Saturday Pages: ARC Review of Rain by Amanda Sun!

Hey guys! Welcome to Saturday Pages!

This week I've been catching up on my review pile, so today I have another ARC for review! As such, it also counts for my 2014 Review Pile Reading Challenge! I didn't have this one ready for release week cause I was dealing with the Ruin & Rising hangover, but I want to give big thanks to Harlequin Teen for approving so many of my requests on Netgalley!

Rain by Amanda Sun

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


First of all, thank you so much Harlequin Teen for approving so many of my requests on NetGalley!

I had this one on my review pile to have it up on release week, but then Ruin & Rising and its massive hangover happened, so I ended up ignoring my review pile for a while and did some comfort reading... But now this week I've decided to go back to crack on my ARCs!

I liked Ink quite a bit overall, although I ended up giving it 3 stars cause some things really managed to annoy me enough, and with Rain it seems like we're exactly at the same point. There are some parts of the book that I absolutely adore, and others that annoy me to no end and make me want to skip pages to avoid them.

Let's start with what I loved in Ink and continued to adore in Rain, first of, the Japanese contemporary part. I've never been to Japan, but I feel like we really get a very authentic and real look at Japan, with it's everyday traditions and customs and all the little Japanese words here and there (I might end up learning a lil Japanese with this books, as a side perk!), and also how genuine the way Katie feels like an outsider. I've spent months in India, and no matter how comfortable or how welcome I was everyone, there were always little things that made me stand out or reminded me I was foreign, so I could relate with Katie. Even more imagine studying in a country where you have to learn a language with a complete different alphabet and way to write... challenging to say the least!

I also loved the whole mythology about the Kami, and all the revelations we got on this book and how it opened for what I feel will be an epic battle in the conclusion in the next and final book.

What I wasn't keen at all was the romance and the teenage angst. Katie and Tomo with their starcrossed lovers bit and then all the added satellites around and all the drama that was created and added on top of the Kami?? Wow, it was just too much for me. Not a fan of drama, and some of them were petty teenage woes and ended up making me want to skip paragraphs. Katie and Tomo took the whole bloody book to finally realize that secrets are no good and communication is key, so I'm hoping most of the drama has been left behind now!

I feel like the teenage drama mixed with the Kami threat is a bit too much for me, so I'm hoping the next book with focus more on the Kami and less on the drama!

I am quite curious enough about more information on Katie and her dad (hopefully) and more answers on that front, as well as the big confrontation I expect will happen, and even more information about the Kami and their myths. So, I'll be awaiting the third (and I think final) book.

I'm giving this one 3 stars, cause after all the likes and dislikes it comes to a bit of a happy middle of sorts!



View all my reviews

Mark This Book Monday: ARC of Ink by Amanda Sun!!

Hello everyone!

Second entry for Mark This Book Monday! I was lucky enough to get myself a borrowed lappy, so I can still blog while the bf is at work!

So here goes, my second review for the day!

Ink by Amanda Sun

I was lucky enough to get an ARC of this book from NetGalley for a review cause I was very intrigued about it since the moment I read the synopsis.


The premise of this book is extremely original and what really draw me to read the book, and also what kept me going when some parts of the story weren't as engaging.

Katie moves to Japan after the devastating loss of her mother, dealing with her grief and anger and confusion of losing the only parent she had, and to top it all she has to go and adapt to a new culture and learn a new language when more change is the least thing she wants.

The way we learn about Japanese culture and how Katie tries to adapt and try to deal with her loss flows through the book fairly well, but I wasn't very keen on the way Katie and Tomo are thrown in together, how Katie simply seems to get obsessed with following Tomo everywhere trying to figure out his mistery when she can barely try and make an effort to be social otherwise. Once they connect over shared knowledge of loss, their relationship seems more credible to me and despite the teenage angst it didn't pull me off the story anymore.

It seems that the Kami storline is revealed too scantly and then we're given quite some action out of it, but barely any solid information about what the Kami really are, and even less about why the Ink would have any ties with Katie or why she would have some effect on the Ink. The world building for the Kami seemed insuficient to me and simply seemed like a small introduction, like this book was more like a glimpse of a setting than a proper first act.

The Japanese culture and the mystery of the Kami are the biggest reasons to read this book, and I'm hoping both will continue developing and the angsty teenage relationship between Katie and Tomo will progress in the next books and will be a little less annoying and a little less stereotypical.

I give this first instance of the Paper Gods series 3 stars.