False Love

Gr 7 Up—Raku Ichijo is the teenage son of a Yakuza (Japanese gang) syndicate. He is a romantic who has no intentions of following in his father's footsteps. For over 10 years, he has carried a locked pendant around his neck, waiting for the girl who has the key. As children, the two promised they would find one another again and get married. The only problem? Raku forgot the girl's face and name. The romantic hero smashes into Kirisaki, a violent, loud new girl at his school. He is assigned to help her get acquainted, but they soon grow to hate each other. On the other hand, Raku has a best friend Onodera, a girl he wishes had the key to his lock. As if the boy's life wasn't angsty enough, his father decides to calm down a fight with a rival gang by asking his son to pretend to be in love with the rival leader's daughter for three years. The story flows well, but readers will wish that Raku and Onodera could simply tell each other how they feel. Told in a typical manga format, the wide-eyed teens get extremely dramatic and angry when things do not go their way. Still, kids will feel for the narrator and will find common ground with his desires to not be like his father, and to find his childhood sweetheart. As the first title ends with a cliff-hanger, only libraries willing to purchase the entire series should consider this one.—Sarah Knutson, American Canyon Middle School, CA