A coming-of-age graphic novel about the experiences of several exchange students living in a shared house in Japan, focusing on their searches for both community and individual identity (and maybe some romance). The illustrations are fantastic, but the plot was a little too introspective for my taste. However, it's fun getting to know each character as they experience a found family and realize that it's okay not to get things exactly right every time.

I received a digital ARC of this book through NetGalley from First Second for an honest review.

Himawari House was such a genuine, honest story of Nao, Hyejung, and Tina - all who come from different countries and backgrounds to live and study in Japan. Every character in this story was well developed through their meaningful relationships and mutual understanding of what it means to be "Asian" but still an outsider. The illustrations were beautiful and really juxtaposed nicely with the main protagonists' poetic musings on life. Their different dialects and languages shine in such an impressive and authentic way! My heart feels full and I would love to see more.

I like the style of illustrations in this graphic novel and it was interesting to see the story from the point of view of all the characters. I did feel the chapters ended a bit abruptly and I'm not sure how I feel about the way words are written as they may sound when it is the speaker's second language. I would recommend this for older teens but as our library's graphic novel fans are younger teens it is not so well suited.

I received this arc from netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

I kept having issues with the file on this one, but a couple months later and it finally worked for me! So glad it did. This was such a beautiful coming of age tale about identity and finding your place in the world. The different cultural backgrounds that we each come from are a part of our stories growing up, especially when there's some time of conflict with that cultural background. This did a great job of individualizing those struggles for each of the characters and of making them relatable. The art was fantastic and I really loved the care that was taken to integrate the different accents each person has

In a tour de force of multilingual showing (as opposed to telling), the author has given readers an intimate look at different young people struggling to be heard, to communicate well, to listen, to form friendships, and maybe more, and finally, to navigate their way toward adulthood in ways that feel culturally right to them. Illustrations range from realism to distinctly vivid - and often humorous - manga conventions, along with onomatopoeia. Has appeal for younger and older teenagers, and can be the starting point of many thought-provoking and empathy-inspiring conversations.

I love this little slice of life graphic novel about a young woman studying abroad in Japan. She befriends two other young women: one from Korea and another from Singapore. There are also two young men. I love the friendship and how the characters are developed. I enjoyed the authors airy and light linework in contrast to her work in They Called Us Enemy. The shoujo flourishes are also welcome when they watch K-Dramas.

Harmony Becker's Himawari House tells the story of 3 students from different countries studying abroad in Japan. Becker's excellent writing and illustrations bring the reader along for the journey, giving us a sense that we are also studying abroad, experiencing the difficulties of learning a new language and fitting in in a new culture. Becker does an excellent job using each characters' accents in English as well as mispronunciations of Japanese and Korean to illustrate the difficulties of learning languages in a way that never feels mocking or stereotyping. Himawari House is an excellent "fish out of water" story that won't discourage those who want to travel and will familiar to anyone who has spent time abroad. Highly recommended for fans of Mariko Tamaki and Molly Ostertag.

I had a really difficult time reading this pdf - it was very slow to load (I don't think it was my reader because I tested other pdfs I had downloaded from NetGalley and they worked fine) and the font was difficult to read. Unfortunately I was only able to look at the first few pages before my frustration took over and I gave up.

However, I am looking forward to this title and will buy it for my library when it's released. From the cover and the few pages I saw, I really like the art style.