A pretty OK book about a girl in Japan finding a love for origami and maybe meeting a friend!

I spotted this one over at one of my libraries (thank you all so much for adding more English books, also some lesser known ones) and just had to get it. I love books about Japan and I also loved the cover for this book!

😍 The cover! And with that also the illustrations! Love the style and love how pretty it is.
😍 Loved that eventually we got to see two stories. Not just Mina, but also Miyako. On the one hand we see Mina travelling through the city/Japan and then on the other hand we see Miyako go swimming and meet his dad’s new girlfriend. And eventually these two got together.
😍 The origami! That was just so much fun and I loved seeing Mina discover a love for it. I hope that she will be making many more pretty origami items.
😍 How she used origami to make something to potentially meet a friend.
😍 That Mina tried using Japanese words. OK, she doesn’t know much, but I did love that she knew a few and used them.
😍 The lady on the bus and her origami. Loved that she didn’t mind that Mina couldn’t speak much Japanese and that she showed her through gestures.
😍 I loved travelling with Mina and her mom and see all sorts of pretty things! I still really would love to visit Japan one day, for now it is just a dream as it is way too expensive and with my allergies (for soy/nuts/peanuts) I would have to be so careful.

😶 But I would have just liked to see more. While there was a lot that I liked I just didn’t feel it always connected and I felt like it could just use a bit more. Just make the book just a bit longer, expand the story, give us more on the characters.
😶 The ending, it just came out of nowhere for me.
😶 As I said, loved Mina using Japanese words, trying them out… but it could have really done without the constant – between parts. Like A-ri-ga-to. It was OK the first time, but after a while I was like, is this necessary?

All in all, I am happy I read this book, but I just had expected a bit more given the blurb and how the book started.