Tokyo Ever After

I think it's more of a 3.5.

This was a very impulsive read for me which I picked up after reading a lovely review of the sequel Tokyo Dreaming. It's YA contemporary which is so not my thing anymore, so I didn't have much expectations. It turned out to be cute and fun, emotional at places, a tad bit predictable but overall enjoyable just like The Princess Diaries. I definitely liked the parts about Izumi wanting to belong somewhere and trying to reconcile her American upbringing with a more conservative Japanese imperial culture, and all the narrative about her learning to speak Japanese, write Kanji and learn the etiquette was very nicely written. The romance is probably a bit of instalove but it's kinda a staple of the genre at this point and I won't begrudge it. Overall, I had fun and I wouldn't mind picking up the sequel.