This is my third book by Emiko Jean and I am going to say that this author is surprisingly becoming an auto-buy favorite! I am absolutely thrilled of this genre that she is willing to explore and she did a great job!

Mika Suzuki is 35 years old and does not have her life together. Call her a mess and that shoe fit! No job, empty bank account and crashing in with her lifetime bestfriend for a rent free stay. She gave up her baby for adoption when she was 19 . After a decade and a half, a phone call will give Mika the wake up call if her life when 16-year old Penny Calvin found her and claims to be her daughter.

I enjoyed this book so much! It has the perfect balance of realistic life situations and the beauty of adoption. Every character is well develop, every relationship has its own set of conflicts and sweet reunions, and every page of this book is a beautiful story unfolding!

Special thanks to William Morrow via Netgalley for the advance copy for review. I highly recommend Mika in Real Life! It’s a great read.

This is a radiant book that so beautifully captures the complexities of mother-daughter relationships and the messy path of self-actualization.

I wish it focused more on the mother/daughter relationship! Overall though I enjoyed Penny's character the most and thought it was a sweet story.

Thanks to William Morrow and Net Gallery for this ARC. This book has it all: humor, drama, romance, and a perfect ending. Mika gave up her baby, Penny, for adoption. One day, out of the blue, Penny calls her up looking to get to know her. In an effort to impress her daughter, she tells a minor lie about her circumstances. That one lie blooms into another until she has to show her this fantasy life. Mika must learn about herself throughout this story. It was a fun read that had me laughing out loud at times. It made me so happy to have an ending that doesn’t leave any loose ends. Looking forward to reading something else by Emiko Jean sometime soon.

This was a touching story with unexpected emotional depth. I absolutely loved examination of different mother-daughter relationships throughout this novel.

We meet Mika in her mid-30s, with her life kind of a mess, when Penny - the daughter she gave up for adoption - contacts her. From there some shenanigans ensue with Mika lying about the perfect life that she has in order to impress Penny. To be honest I wasn’t a huge fan of Mika and all the lying in the beginning but as the story progresses so does she.

This is an #ownvoices story and I really liked the exploration into what it is like to grow up the only daughter of Japanese immigrants in a mostly white community (Mika) versus growing up a Japanese-American only daughter raised by white parents in a mostly white community (Penny).

Thank you to @williammorrowbooks, @netgalley and @thoughtsfromapage Podcast patreon group for providing me with an electronic ARC (and a great author chat!) in exchange for an honest review

Oh how I enjoyed this story! The characters were so very flawed and real, especially Mika. I thought it was brilliant how the author put cultural stereotypes on their head with Mika in Real Life. Emiko Jean handled some tough topics with finesse such as the effects of adoption, parental pressure and difficult family relationships, and sexual assault. There were several times in the story where my stomach twisted with foreboding, and my heart swelled with empathy. Well done.

Thank you to William Morrow, NetGalley, and Thoughts From a Page Patreon early reads for the electronic advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

This book is a kind and rich portrayal of the relationship between a birth mother, the child she placed for adoption, and the adoptive family, as well as other relationships in Mika's life. The setting of Portland, OR, comes alive in the book, and Mika's friends and family are real, interesting characters with whom I enjoyed spending time.

I didn't expect to love this book as much as I did. Watching Mika, Penny, Thomas, and even Hana grow and come to terms with what life has dealt them, throughout the story was amazing. I loved learning more about the past as the story continued as well.

The book ended at a perfect place, but that isn't to say I wouldn't enjoy reading more with these characters!

At the start of the book, I wasn’t sure where Mika’s life was heading, but I fell in love with this story. Unemployed, living with her friend Hana, Mika gets a phone call which upends her life from the baby she gave up sixteen years prior. Penny wants to meet her, sending Mika in a tizzy since she feels unaccomplished. The way the mother daughter relationship is defined, by Mika’s mother and Mika, Caroline and Penny, then Mika and Penny, is so revealing. The depth of Mika’s story, and how she ended up where she was in life, to where she can find meaning, is absorbing. Highly recommended. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

4.5⭐️

I STRONGLY empathized with the main character.

- topics covered in this book: 1st gen Asian American, mother-daughter relationship, race + identity, & more.
- storyline surprised me
- resonated with Mika soooo much
- there is so much more to the book than what is stated in the synopsis; great parts actually
- reveals cultural heritage where some may not understand
- slightly slow parts, but not too bad and would still recommend!

Cultural heritage & domestic fiction

This novel is chock full of quirky characters with complicated relationships. I liked some parts of this story better than others, but the message that I took away was that being a parent is hard and you do the best you can.

Mika in Real Life may look light hearted but it has great depths. Dealing with difficult topics, the author has given a realistic portrait of the aftermath of trauma and its lingering effects. Mika has been running from her past and failing at adulting for years until an unexpected call from the daughter she gave up for adoption. Events precipitated by this force Mika to confront her past and reclaim her lost dreams.

A satisfying read that takes the reader on the journey with Mika, leaving them wanting more but in a reflection of real life, leaves the future known.

Light with a bit of depth 👌

Mika in Real Life was just a delight.

Summary
Mika is a 35 year old at a low point in life when she receives a phone call from her biological daughter, Penny, she gave up reluctantly for adoption 16 years ago. Penny's lost her adoptive mother recently and is hoping to get to know Mika and figure out who she is and what her Japanese heritage means.

I highly recommend for when you're looking for a break from super heavy/complicated books.

Thank you @netgalley for this free copy in exchange for my honest review.

Have you read this yet?

This book was so good. It was one of those that I read slowly because I wanted to savor the writing the story.

Mika’s life is a mess. She’s been fired from another job. She lives with her hoarder best friend. Her parents are utterly disappointed in her. When the daughter she gave up for adoption 16 years ago wants to establish a relationship. Mika creates an entirely made up a life, a life she wishes she were living. Her friends were enabling and helped to create this fictitious life. I alternated between feeling frustrated by Mika’s lack of reality and then rooting for her and wanting her to find her happiness and peace.

After having great success as a young adult author, this is the author’s first adult novel. I’m not she sure quite captured the right tone for this. portions felt very much like a YA novel - which isn’t bad, just not what I was looking for.

Remember that old saying, how did it go….What a tangled web we weave…. Yeah, that. Sixteen years ago, Mika placed her daughter up for adoption. When Penny calls out of the blue wanting to establish communication and possibly even a relationship with Mika, Mika’s first instinct is to hold on. However she can. And since Mika’s life is a bit of a holy flipping nightmare, she wants to impress Penny. Just a little. Or maybe a lot. Maybe so much that the real Mika can’t possibly measure up. Maybe. Maybe not.

In a story that handles tough stuff - really tough stuff - adoption, death of a parent, rape, mental health, Jean finds a way to make you laugh out loud. She intertwines romance and optimism with WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST READ?

Absolutely freaking adorable. I don’t even know who I loved most. Mika with her floundering ways of trying to keep it together? Penny with her coming of age curiosity and typical teenage attitude? Thomas with his trying-to-be-tough-but-I’m-actually-clueless whole thing he had going on? Or was it the supporting characters? Hana? Charlie? Fricken Leif trying to get his weed business going? They were all in the running for the role of my new best friend.

Grab a copy, dive in, take a Friday night to yourself and just devour it. Absolutely wonderful. 100%.

Thanks to Emiko Jean, William Morrow and Netgalley for this ARC in return for my honest review.

I’m struggling to accurately describe how I felt reading this book. It maybe needs a trigger warning for adoptees and adopt… shit. What’s the word for women who give up their babies?!?

This book so beautifully describes the absolute shot show that is giving up a baby for adoption, or being a baby who was given up that think it should be required reading for high school girls.

This book is absolutely incredible. I’m absolutely crushed.

Mika in Real Life is an adorable family story! Mika hasn’t had the easiest road since she got pregnant at 18 and gave her daughter up for adoption. When she answers the phone one day to hear a young woman’s voice ask if she is her mother, Penny wants so much to be able to show her the amazing life she’s built. But Mika’s life is a train wreck and she decides that she can build the life she wants to show Penny. Unfortunately real life isn’t that simple and Mika has to work through her past to try to start the life she wants with Penny.

A cute, heart-warming story! I really enjoyed the characters and how real they all seemed. If you like family stories or mother/daughter stories, this was a cute read.

4.5/5

I enjoyed this book more as it went on. I am not a fan of plots where people blatantly lie about who they are, and you know it’s going to blow up in their face. Since that was a large part of the first half of the book, I didn’t really get into the book until afterwards, but the book was half over by then. That plot line feels uncomfortable and predictable. But then the books changes, which I felt to be more genuine.

There was a lot I liked about this book too. Mika feels so real as a character with so much love and deep scars as she works through her struggles. Penny was also a great character with so much life and a bright-eyed, optimistic view of life. She shows complexity with anger and grief, but these changes show how her relationship with Mika evolves.

Seeing Mika’s relationship grow with Penny was beautiful too. Some of my favorite quotes in this book were about motherhood/parenthood:

“Maybe that was the key to parenting: you couldn’t keep your children from being hurt, but you could give them a soft place to land.”

“Children are made to take a parent’s love and pass it along.”

Mika’s friendship with Hana was lovely as well. But I’m also a sucker for strong friendships. There is something so endearing about people that choose to be around each other through both good times and bad over decades.

The romance storylines were fine, but I was more drawn to the other relationships in the book.

I’d like to thank William Morrow and Custom House for providing an ARC through NetGalley.

I really enjoyed this adult novel by the author of the YA “Tokyo” books I have so loved this last year. This had similar themes of finding family and discovering who you are, but also dealt with other things too: adoption, trauma, falling in love as an adult, learning to parent, learning to love your parents for who they are, finding a career path that fits, and more. This was a solid 4.5 stars for me, and I would read a sequel eagerly if produced. Emiko Jean is going on my must-read list for sure.