Biracial (Japanese/white) Nao moved to the United States from Japan as a young child. As a new high school graduate, Nao returns to Japan to reconnect with the language and culture of her birth. Spending a gap year at Himawari Sharehouse and attending language school is an immersive experience, rooted in Nao’s longing to feel truly Japanese. Her housemates, Hyejuno (Korean) and Tina (Singaporean), and Japanese brothers Shinichi and Masaki, each have their own distinctive stories, while the believable friendship that develops among the group feels authentic to their age and experience. Nao’s year in Tokyo is filled with shared meals, television drama viewing, language school stress, late night conversations, and a romance. It’s also marked by her expanding Japanese language skills and growing sense of belonging. The graphic novel format is well suited to incorporating the range of languages spoken (English, Japanese, Korean, and Singlish) in predominantly bilingual speech bubbles, while also giving visibility to accents, mispronunciations, and moments of incomprehension. An Author’s Note addresses the inclusion of accents and mispronunciations, acknowledging their historically stereotyped use as comic relief in one-dimensional characters. Her intent here was to create “fully actualized, three-dimensional” characters whose accents are “not a point of shame but a point of pride, because after all, what is an accent but proof of the ability to speak more than one language.” Her success extends to visual depictions: the well-developed characters are always clearly identifiable in the finely crafted illustrations, which also deftly convey memories and emotions.
(Age 13 and older)

Winner of the 2023 Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Fiction Literature
Winner of the 2022 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers' Literature
A 2021 Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year
A 2021 School Library Best Books of the Year

A young adult graphic novel about three foreign exchange students and the pleasures, and difficulties, of adjusting to living in Japan.

Living in a new country is no walk in the park—Nao, Hyejung, and Tina can all attest to that. The three of them became fast friends through living together in the Himawari House in Tokyo and attending the same Japanese cram school. Nao came to Japan to reconnect with her Japanese heritage, while Hyejung and Tina came to find freedom and their own paths. Though each of them has her own motivations and challenges, they all deal with language barriers, being a fish out of water, self discovery, love, and family.