What starts as a tiny white lie slowly snowballs into a fully-fledged fake life, one where Mika is mature, put-together, successful in love and her career. For the end note, I just have no other things to say that I really like this book and this is a really great book. There’s nothing that I love more than a good redemption story and Mika might just be making my dreams come true! However, in the last year, Caroline has passed away, and Penny has started to wonder about her birth mother.

GLAMOUR'A funny, touching celebration of second chances' MAIL ON SUNDAY'Warm, funny and a brilliant read' SUN'By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, this is a total joy of a read' HOLLY MILLER, author of The Sight of You________Penny Calvin has questions. The details of Mika's life might be an illusion, but everything she shares with curious, headstrong Penny is real: her hopes, dreams, flaws, and Japanese heritage. Of course, the illusion can only last so long; it is when Mika’s lies come crashing down that her real life can actually begin.The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. I’m usually not tremendously keen on romances (which I erroneously thought that’s what this book would be), but the more I got into the story, the more I realized that’s not what the book is about at all. The story captures disappointments, forgiveness and unconditional connection, all complicated by differences in culture and race.

There’s also the exploration of how that relationship impacts Mika’s relationship with Penny, and the struggle with understanding better where her mother was coming from but at the same time, wanting to forge a different path with her own daughter. Penny is determined to forge a relationship with her mother, and in turn, Mika longs for someone Penny is proud of. Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal UK Ltd, Whittaker House, Whittaker Avenue, Richmond-Upon-Thames, Surrey, United Kingdom, TW9 1EH). I like the sensitive teenage Penny— she teaches Mika a responsibility and it kind of heartwarming too to read their parts. Penny is determined to forge a relationship with her birth mother, and in turn, Mika longs to be someone Penny is proud of.Mika is also forced to reevaluate her life and her choices, trying to learn and grow and realize that what happened in her past does not have to completely define her future. So when Penny reveals to Mika that she's headed to Portland (adopted father, protective-yet-hunky Thomas, in tow) to meet her. Mika was such a great character, and I loved tagging along her journey into finding herself and healing from past trauma. As a mom now myself, I connected so deeply with Jean's descriptions of Mika's love for Penny, her yearning, and her deep desire to do anything and EVERYthing for her child. Some difficult subjects are tackled including *spoiler*TW* rape, so it’s not exactly a light read, but is very engaging heartfelt, and entertaining.

Perfect for fans of Rebecca Serle and Jojo Moyes, Mika in Real Life is at once a heart-wrenching and uplifting novel that explores the weight of silence, the secrets we keep, and what it means to be a mother. Hiromi was tough, her character was like a catalogue of stuff you hate but I love Mika’s take on her mom; every mother is a first timer for their first kid, and how their relationship grows toward the end was both devastating and uplifting to me. This book is such a relatable book and fuck I have a soft spot for relatable and realistic fiction book.

The story is ultimately inspiring without being sappy, and there is definite difficulty along the way: relationships are drawn beautifully and again, it’s those friendships that really stand out (I can’t remember if a particular friend has read this, but he’ll like it if he hasn’t! Mika’s life was at the lowest at that time (getting fired, failed in relationship with no savings); conflicts came and an unexpected incident making it worst when Mika fakes her success just to look good for Penny. If you like audiobooks, I highly recommend the audio version of this one because the narrator did a fantastic job. I learned a lot when I read this book whether about being a daughter and mother later, about truly believing in yourself, about really finding out and realizing who you truly are.

Sharp and brimming with heart, this tender read will have you alternating between laughter and tears (the very best kind) and missing the characters long after the last page. Nope, she lies and when Penny and her father come for a visit, the lies threaten to bury Mika and her relationship with Penny. Emiko Jean is the author of Tokyo Ever After, which was the Reese Witherspoon YA pick for July and a NYT bestseller. That being said, I wasn’t a big fan of the second-half romantic plotline, which ultimately caused me to lower my rating.

Readers of Emiko Jean’s young adult novels will not be surprised that she has tackled fiction for adults with grace and wisdom. I'm left thinking deeply about race, ethnicity, and adoption; about the ways women "wield or keep silence" and how dangerous that can be; and about bodily autonomy and how women can feel betrayed by the "hostile landscapes" of their own bodies that don't comply when women say yes or no to motherhood.