arc provided by the publisher via netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, Penguin!

I've found this review a bit difficult to write, since I keep getting distracted by working on a time machine to go back and smack myself for not reading this faster. From Little Tokyo, with Love is a magical contemporary about a girl whose life doesn't seem magical at all— never quite feeling like she fits in due to the scandal of her birth, her mixed heritage, and being surrounded by bossy cousins who fit the 'princess' description much better than her, Rika has gone the opposite direction of the fairy tale life her circumstances set her up for. Who needs a prince or a ballgown when you have a kick-ass snake woman from mythology as an icon and a judogi instead? 

But then her life turns upside down when she sees Grace Kimura, a famous rom-com actor, during the Nisei week parade. Or rather, Grace sees her, and suddenly Rika is sent on a very fairy tale journey with a sweet, incredibly attractive actor who is much more than meets the eye. But the closer she gets to a happy ending, the more she wonders whether it'd be better to pull back and protect her heart, or accept that maybe there are fairy tale endings for girls like her. 

One thing that stood out to me about this book from the first page was the strong voice of our narrator. The book is from a first-person POV and Kuhn does a wonderful job of making you feel like you're right there in Rika's head. At first I struggled to connect and thought this was because I'm approaching an ugh, teenagers age, but as the book went on I started to realize that it was actually because I was getting too immersed. I saw a lot of myself and my own anger in Rika, and perhaps I was gearing myself for a narrative where the angry girl learns to let go and be calm. 

But this book didn't let me down at all. I won't dive too much into it to avoid spoilers, but the way emotions are handled in this book really surprised me. I couldn't have imagined rating this less than four stars. All the important scenes between Rika's quest to find her mother, her interactions with her community, and her sweet romance were carefully written and had my heart beating. From the writing to the in-depth characters to the lovely plot, if you are a YA contemporary lover, this is definitely one you don't want to miss. Applications for the Henry Chen fan club are now open!