Mika in Real Life

Written By Linda Malek

Mika in Real Life by Emiko Jean

Reviewed by Linda
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Thank you @michaeljbooks & @wearemediahive for this copy!

At 35, Mika is struggling to get her life on track.
Her very traditional Japanese parents aren't impressed with her life choices, her most recent relationship hasn't ended very well and she’s just been sacked from her low-paying office job. The author helps us figure out what's going on in Mika's mind and despite her shortcomings, she is actually a very humble, likeable, and funny character.
On the day that she gets fired from her job, Mika gets a call from her daughter Penelope, whom she gave up for adoption 16 years ago. This is the first time the reader gets a glimpse into Mika's backstory and despite a life of no contact with her birth mother, Penelope has been given the blessing of her late adoptive mother to find her.
The date is set and Penelope and her adoptive father, Thomas are on their way to see Mika in Portland. But Mika has to make a few tweaks to her life first. She feels inadequate and ashamed so it wouldn't hurt to tell a few white lies, would it? Except we all know that it's going to blow up in her face sooner rather than later. I won't spoil that bit for you.
Despite the facade, Mika and Penelope work hard at founding and establishing a mother/daughter relationship. The book provides in-depth observations on motherhood. Not just between Mika and Penelope but between Mika and her own mother, Hiromi. It’s not a short book and covers the issues that come from parents adopting children from different cultures, the PTSD Mika has suffered from her birthing experience, adoption, and estrangement from her parents. Massive props to the author for getting into the adoptive father, Thomas' mind. Whilst wanting his daughter to reconnect with her birth mother, he feels Penelope slip away from the life they had built with his late wife. The supporting characters are great too and this made the read all the more comical and balanced.

Linda Malek

I've always had the urge to set up a forum and voice my thoughts after each read, but never had the confidence to do so alone. 18 months ago, I got my fellow book-loving friends involved and formed The Candid Book Club! Aside from having an exponentially growing to-read pile and deteriorating shortsightedness, we've been lucky to have been invited to publisher events and have attended several talks with our favourite authors (Thank you and long may they continue!) To take a break from the pressures of PhD Chemistry, Jess and I exchanged books all the time and in my youth, I was that kid with the first editions of Harry Potter having already read Gulliver’s travels and some Charles Dickens. At work, my desk is a library and luckily for me I sit next to another bookworm Jack who entertains all the photo-taking. I'm suffering from a chronic case of wanderlust (age-related crisis) so books which are set as far away from home as possible tend to float my boat: Middle East, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Asia...you name it. But if it's got anything to do with Egypt then I'm all over it. So you get the drift...I read all the time, everywhere (on the tube mostly), everyday, a book a week, and very quickly I'm onto the next! And then sometimes there is a book that stops me in my tracks, makes me want to swallow the pages whole, and have it next to me at all times, with some sentences staying with me forever: Shantaram by David Gregory Roberts, anything by Khaled Hosseini, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo (absolute gem of a woman), A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shuklaand and anything by Naguib Mahfouz.

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