Mika in Real Life

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Each relationship is drawn with nuance and complexity, and each character felt fully realized, so they were lovable despite their flaws. Oh and she’s also broke and, as much as she hates doing it, has to repeatedly borrow money from her parents for basic daily necessities. Penny was adopted by Caroline and Thomas Calvin, truly loving, adoring parents who made great efforts to keep Penny close to her Japanese heritage while also keeping Mika informed about her daughter through yearly letters and pictures.

At first contentious, their relationship grows and when the truth of Mika's life comes out, watch out!Only a few pages later, we get the tantalising information that Mika will be back in that hospital with that same person, sixteen years later, but how and why is held back from us very cleverly for most of the book (I kept thinking I’d guessed, and I was wrong every time). The Japanese American immigrant experience was woven in throughout this story so seamlessly and added so much to the storyline.

If you like audiobooks, I highly recommend the audio version of this one because the narrator did a fantastic job. Without giving the plot away, Mika initially tries to present a perfect life to Penny, ashamed she’s 35, unemployed again, with no partner or home of her own. We equip them with everything we can, but we really don’t know what storms they’re gonna face and what leaks they’re going to spring.In her mind, the Mika that she is portraying to Penny is her version of what Penny would want her to be. Jobless, single and living in a chaotic flat share, she can’t bear her daughter knowing her life is a mess.

The details of Mika’s life might be an illusion, but everything she shares with curious, headstrong Penny is real: her hopes, dreams, flaws, and Japanese heritage. I am so appreciative to publisher William Morrow Books for allowing me to read and review this book and I highly recommend adding to your end of summer reading list. Wonderfully written and compelling, Emiko Jean perfectly captures the essence of the parent and child bond; the intensity, fear, sacrifice, constant change, grief and inadequacy you feel as a part of your heart walks around outside your body.I also had a real soft spot for Thomas and enjoyed seeing a positive but realistic representation of a single father. The representation of adoption, Japanese culture, mother-daughter dynamics and a modern world of DNA testing bringing people together - we had a dash of it all and it came together in the most delicious way possible. And so, all of that kind of became hands that pushed her down into being pretty inactive in her own life. There was a little romance in this book, but I didn’t pick it up for that so I’m just going to forget about it being a bit underdeveloped yet sweet. Her friends help her in this but also then help her to develop her ability to “do Mika”, to be her authentic self, and especially to reconnect with the art practice she lost at college.