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Turning Japanese (2009)

by Cathy Yardley(Favorite Author)

3.43 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0312378807 (ISBN13: 9780312378806)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

St. Martin's Griffin

review 1: I'll be honest. I did not want to read this book. A co-worker gave it to me, as she sometimes does for reasons that I don't know. Just looking at the cover made me want to roll my eyes. It's pink and there's a little anime girl hanging out on the bottom with bubble hearts. I was pretty sure that it wasn't for me. But, since I haven't read a single one of the books she's ever given me (I still intend to!) I thought I should probably pick it up. It's chick lit, I couldn't possibly take that long. So, you can imagine my surprise when I discovered that this was actually a great book. There's not all that consequential in the subject matter or plot, but the message was a good one, the writing good, and the characters top notch. The horridly titled 'Turning Japanese' is about Ja... morepanese-Italian-American Lisa Falloya, a simple girl from Groverton, NY who works at some sort of industrial plant, has a boyfriend who's busy all the time, and the same best friends from high school. Suffice it to say she's set in her ways. But then Lisa wins an internship at a Japanese manga company. Soon Lisa has relocated to the other side of the world where she comes up against culture shock so fierce that she's not sure she'll last the week. But then again, no one ever said changing your life was easy. Lisa learns that there's a fine balance between Lisa's experiences in Japan were really fun to read. I've never been to Japan myself, but my sister has and I've heard a few stories, it's both funny and fascinating at the same time. Starting fresh in a new place is something that holds appeal for me and with such extremes between Japanese and American culture the change is just that much different. I think that Yardley managed these parts of the book, or, I mean, pretty much the whole book, without managing to be insulting. There were characters that really got on my nerves, but they were handled well enough that in the end I had no problems with them. Basically, this book was far better than I could have ever expected. Well worth a read.
review 2: This is a cool chick-lit book, I've been to Japan, worked in Japanese companies based in the U.S. and also studied Japanese in University. So it was very nice to read along, remember my times in Tokyo, the food and so on. I think it needed a better job in editing, since some of the italicized Japanese words were incorrectly spelled. The plot was predictable, no big surprises, but it still kept me hooked until the end. Overall I enjoyed the book. less

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