Emiko Superstar back

Emi is a quiet girl who up until recently felt she was stuck quite firmly into the clique of dork at school. As her math-wiz school friends start turning into embryonic yuppies and head off to their "Young Executives Retreat", Emi resigns herself to a summer of suburban babysitting hell. But when a local artist grabs her attention giving out flyers to the "Factory" in the most flamboyant disturbance of the peace (or should that be Piece?), Emi feels herself caught up in an exciting new underworld of the local art-scene. Determined to perform herself, she quickly finds there's not much in her young life to really express. And as her determination to do so is only hindered by her lack of outgoing nature, she is completely out her comfort zone. So back to the babysitting for a seemingly idyllic couple it is... or at least she thought this couple who trust them with their child were idyllic, until Emi finds a diary hidden in the washroom. A diary full of regret and love for another woman, and the Father of her charge really isn't the diary type.

Using transcripts of the diary and dressed in her grandma's sixties go-go dresses, Emi expands her name to Emiko (her Grandma's name and her namesake) and finally takes stage at the Factory to a rapturous response. But is that shy girl inside ready for all this attention or the ramifications of her actions?

There are obvious similarities between this and SKIM in that both books concern young Asian-American girls whose sense of culture is displaced. But where Skim is rebelling against her culture with teenage flights-of-fancy into New Age/Wicca, Emi is yearning to connect to her family's past. When she uses her Grandma's effects in her performances it's not out of irreverence, but to reclaim something her family lost with the previous generation. There's a definite sense that Mariko writes from experience as well as from the heart, something which I found lacking from all the other Minx titles. Easily the best Minx book yet, shame it's just a bit too late to save the imprint.