"Edokko" offers a charming narrative through the eyes of Lily, a spirited sixteen-year-old blogger from Toronto embarking on a year-long exchange program in Tokyo. Despite her initial excitement, Lily's journey takes an unexpected turn when she finds herself living with a new host family in a small town.

While the story may appeal to young adult readers seeking a light-hearted adventure, its strongest aspect lies in its immersive setting. Loren Greene skillfully transports readers to lesser-known corners of Japan, painting vivid landscapes and offering insights into Japanese culture, including delightful descriptions of hot springs. However, the initial portrayal of Lily as bratty and self-centered may deter some readers. Yet, as the narrative unfolds, Lily undergoes significant character development, evolving into a more empathetic and mature individual. This growth feels authentic and adds depth to the story.

Overall, "Edokko" is a pleasant read with a focus on personal growth, perseverance, and friendship. While it may not resonate with all readers due to its protagonist's initial flaws, its exploration of relationships and cultural immersion make it a worthwhile choice for those seeking a heartwarming tale of self-discovery.

This book is well written and the characters are good, the story is cute and is set in between California and Japan. It’s a fun YA read


Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

In which an expensive study abroad program for high school students screws up horribly. shrugs its proverbial shoulders, and cheerily suggests a young woman make the best of it. Sigh.

Because this is fiction, poor Lily, she is who is meant to “make the best of things,” of course finds that her experience (not what she asked for, was promised, or what her parents paid for) was magnificent! In reality, I expect either this gets fixed or she goes home two weeks later.

I really don’t love kids books that send the message that you shouldn’t speak up when you’ve been put in a bad position and should instead just grin and bear it. Especially, especially for you girls. Don’t complain no matter what (and things will inevitably turn out great!) is not how I would ever want my daughter to handle a situation like this. Obviously for the book to have a plot at all, there needed to be a “things go wrong!” element, but this one just endlessly banged the “don’t be a whiner and take what you’re given” drum to the point where any of the fun of the narrative and what Lily *does* get out of learning to adapt felt entirely beside the point.

This was a nice short and sweet read. I really love this cover and the feel of it really matched this book

I DNF this book unfortunately, it was just hard to get though. The main character was unpleasant and I just could not continue it.

I think I requested this on a whim. Why? I honestly have no idea! Just not my cup of tea. Old me was an idiot and once I picked this up, I had to, very quickly, dnf it

This book was not my cup of tea. Some people might like it, but I found it quite boring and would not recommend it

This book was cute but it was lacking something to give it a complete feeling. The biggest issue for me was the main character. I appreciate how she grows and how her character arc happens, but I feel like it could have happened someone differently and maybe a little faster.

She is incredibly rude in a lot of ways throughout the novel. Her host family tries to deal with her, as well as other people in the village and even beyond, but she doesn’t respond to any of it for awhile. She wants to live out her perfect exchange student in Japan experience and holds onto that dream for way too long. I would’ve loved to see her mindset change as her actions started to change. There was a little bit of a disconnect there.

Otherwise I enjoyed the side characters a lot and thought they made more sense realistically. This is still a fun read and I could recommend it! The plot was kind of general and I think that’s why I felt the main character could’ve been more developed and thorough.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is well written and the characters are described well. The pacing of this story is good. This book is set in between California and Japan. This book will make you want to visit Japan. It is such a entertaining reading experience. This ebook is in stores for $2.99 (USD).

Before going in be advised to have lots of patience set aside to deal with the main character Lily. She is a piece! Having to read through Lily's perspective is a challenge, although I was more interested in "experiencing" Japan through her eyes, so I was able to gloss over some of her attitudes.

Lily is a shallow spoiled brat. At first, she doesn't show it. You side with her because the experience she was promised was in Tokyo. But then that plan went south and she ends up in the middle of nowhere. And I get it. I probably wouldn't like that last-minute change as well. Although she starts to hate everything. Instead of taking advantage of the opportunity to see what it's like to live in rural Japan and experience the culture, all she focuses on is the fact she is not in Tokyo.

With time, Lily does change and we get to see that deep down she has a good heart. After putting aside the rebel teen hormones she is a good girl with her heart in the right place. She had some actions that made me change my opinion of her slightly. And that is the primary goal of the story to follow allow Lily's growth while spending one year abroad.

Since the story is character-driven, it develops more slowly and at times feels like nothing is happening and I'm just following along with the daily life of an exchange student. There are a lot of small moments that work together to develop the relationships between the characters. Also, there is no romance. Despite Lily's desire, there isn't any romance. The story focus on building friendships.

Knowing from the start this is an adventure of a one-year exchange program, it's kind of bitter-sweet. For once, I didn't care Lily had to get back home to Canada. She wasn't being appreciative of her time in Japan, so I didn't care if she went home. For another, she created good relationships that now she would have to abandon and only be able to keep them as long-distance.

Lastly, Edokko is a good book for Japan lovers. A vision of Japan as an exchange student away from the big touristy cities. As I said Lily is hard to deal with, but in between her complaints, it's possible to appreciate the setting.

**Thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for this eARC in exchange for an honest review. This in no way changed my opinion**

I DNF'd this one about 30% in. While I realize that Lily will change over the course of the book because that's the arc, she is so uncomfortably bratty and rude to others at the beginning, especially in a country that you are being hosted in, that I can't find myself rooting for her. I want her to change for other people's sake, but I don't like her at all. While getting your hopes dashed is disappointing, the constant whining about her assignment, the fact that she's the least experienced in the language but also thinks that she's like some Japanese expert because she's watched a few mangas is really cringe. It's hard to push past a really unlikable protagonist.

I'm sure there are people who will find her charming, but I find her to be really self-absorbed and ignorant, which I can't in good conscience recommend as an example to other readers.

I have to admit it took multiple tries to finish this book. I started it, got bored, then started it again, it was a bumpy start that's for sure.

The main character was also really annoying and I strongly disliked her. She gets better at the end, but oh boy I really didn't like her and it didn't help my feeling towards this book.

It sounded cute and I really hoped to like it, but I didn't enjoy this. It felt like it will never end. Maybe I'm just not the right audience of this book because I think that people around 14-15 might like it more.

This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our list for order this year and will recommend it to students.

I liked this book, but the protagonist made that a hard feat for me.
Lily is annoying throughout the book and although I really enjoyed some parts of this book, she's not one of them.
I did think the premise was cute and the pacing was nice. The actual writing style was not my favorite, but I didn't hate it--the writing in books is very important to me and if it's off, I often dnf a book because of it.
Overall I thought it was a fun read. The cultural and exploration aspects of it were definitely my favorite.
I'd recommend as a quick, fun (minus Lily) read for a somewhat younger audience.

An entitled Canadian girl becomes an exchange student, on her way to Tokyo, but finds herself way out in the sticks instead, far from any city. She doesn't speak Japanese, and can't really communicate with anybody.

As the year goes by, she settles in and finds what the small town has to offer.

This honesty wasn't my favorite read but it wasn't the worst either.

Edokko follows Lily Jennings on a high school exchange program to Japan. Lily keeps a blog of her trip that we get to read, along with Lily’s unfiltered daily experiences. I enjoyed the way the author explores the difference between how we present ourselves online and what is really going on in our lives. Lily’s trip doesn’t turn out the way she’d imagined, but Lily learns some important life lessons. This is definitely a YA book and as an adult I found Lily's teenage behaviour a bit exasperating. I think this is a great book for a 15, 16 or 17 year old to read, it is less relevant for older readers, but still enjoyable as a light read.

I have never been on an exchange program, and I'm not a teenager any more. However, the description and the front cover (so cute) of Edokko caught my eyes right away. It was quite a fun read with, let's be honest, a generous amount of annoyance towards Lily at times. But overall, I loved the story plot and the character growth.

Edokko is a story of a Canadan high school student Lily Jennings going to Japan for a year-long exchange student program in "Tokyo". Once she arrived in Japan for an orientation, things didn't go as planned and she was reassigned to a small town called Ajimu. Lily, who was excited to blog and brag about her fancy, shopping-filled, dessert-eating exchange program experience in Tokyo, felt like she had to live up to the image she created on her blog and continue to live her lie. 

Lily was honestly such a frustrating, entitled, selfish character at first. It was all about me, me, ME!! and I-have-to-get-what-I-want attitude. That attitude was such a turn off and annoyed me to no end, but for some reason, I had to keep going and see what happened to Lily. 

In the beginning, she didn't have any appreciation for the true Japanese culture, was only fixated on moving to Tokyo, and was rude to many people who tried to help her. I understand why she'd felt that way as a teenager; it's all about what others think of you and your cool exchange experience.

As an Asian immigrant to the US, I also empathized hard with her school experience when she didn't fully speak Japanese and only looked as an interesting foreigner, not a friend material. That feeling of isolation is common for people immigrating to a new country where you don't know how to fit in at all. It brought all my memories of not fitting in back in middle and high school. That's when I started rooting for Lily to make friends at school and at home with her host sister Fuyumi so she can fully enjoy her exchange life in Ajimu.

By the fall semester, Lily has grown to be an active participant in her community learning and appreciating the Japanese culture. I loved seeing her developing friendships with people around her, especially with quiet Fuyumi. By the end of the book, I saw Lily as a big girl who understood her and others more and better. 

Because this book is trying to fit one year of the exchange program into one book, there were many time jumps as each chapter started with Lily's blog. I honestly liked that and it made me feel like I'm one of her blog followers who happened to know her real story in Ajimu. 

Thank you to Netgalley and HachiPress for giving me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

*I was kindly provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley*

3.5 stars

Edokko took me a long time to get into. Lily Jennings, our Canadian MC, is incredibly narcissistic, idealistic, and materialistic. From the start, she is distinctly unlikeable and it takes time for her to grow as a character, and us to respond as readers.
Reading about her teenage mistakes can be cringe as an adult reader but bearing in mind what life is like at that age, especially when experiencing culture shock and disappointment, is crucial to engaging with Edokko.
All in all, once you get into it, the characters are rounded and engaging, and Loren Greene paints a beautiful picture of rural Japan.
If you’re looking for a cute YA read that’s not about romance, but rather growing as a person and experiencing something new, Edokko is perfect.

Edokko follows the story of sixteen year old Lily as she embarks on a trip around the world from Toronto, Canada to Japan as an exchange student. However, it isn't quite what she expected.

I really struggled with enjoying this book and that was largely because I just did not at all enjoy the main character. She is incredibly whiny, ungrateful and just quite immature - wanting everything her way and then actively trying to get herself kicked out of her host-home when it didn't go how she wanted. She did become more tolerable as she grew into herself and the experience, so I think perhaps if this redemption arc had come a lot sooner and then progressed, the book would've been more enjoyable.

I did genuinely love a lot of the other characters - especially Grace, who had her own story to 'tell another time'. That's a book I could be interested in picking up in the future! The host-family in Japan were also a lovely set of characters, especially the 'younger brother' as he had a lot of qualities and adorable interactions that really made me smile - I would've loved to have seen more of the build in relationships between them and Lily.

Overall I did find myself just persevering to read it, with perhaps the last 1/4 of the book having some lovely and redeeming writing/plot. I think perhaps I'm just not the target! I would suggest this as maybe a younger YA, as I know that had I read it at 14-17 I would've probably loved it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Loren Greene for the chance to read the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was provided with an eARC of this book in exchange for a fair review.

This is a spinoff of another book by this author, which I have not read, but I did not feel like I was missing anything for that. This definitely works as a standalone. I really enjoyed this story, which follows Canadian Lily as she does an exchange year in Japan. She has the trip glorified in her mind, and when it doesn't go as planned (her original host family in Tokyo falls through) she falls down this rabbit hole of disappointment and lies. She runs a blog to document her trip, and she just keeps making up stories about Tokyo, despite now being nowhere near there. Lily frustrated me a lot as a character. She has this very entitled, spoiled, attitude, and its always all about her. For someone who is voluntarily in a foreign country, she seems very negative about experiencing the local culture and cuisine. Its pretty clear that she was more interested in the clout than the actual experience. Luckily, she does begin to grow as a person as her time in Japan progresses. It takes her about 7 of her 12 months, but she does come around eventually.
Despite Lily's attitude, or perhaps because of it, I really enjoyed this story. It was an interesting look into life during a foreign exchange trip, and gave some good insight into life in Japan. I do wish we had seen more of Lily's experiences - many things were alluded to, but lost in large time jumps - but I understand that the author was trying to fit a year of content into one book.
All in all, I recommend this one to fans of travel and Japansese culture.