I bought this book for three reasons. One, Diana was doing a signing in my city (and it sounded like a good novel, so why not). Two, it takes place in Seattle, which is where I live, so I just love to read books set in my city! And three, it takes place in Japan! I took Japanese as my foreign language in middle and high school (I just finished it this year) and it's always fun to read about something when you're not entirely lost when it comes to the culture and such. That being said Diana's debut novel was basically a fun adventure that's perfect as a Summer novel. The mystery was really great, it wasn't one of those plots that was so predictable you just went "really main character, how stupid are you?". And the fact that there was another story going on within the story when it came to the manga the main character was drawing made it even more interesting. Yes, I did figure out who-done-it just a little before Violet did, but that tends to happen more often than not when I read books. Diana also managed to fill the book with such great pictures (no, not actual pictures, but words that formed pictures in my head ever so nicely), and seeing as I am a huge fan of manga but can not draw to save my life it was really fun "seeing" Violet's manga in my mind's eye as well. All in all the novel was just so much fun and I can't wait to see what Diana comes up with for her next novel, because the research she did was fantastic, as well as the imagry she put in the book, and the character development as well. I almost saw the novel as a sort of coming of age book in a way, and maybe that's not what it was meant to be, but in the end there were some good messages in an overall light-hearted read.
4/5 dust spirits
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