Tokyo Hearts - A Japanese Love Story by Renae Lucas-Hall
| Tokyo Hearts - A Japanese Love Story by Renae Lucas-Hall | |
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| Category: Women's Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: You'll really feel as though you're in the centre of Japan with this story of how the yong fashionistas live and love. Renae Lucas-Hall popped into Bookbag Towers to chat to us. | |
| Buy? Maybe | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 192 | Date: June 2012 |
| Publisher: Grosvenor House Publishing Ltd | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1781487693 | |
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Takashi is a student in his final year at university. He works pretty hard, but his heart belongs to Haruka, who was a fellow student until she had to leave when her father was taken ill. As a rule they meet once a week in a cafe - but Takashi fears that Haruka only sees him as a friend, particularly when he discovers that she's seeing a wealthy ex-boyfriend on a regular basis. Jun's good-looking too and Takashi realises that he has little to offer, particularly as Haruka loves shopping for designer goods. They're in fashionable Tokyo where style, sophistication and fashion are a way of life. How will it work out, particularly when Haruka is planning on moving to Kyoto - which is also where the ex-boyfriend lives - and earthquakes seem to be happening regularly in the capital?
For me the star of this book was Japan itself: you really will feel as though you're there on the fashionable streets, in the department stores, on the bullet rain - or even in the tiny apartments which pass for home for so many people like Takashi. You'll sit under the cherry blossom trees in the park - or freeze as you wait for a friend in the winter months. It's the Japan which belongs to the young and in which older people are either rich or struggling to get by. You'll even get a sense of the food that people eat and how much everything costs. You won't be in any doubt about Renae Lucas-Hall's love of Japan.
It's a simple story of love which appears to be unrequited, which is being driven astray by parental emphasis on making a 'good' marriage - where there's money - rather than one based on love. There's a certain innocence about the relationship between Takashi and Haruma - even as friends they seem to be curiously distant - and I didn't completely sense any chemistry between them. What wasn't in any doubt though was their love of the big brand names which seemed to rule their lives and ambitions. There's a few twists along the way before we get a resolution and some of them could only happen in Japan.
Tokyo Hearts was an interesting read and I'd like to thank the author for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
For a non-fiction look at Japan we can recommend Japan Through The Looking Glass by Alan Macfarlane. If you'd like to know more about Japanese food have a look at Sushi and Beyond: What the Japanese Know About Cooking by Michael Booth. We did like Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa and Alison Watts (translator) and Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki and Polly Barton (translator).
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You can read more book reviews or buy Tokyo Hearts - A Japanese Love Story by Renae Lucas-Hall at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Tokyo Hearts - A Japanese Love Story by Renae Lucas-Hall at Amazon.com.
Renae Lucas-Hall was kind enough to be interviewed by Bookbag.
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