I Love You So Mochi
Perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Kasie West, I Love You So Mochi is a delightfully sweet and irrepressibly funny novel from accomplished author Sarah Kuhn.
"As sweet and satisfying as actual mochi... a tender love story wrapped up in food, fashion, and family. I gobbled it up." -- Maurene Goo, author of The Way You Make Me FeelKimi Nakamura loves a good fashion statement.She's obsessed with transforming everyday ephemera into Kimi Originals: bold outfits that make her and her friends feel like the Ultimate versions of themselves. But her mother disapproves, and when they get into an explosive fight, Kimi's entire future seems on the verge of falling apart. So when a surprise letter comes in the mail from Kimi's estranged grandparents, inviting her to Kyoto for spring break, she seizes the opportunity to get away from the disaster of her life.When she arrives in Japan, she's met with a culture both familiar and completely foreign to her. She loses herself in the city's outdoor markets, art installations, and cherry blossom festival -- and meets Akira, a cute aspiring med student who moonlights as a costumed mochi mascot. And what begins as a trip to escape her problems quickly becomes a way for Kimi to learn more about the mother she left behind, and to figure out where her own heart lies.In I Love You So Mochi, author Sarah Kuhn has penned a delightfully sweet and irrepressibly funny novel that will make you squee at the cute, cringe at the awkward, and show that sometimes you have to lose yourself in something you love to find your Ultimate self.
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Community Reviews
This one took me a little while to get into – it’s super sweet and adorable, but I had some trouble getting a feel for it because, though I’m an adult who loves YA, it felt more childish than what I’ve become used to. This doesn’t take points away from it, though! 15 years ago, it would have been my favorite, and I will gladly recommend it to the teenaged girls I know (especially the weebs). I Love You So Mochi is a sweet first love story. As I’ve already said, it’s a bit too silly and juvenile for my tastes, but I don’t think that it was bad.
Kimi is a Japanese American high school student who is under some pressure to accept the position at the prestigious art college her mother is really excited about her attending. The problem is, Kimi isn’t as excited about painting as her mother is. Then, her estranged grandparents from Japan send her a ticket to visit her over spring break. Kimi takes them up on the offer as an excuse to figure out what she really wants to do with her future. While there, she befriends a cute Japanese boy who has made it his mission to help her figure out her destiny. And there’s mochi involved. That’s the long and short of it.
I’ll be honest, what I found so frustrating about this book is something I know a lot of it’s readers won’t even bat an eye at, possibly because it’s too relatable to them. I feel like Kimi’s protestations about “not being able to figure out her passion” was so frustrating because it was so obvious to me: fashion design is totally art. Coming from someone who holds a fine art degree and who works with pastoral care and student services at an art college, I deal with “kids” who are as oblivious to their talents and passions as Kimi – so with my background, I just want to take all the little Kimi’s of the world and kind of give them a good shake. Then again, even as an artist, I get hung up with self-doubts about “is this allowed?”
Second of all, I’m jaded. I’m 32 years old and I know exactly where Kimi and Akira’s relationship is going to go once this novel is over, and it’s not going to stay happy. I’ll leave it up to you if their relationship his staying power, though.
If you enjoyed this review, you can find it and others like it here
Kimi is a Japanese American high school student who is under some pressure to accept the position at the prestigious art college her mother is really excited about her attending. The problem is, Kimi isn’t as excited about painting as her mother is. Then, her estranged grandparents from Japan send her a ticket to visit her over spring break. Kimi takes them up on the offer as an excuse to figure out what she really wants to do with her future. While there, she befriends a cute Japanese boy who has made it his mission to help her figure out her destiny. And there’s mochi involved. That’s the long and short of it.
I’ll be honest, what I found so frustrating about this book is something I know a lot of it’s readers won’t even bat an eye at, possibly because it’s too relatable to them. I feel like Kimi’s protestations about “not being able to figure out her passion” was so frustrating because it was so obvious to me: fashion design is totally art. Coming from someone who holds a fine art degree and who works with pastoral care and student services at an art college, I deal with “kids” who are as oblivious to their talents and passions as Kimi – so with my background, I just want to take all the little Kimi’s of the world and kind of give them a good shake. Then again, even as an artist, I get hung up with self-doubts about “is this allowed?”
Second of all, I’m jaded. I’m 32 years old and I know exactly where Kimi and Akira’s relationship is going to go once this novel is over, and it’s not going to stay happy. I’ll leave it up to you if their relationship his staying power, though.
If you enjoyed this review, you can find it and others like it here
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