13 new YA releases that belong on your May reading list
By Lacy Baugher
May 2021 release: From Little Tokyo with Love – Sarah Kuhn
Celebrated author Sarah Kuhn reinvents the modern fairy tale in this intensely personal yet hilarious novel of a girl whose search for a storybook ending takes her to unexpected places in both her beloved LA neighborhood and her own guarded heart.
From Little Tokyo with Love follows the story of Rika, a young girl who’s half Japanese, half white, and doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere. She doesn’t feel accepted in the tradition-oriented neighborhood of Little Tokyo, where she lives with her two aunts. But all that changes thanks to a change meeting with popular Asian American actress Grace Kimura, an encounter that sends Rika on a hunt for clues about who her long-lost mother might have been that may just give her the sense of belonging she’s needed all along.
The official synopsis describes the story as follows.
"If Rika’s life seems like the beginning of a familiar fairy tale–being an orphan with two bossy cousins and working away in her aunts’ business–she would be the first to reject that foolish notion. After all, she loves her family (even if her cousins were named after Disney characters), and with her biracial background, amazing judo skills and red-hot temper, she doesn’t quite fit the princess mold. All that changes the instant she locks eyes with Grace Kimura, America’s reigning rom-com sweetheart, during the Nikkei Week Festival. From there, Rika embarks on a madcap adventure of hope and happiness–searching for clues about her long-lost mother, exploring Little Tokyo’s hidden treasures with a cute actor, and maybe…finally finding a sense of belonging. But fairy tales are fiction and the real world isn’t so kind. Rika knows she’s setting herself up for disappointment, because happy endings don’t happen to girls like her. Should she walk away before she gets in even deeper, or let herself be swept away?"
From Little Tokyo with Love is available on May 18.