Narrated by: Em EldridgeE-Audio, 09:03:39Release Date: September 11, 2018Published by: Tantor Media, Inc.
Read from: April 20-23, 2020Stand-aloneSource: Library (Overdrive)TW: Death, Depression, GriefFor fans of: YA, LGBTQIAP+, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, POC MC, Tear Jerker
Rumi Seto spends a lot of time worrying she doesn’t have the answers to everything. What to eat, where to go, whom to love. But there is one thing she is absolutely sure of—she wants to spend the rest of her life writing music with her younger sister, Lea.
Then Lea dies in a car accident, and her mother sends her away to live with her aunt in Hawaii while she deals with her own grief. Now thousands of miles from home, Rumi struggles to navigate the loss of her sister, being abandoned by her mother, and the absence of music in her life. With the help of the “boys next door”—a teenage surfer named Kai, who smiles too much and doesn’t take anything seriously, and an eighty-year-old named George Watanabe, who succumbed to his own grief years ago—Rumi attempts to find her way back to her music, to write the song she and Lea never had the chance to finish.
*MY THOUGHTS*
I have been trying to get my hands on the audio of this since it was first released. I tried reading it before, but I just didn't care for Rumi and couldn't get past like the third chapter. But reading it in another format made all the difference.
This is a very heavy read. I remember getting so invested in this that I was talking to my computer while it was playing. And once when I was completing some work while it was on, I had tears just streaming down my cheeks. Definitely be ready or have the right head space when you get ready to read this.
As for the characters, I liked the characters, but Rumi was a bit much for me. I know she was depressed and upset and grieving, but she just seemed selfish. It was like she was the only one who could be upset about what happened and her mom couldn't; that her mom being upset and shutting down was automatically about her, and not just because her mom was upset about it as well. I know depression doesn't make sense, but I still think she could have given her mom some slack. But out of all of them, I really loved Mr. Watanabe.
I did love the representation though! I don't know the last time I read a book about a aromantic/asexual (questioning) character. And to see how she dealt with the "relationship" made me happy. I loved seeing that Kai didn't get upset with her, even if that's not exactly what he wanted. I loved that he made it all about her, and not him.
I also really loved the setting. It was set in beautiful Hawaii that seemed like a really light and tropical. I think it went better with the darkness of the subject and the plot. It made the already really dark book a little lighter. To me, I thought it worked really well.
This book has some really great things and some things I didn't really care for. I can see this being a favorite for some, but to me, it was just a really good, emotional read. It was hard for me to look past some things, and for that I couldn't give it the complete 5 stars like everyone else.
