What does love have to do with it? In this riveting read, Mixed Vegetables, Ayumi Komura explores this very concept. Since her first visit to a sushi restaurant Hanayu Ashitaba falls in love with her dream of being a sushi chef. Hanayu breaths fish and love everything about it. However, her parents have other dreams for her. They wish for Hanayu to take over the family business, following her father footstep in running a bakery.
Torn between destinies, Hanayu cooks up a plan. She finds that a local boy, Hayato Hyuga, in her culinary class at her high is the son of a sushi chef. Consequently, she eludes that if she can get Hayato to marry her, she will be destined to partake in the sushi business and become a chef. Additionally, she knows that with Hayato as decoy her parents would understand her decision to become a sushi chef, concluding that she must follow and adhere to her husband. However, Hanayu forgets one thing, in order to get Hayato to marry her she first must get him to fall in love with her, but what is love for a sixteen year girl? How do you know when you are in love? What does love feel like? Most importantly, do you need love for marriage? These are all fascinating principals that Komura explores in the book. Moreover, in exploring these philosophies, Komura provides vital lesson such as the role of morals and ethics in relationships. She than liken these traditional characteristics to arranged marriages. In all you take the journey with an ambitious teenage girl desperate to follow her dream, satisfy her parents, and maybe even find love, whatever that is!
I find this book to be an excellent read for all and even more extraordinary for young adult readers. Young adults will be able to relate to the topics and themes discussed here. They will defiantly identify with the challenge of openly expressing themselves to their parents. I also believe that young readers will find comfort in the constant challenge of Hanayu 's search for the meaning of relationships, love, and success. Moreover, they will be lured with the graphics throughout the novel to reveal deeper meanings. In all youthful readers will reestablish the importance of dreaming, and making ethical choices underlined by a story line of romance! A must read!
2 comments:
The terms concept, culinary art, philosophies, arranged marriages, and graphics all lead to links if you hover over them with the mouse. For some reason some terms highlighted darker than others, but I have checked the websites that I intended for the term and all are there when clicking the terms.
Hi Schenieka,
I really enjoyed reading your review! Hanayu's struggle to make sense of her life, her dreams, and her relationships are struggles that many young adults and adults face in their daily lives. You also mentioned Hanayu's attempts to overcome the older Japanese traditions and customs in an effort to follow her own dreams. I think that this search for identity amidst the ever present social and family pressures is another idea that young adults will strongly relate to.
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