My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life
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15
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"I'm here to take you to live with your father. In Tokyo, Japan! Happy birthday!" In the Land of the Rising Sun, where high culture meets high kitsch, and fashion and technology are at the forefront of the First World's future, the foreign-born teen elite attend ICS-the International Collegiate School of Tokyo. Their accents are fluid. Their homes are ridiculously posh. Their sports games often involve a (private) plane trip to another country. They miss school because of jet lag and visa issues. When they get in trouble, they seek diplomatic immunity. Enter foster-kid-out-of-water Elle Zoellner, who, on her sixteenth birthday, discovers that her long-lost father, Kenji Takahara, is actually a Japanese hotel mogul and wants her to come live with him. Um, yes, please! Elle jets off first class from Washington, DC, to Tokyo, which seems like a dream come true. Until she meets her enigmatic father, her way-too-fab aunt, and her hyper-critical grandmother, who seems to wish Elle didn't exist. In an effort to please her new family, Elle falls in with the Ex-Brats, a troop of uber-cool international kids who spend money like it's air. But when she starts to crush on a boy named Ryuu, who's frozen out by the Brats and despised by her new family, her already tenuous living situation just might implode. My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life is about learning what it is to be a family, and finding the inner strength to be yourself, even in the most extreme circumstances.
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There are so many things wrong with this book I don't really know where to begin.
I guess, first off, this isn't some love letter to Tokyo like a lot of reviews have said. Reading, I felt like I know more about the city and culture just from watching anime and researching for my own trip than this author - there were things that were very weird or just plain wrong that the author is trying to pass off as fact that are actually pretty important when representing an entire nation such as language and name pronunciations, phrases, and cultural norms. There is also really only one part of the book the explores the city and most of that is spent on the Robot Restaurant experience. Most of the books hardly takes place outside of the hotel she lives in or the accelerated English-language school she goes to, both places are hardly experiences a normal person would be able to relate to or experience in Japan.
Secondly, how much thought was put into Elle's characterisation? She was just a really shitty person from the start. She grew up loved but has become so embittered by her mother's (seemingly short) addiction spiral that led to prison that she just acts like a spoiled brat through most of the book. Yes, she had to experience the American foster system (which sucks) but it seemed like a very short time and now she's basically been handed this amazing, privileged life and she can't take some minutes out of her day to appreciate it, instead focusing on how her father works constantly or how her grandmother and aunt show little interest. And before that, she claims she loves her mom but didn't seem to do anything to discourage her addiction and then decided that she was so angry about it she wouldn't even visit her in prison, opting to just stew in her anger at her disgusting foster home. I guess because she's 16 you can just claim that she's at the age where she both thinks she knows everything she needs to about the world while knowing absolutely nothing but that makes it very difficult to read her POV, much less have any sympathy for her.
The book starts off with her getting pretty brutally bullied on the school bus because she smells from not being able to shower more than once a week at her foster home but doesn't seem to realise there is more than one way to clean yourself. When she does finally make it to Tokyo, she seems to know perfectly how to operate a brand new iPhone and video chat with friends via public school computers (which is absolutely ridiculous) but doesn't know basic things that come up in conversation as if she's never read a book in her life. She also doesn't seem to ever do any of her own research on Japan, relying solely on a binder that was prepared for her by her father's assistant (who disappears 1/4 way through the book never to be mentioned again) or what her “friends” tell her. She couldn't pick up a Lonely Planet guide at Dulles before getting on a 16 hour flight? There's also the fact that, while she wasn't super poor before her mom started spiraling, she embraces her newfound privilege with open arms, instantly becoming a Mean Girl - even while telling herself/the reader she hates every minute of it. She acts like she has no choice but to hang out with these girls, even feeling rebellious when she doesn't like it's some huge faux pas (though she's commiting faux pas left and right like it's her job). AND ALSO Uber and Amex is not something that you could use around Tokyo willy nilly, even as a rich person. Seven Eleven Japan does take Amex but I doubt many smaller shops do (she's also using it to buy things that are probably less than ??1500 and yeesh just get some allowance cash from your loaded father), as Japan is largely still a cash based society. And Uber is in Japan (in Tokyo only as many municipal governments such a Fukuoka have deemed it illegal) but it's more for hailing cabs (which is also how it works in Ireland and Finland). She would most likely have wanted to use a local cab app or would just walk/take trains/busses everywhere like most Japanese. AND THIS IS STUFF THAT IS ALL GOOGLEABLE, RACHEL.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg for what is wrong with this book.
The reader slogs though all of this nonsense, wanting more and more to throttle the main character, only to have the last 40 pages being some kind of magical conclusion with all these pieces falling perfectly into place and then wrapped with a Hello Kitty bow. That's not how life works and it makes this book an even bigger waste of time.
It was really disappointing because I've always been interested in Japanese culture and am preparing for my own trip abroad so was hoping for a book that would be in touch with that and make me even more excited, might even have given me some ideas or expectations... Instead, it just made me angry and cringe. If you know anything about Japan, you'll hate this. If you don't know anything about Japan, you might not hate this but I'll hate that it's giving you a false reality of such an amazing, rich culture.
