in the YA genre, the characters can be presented as ones who can't do anything wrong in many aspects.
I would class this as a contemporary with a side of romance and there wasn't a single thing I didn't love about this book so I had to give it five stars. I really loved the romance, it worked perfectly for me and it was so enjoyable to read. This book is the perfect blend of deep and heavier topics with a lightness to it. I loved the family aspect and seeing Rika's relationships with her family grow and change towards the end. And you can never go wrong with a little romance in my book! But overall, this is a story of self discovery.
From Little Tokyo, With Love will be released on the 11th of May 2021, you can preorder your copy here.
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