It's Not Like It's a Secret

It's Not Like It's a Secret is a thoroughly enjoyable teen romance. Sixteen year old Sana and her family move from Wisconsin, where she was one of a handful of Asian students at school, to California where she is one of many. In Wisconsin she had a crush on her best friend, Trisha, who is totally straight and her crush is hopeless.

In California she meets Jamie who is a clerk in a store and it's crush at first sight. Jamie is Latino.

Author Misa Sugiura explores the difference in cultures and stereotypical perceptions such as Latinos are lazy and Asians are smart and hardworking. Sana's mother, a Japanese born American, also shares these opinions of Latinos, thus making it hard for Sana and Jamie to become friends, let alone girlfriends. show more

Sana's mother is stoic, showing gamen (enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity) and there are things in her life that require such strength.

Of course, like any other romance, there is girl gets girl, girl loses girl and girl gets girl back again. However this version was a joy to read. I highly recommend it. show less

I really liked this book! It was very well-written, with a clear character arc. I liked that Sana had a strong, core group of friends. Not everyone has that so easily when they move to another state. The plot was predictable, which was kind of annoying at times. The subplots, however, wow. I really wanted to know what was going on with her dad! Her emotions around it, and worries, were so well-written and believable. I liked how her mom was at the end. That was such intriguing characterization. I'm not sure how I felt about their New Years though. I'm still mulling over it.

3.5 Stars

CW: Racism and stereotyping, cheating, extramarital affair, issue of lesbian girl dating a boy just to be sure she isn’t straight.

The wonderful thing about being part of the Goodreads community is reading reviews from people whose world views, life experiences and personal truths are different from my own. Through my lense and with my YA librarian glasses on this book is a cutely awkward high school love story. I enjoyed the dynamics between some of the characters and thought the romance, whilst a bit instalovey and shallow, was still sweet. Readers be warned though, there are some hugely racist comments and attitudes throughout the novel between different POC. It is an important issue to tackle but it just seemed to be show more casually treated as ‘the way things are’. In my opinion there were little to no attempts to deal with this inappropriate behaviour in the novel so that was disappointing. I am also not sure if this was an authentic or healthy coming out journey so I recommend reading some own voice reviews as well.

Overall though this was an enjoyable read. show less

First half was really cute, insta-crush, but hey, it was followed by a build up and the poetry exchange was super cute. Also the racism topic was very well done and diverse queer characters, I mean, please. But as I said: For the first half.
In the second half everything goes to be a disaster. Not addressed, casual racism, miscommunication and cheating...

This book was ... interesting. I was really excited before reading it because it looked like a cute contemporary romance - it wasn't.

One thing I appreciated was that it opened dialogues about the intersection of racism and sexuality, as well as racism between different groups of people. Neither of this is discussed much in YA. It's Not Like It's a Secret definitely has value in the discussions it can open in this regard.

The plot, however, was a bit frustrating. Jamie and Sana get together, Sana gets scared that Jamie cheated on her and is going to break up, so she cheats on Jamie with a guy named Caleb, and does not confront either of them about it, all while Sana is keeping quiet about her father's infidelity. Sana kind of spiralled show more out of control with her relationships, and while I'm glad it had a happy ending, I did feel like it was a bit unrealistic.

Sana's an interesting character because she's very inactive. She only takes action at a few opportune moments in the plot - kissing Caleb - and at the end, which shows her character growth. This is something else I appreciated, because she learned from her experiences and tried desperately to make up for it. I know Sana's actions weren't meant to be malicious. Sana was well-written enough for me to not hate her, so I do have a bit of sympathy for her.

I still feel like she shouldn't have been let off so easily by the author. I can accept her father's relationship (which turned out to be an open relationship that Sana's mother knew about) because there was communication between everyone. Sana's dishonesty I'm a bit more iffy on.

But this was an insight into issues that aren't discussed much in YA, and I do think it's worth reading. show less

i liked this book. did not love, but it was pleasant. i like misa sugiura’s second book much better, but i’m not sure if that’s because she had more experience at that point or if the story was just more interesting to me.

however, this book raises a question in my head. is it okay to be a type writer (not a typewriter, a type writer)? i think it’s okay to be a type actor. some people’s physical feature just are more stereotypical to a certain personality, so they mostly get cast as that. although, only writing the similar stories with very similar progressions, is that okay? is it lazy? i’m not sure. i have no room to talk because i definitely am a type writer, but that’s from lack of experience. you’d think a published show more author would have the ability for more variety. sugiura is BY FAR not the worst with this, though. miles away from the worst. plus, her books are still quite enjoyable (unlike sarah dessen who is very guilty of type writing).

perhaps, i’m looking too far into this. people usually just write a mix of what they enjoy and what they can get good money for. misa sugiura has found that, i think. meaningful topics that are personal, but also are within the genre that ya readers just eat up. i can admire that. show less

Basically, this story starts out strong. It's an adorable contemporary that I needed with gay girls. And it's that. We follow Sana as she figures out her sexuality and falling for Jamie, a girl she fell for the moment she saw her. They flirt for half the book, finally kissing half way through. But it's from there things that things get uncomfortable. Sana's friends are supportive, but she still hides her relationship and flirts with Caleb, a 'friend'. Up to this point, you see racism through Sana's mother, who basically doesn't trust anyone different from herself and says horrible things. Sana is luckily the voice of reason for the first part of the book, which is key when you have racist material in stories without the book being show more racist itself. Which is important, because this admits that minorities can be phobic too, which is very much true. This issue arises when Sana stops being the voice of reason and says some horrible things about Mexican Americans, in front of her Mexican American girlfriend, yet Jamie isn't as upset about it as she truly deserved to be. Sana knows she saying horrible things, but she still does it. From there, things become messy. Jamie kisses her ex so Sana in turns kisses a guy and doesn't tell him she's gay. Basically, the second half of this book is a mess. show less