50books_poc | Entries tagged with japanese-canadian

Sort of a mid-year update. It's been a while since I read some of these so I've just written short impressions but feel free to ask about any of the books.

33. Alentejo Blue by Monica Ali
34. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
35. The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson
36. Valmiki's Daughter by Shani Mootoo
37. Skim written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki
38. Henry Chow and other stories edited by R. David Stephens (white)

Alentejo Blue by Monica Ali
This was a well-written book but ultimately disappointing because it just didn't feel like it was going anywhere. Judging from the Goodreads reviews, this was a departure from Brick Lane, which I'll still try eventually.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Like other posters on the comm, I enjoyed this book but it was not without its flaws, which I think everyone else has covered pretty well.

The New Moon's Arms by Nalo Hopkinson
I liked the book but I don't feel everything gelled very well for me. I did like how the main character wasn't always the most sympathetic.

Valmiki's Daughter by Shani Mootoo
Gorgeous writing and evocative descriptions but similar to The New Moon's Arms, something didn't quite click for me. Still, I'd definitely try this author's other books.

Skim written by Mariko Tamaki and illustrated by Jillian Tamaki.
Very detailed and beautiful drawings that really capture the story. Equal credit should be given to author and illustrator.

Henry Chow and Other Stories by various authors, edited by R. David Stephens
Enjoyable but uneven collection of short stories for teenagers. I liked the different story settings and character perspectives. From the Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop.

tags:
a: ali monica, a: hopkinson nalo, a: mootoo shani, a: mariko tamaki, i: tamaki jillian, w-e: stephens r david, short stories, fantasy, lit fic, young adult, coming of age, graphic novel, bangladeshi-british, latin@, dominican-american, caribbean-canadian, jamaican, trinidadian, asian-canadian, chinese-canadian, japanese-canadian, glbt, women writers

inkstone

This is the fourth novel in Michelle Sagara's (writing under the Michelle West name) House War series, which in turn is part of her larger traditional fantasy milieu about the continuing struggle against the impending arrival of the Lord of Hell. While the previous three novels in this particular series filled in the gaps of Jewel's background and past, this book is set in the present timeline.

While I liked the previous three books well enough -- especially the first one though not so much the third -- this book reminds me of why I love Michelle West's brand of epic fantasy. Unlike the previous three books, you don't know what's going to happen so there's a lot more dramatic tension which suits her narrative style. You can see the groundwork being laid down for the end of the world, although we're a few books away from that yet.

In this book, Jewel (finally) comes into her own as her house prepares the funeral rites for their fallen lord, The Terafin. There's the usual demonic interference, magical battles and since it's Jewel, we learn more about the kind of powers the seerborn of old used to have. We also learn a little more about Haval's background -- or rather, a lot more -- and it confirms why he's so good at he does. (And I'm not talking about the dressmaking.) The talking cats make a return and while I can understand why some people would find them twee, they cracked me up and lighten what would otherwise be such a solemn, griefstricken book. They acted so much like cats: "I'm bored. Entertain me!!"

As a reader who was a little disappointed by the last book in this series, this one really re-energized my interest again so I'm really excited to see what happens next. Unfortunately, the next installment is not due out for another year. Le sigh.

On the downside, it would be nice if the cover artist would try to take into consideration that Jewel is biracial in this world's context and unless I've been reading the books wrong all these years, actually has darker skin than that.

[Mods: As you can see, I tried to tag this post but I must not be awake yet this morning because I'm not entirely confident I did it correctly despite having read the FAQ. D:]

puritybrown.livejournal.com

44: Swami and Friends by R. K. Narayan

Although it was his first novel, I'm not sure I would have chosen to begin my exploration of R. K. Narayan's work with Swami and Friends -- I was rather hoping to read his retelling of the Ramayana one of these days -- but I just happened to stumble on it in a charity shop, for the princely sum of €2. So I snapped it up, and I greatly enjoyed it. It is one of those books that one hesitates to call "a children's book" because although the protagonist is a child, there are lots of glimpses of the adult world and adult sensibilities peeking through the narrative, and it could be enjoyed as much by adults who can see the wider significance (or lack thereof) of Swami's little dramas as by children appreciating a story about their peers.

It put me in mind of the William books, which were staples of my childhood. Swami and Friends was first published in 1935, and Just William was published in 1922, so it's possible that Richmal Crompton was an influence on Narayan, though I wouldn't want to put money on it; quite likely anyone writing about young boys at that period would produce a story with a similar sort of atmosphere. Like the William books, Swami and Friends is very funny, but there's a more serious side that the William books lack; Swami is growing up in an India struggling for independence, and at one point he gets caught up in a patriotic demonstration that turns into a riot. Yet, Swami being only ten years old, this riot is no more important in his eyes than the fact that he has to miss cricket practice because of Scout drills after school. It's that shift in perspective to a child's-eye-view that makes Swami and Friends so charming and effective.

45: Emiko Superstar written by Mariko Tamaki with art by Steve Rolston
I loved Skim, which was written by Mariko Tamaki with her cousin Jillian Tamaki, so I had high hopes for Emiko Superstar. And it's good; not as good as Skim, but still clever and entertaining. Like Skim, the main character is a slightly geeky Japanese-Canadian teenage girl who longs for something more than her boring, mundane life. The "something more" comes in the form of the Freakshow, a local performance art night positively custom-designed to appeal to teenagers. Emiko is at first intrigued, then scared, then drawn in by the Freakshow; the wildness of it is seductive, even if it has its unsavoury side. Meanwhile, she's got herself a job babysitting for an outwardly-perfect suburban couple, but there's more going on with John and Susan than meets the eye.

Emiko Superstar is part of DC's ill-fated Minx line of short graphic novels aimed at teenage girls. I have mixed feelings about the Minx line; some of the titles were good, and they were all obviously well-intentioned, but they often came across as slightly thin and underdeveloped, as if they needed either twenty more pages or six extra months of rewrites and redraws to get up to snuff. None of the ones I've read were bad, exactly, they were just... flat. Uninspiring. Emiko Superstar is one of the better ones; it doesn't feel flat, and it doesn't feel uninspiring, but by comparison to Skim it's a bit wordier, a lot less subtle, and a great deal more predictable. Where Skim was the kind of work where every word and every line seems to bring with it a meaning behind the obvious meaning, Emiko Superstar pretty much all happens on the same level. It's a well-constructed, well-told story that doesn't have much in the way of depth or layers. Still, I did enjoy it.

(tags: a: tamaki mariko, w-i: rolston steve, a: narayan rk, india, graphic novel, young adult, children's books, japanese-canadian)

sweet-adelheid.livejournal.com

50books_poc year ends on January 31, and although I have still been reading, I've gotten slack with posting reviews. So here's an 8-book catchup post.

#40 - Skim, by Mariko Tamaki and Jill Tamaki ( Read more... )

#41 - Tales from Outer Suburbia, by Shaun Tan ( Read more... )

#42 - Papunya School Book of History and Country by the Papunya School community ( Read more... )

#43 - Kampung Boy, by Lat ( Read more... )

#44 - Not Meeting Mr Right, by Anita Heiss ( Read more... )

#45 - The Wheel of Surya, by Jamila Gavin ( Read more... )

#46 - Swallow the Air, by Tara June Winch ( Read more... )

#47 - Love poems and other revolutionary actions, by Roberta (Bobbi) Sykes ( Read more... )

stakebait.livejournal.com

19. Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, by Haruki Murakami

( cut for spoilers )

20. Red Spider, White Web by Misha

( Read more... )

21. The Kappa Child by Hiromi Goto

( Read more... )

whereweather.livejournal.com

#28. Skim, Mariko Tamaki (writing) and Jillian Tamaki (art)
2008, Groundwood Books

Another book that I found through reviews on this comm. (Thanks again to all of you: you keep leading me to wonderful books.)

I enjoyed the book for many of the same reasons others did, especially those mentioned by

kyuuketsukirui,

sanguinity and [Bad username or unknown identity: puritybrown .] As regards the art style, I also loved, as someone else mentioned, that it clearly evokes Japanese aesthetics and the Japanese artistic tradition... but the influences it draws on are not manga. There's something about that, especially given the often troubling aspects of gender representation in mainstream manga (I'm thinking of exaggerated gender dimorphism, neoteny, and hypersexualization), that I found profoundly refreshing and even kind of inspiring.

Very highly recommended. I'm putting Mariko Tamaki's other graphic work, Emiko Superstar, on my to-read list, and I'd love to see other work from Jillian Tamaki. (Actually... let's see. Her website is here, there's an interesting illustrated interview with her here, and I see mention of a 2006 book called Gilded Lilies. Has anyone read it?)

[Tags I would add if I could: spirituality (or: religion/spirituality), high school]

Hey, by the way: [Bad username or unknown identity: puritybrown ,�]did you ever send the Tamakis that fan letter?

rootedinsong.livejournal.com

10. Skim, by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

Somehow, this book didn't resonate with me as much as it did with others here. I'm not sure why; it is beautifully done, and it seems like the kind of book that I would love. But it didn't quite do it for me.

11. Shortcomings, by Adrian Tomine

I had mixed reactions to this one. On the one hand, a lot of things about the characters made me twitch. On the other hand, it examines honestly the issues of race and attraction and what contemporary American culture conditions us to find attractive. And there are a lot of queer women, portrayed for the most part realistically. It's just... eh.

One thing that I found amusing: the protagonist tears into his ex-girlfriend for dating a white man, and she protests that he's actually half Jewish and half Native American. I'm a quarter each, and have never encountered that combination in fiction before (or anywhere, really).

12. Still I Rise: A Graphic History of African Americans, by Ronald Laird and Taneshia Nash Laird, illustrated by Elihu "Adofo" Bey

This book traces the history of African-Americans from the early 17th century to the election of Barack Obama. It is absolutely packed with information: the authors try to squeeze four centuries of history into 217 pages, so it feels like information is whizzing by at a breakneck speed.

This is the second edition; the first edition was published in 1997. The second edition includes 13 more pages about history from 1997 to now. (There's an obvious break between the original pages and the added pages: the handwriting in the new pages looks different, the lines are thinner, and the characters look subtly different. It looks a little less carefully planned.)

The history is told by two narrators, a man and a woman - who sometimes have different opinions about the events they're recounting. I think doing it this way, as opposed to attempting to tell the history "objectively," allowed the narrative to be deeply centered in the black point(s) of view: they could talk about "us," make value judgments, show the unity and diversity of opinion. For those who are used to the dominant white-centered narrative of US history, I think this would represent a radical recentering; for me, it was interesting because I'm used to Native American critique and recentering of that narrative, so this recentering was alike-but-different. It felt to me like some parts were missing - but it also felt like it included other parts that I was missing.

All in all, I recommend it. But look elsewhere for in-depth treatment of the events depicted.

Edit: I keep breaking the tagging system...

wordsofastory.livejournal.com

23. Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki, Skim

This is a graphic novel about Skim, a Japanese-Canadian teenage girl dealing with her parents' divorce, her rough relationship with her best friend, the suicide of another student, learning about Wicca, and oh, yeah, falling in love with her female teacher.

A lot of other people have reviewed this book, and I don't really have much to add. The art was gorgeous, plain black and white lines that went from sparse to lush. The story-telling is excellent, particularly in its use of silence, or understatement, to capture emotion. And personally, I really identified with Skim's interest in Wicca; I was totally that teenage girl.

Overall, a really lovely, quiet book, though one that didn't involve me too emotionally.

24. Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

I read this back in January and forgot to review it, so I will try to remember what I can. This is a nonfiction pop book about first impressions- why we get them, how they form, how they affect our thinking, if they're right, etc. It's an interesting topic. Gladwell's careful to look at both sides of the argument: when subconscious reactions are good, because there's not enough time to think a question through; and when they can be very, very bad- he examines the case of Amadou Diallo, a black unarmed man who was fatally shot by police officers.

Overall, this was a fun, informative book. I gulped it down in one sitting over an afternoon, so it's not a deep thought book, but one I enjoyed reading.

Current Mood: cheerful

kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com

Title: Skim
Author/Illustrator: Mariko Tamaki (author), Jillian Tamaki (illustrator)
Number of Pages: 144 pages
My Rating: 5/5

It's 1993 and Kimberly Keiko Cameron, aka Skim, is in grade 10 at a Catholic girls' school. She is: Wiccan, biracial (Japanese-Canadian/white), sort of an outcast, overweight, falling in love with her English teacher, Ms. Archer.

I really loved this. It's so...ordinary. It's not a message book, even though there are lots of things (being Asian, homophobia, being queer, bullying, teen suicide, rumors, divorce, being overweight) that could be turned into big Issues to Teach a Lesson, but they're not. They're just part of what happens. That's part of what makes this feel like a story about teens rather than a story particularly for teens (though it's not inappropriate for teens by any means).

I really love the art, too. The style is obviously Japanese-influenced...but not manga-influenced. Instead, it immediately calls to mind traditional Japanese paintings (check out the cover here), which makes for a rather unique comic style and one I really enjoyed.

puritybrown.livejournal.com

7: Indian Summer by Pratima Mitchell

YA fiction. Sarla is the London-born-and-raised daughter of a career-oriented TV reporter; when her mother is assigned to a warzone during her school holidays, she's furious at first because their plans to travel together have been destroyed, but soon comes up with an alternative: she can spend the summer with her grandparents in northern India. Her mother's not super enthusiastic about this, and Sarla can tell that there's something going on between her mother and her grandparents, but she goes anyway, and meets Bina, the granddaughter of her grandparents' chief servants. Bina's mother is nowhere to be seen, and the area is troubled by rumours of guerillas, and of Shobharani Devi, the deified bandit queen of the hills...

I loved this book. It's got its moments of humour, but for the most part it's a serious exploration of poverty, corruption, class division, family secrets, friendship, and the cultural gap between British-born Indians and those who actually live in India. Sarla is slightly spoiled, as the contrast between her situation and Bina's makes clear; she suffers a few uncomfortable moments when she's made aware of her privilege as a well-off Western-born girl, and of the limits of her perspective. Bina can be quite harsh with her and there are times when Sarla almost bullies Bina -- without really meaning to, just by the sheer force of her personality. Sarla takes her own assertiveness for granted, which Bina envies; as a servant-class girl with a shameful secret, she's been taught to hold back all her life. Yet despite the contrasts and conflicts between them, they develop a very warm and touching friendship and learn a lot from each other. Highly recommended.

8: Ten Things I Hate About Me by Randa Abdel-Fatteh

This has been reviewed a lot on this comm, and I don't have much to add to other people's comments. It was funny; it was touching; the plot was a bit overly predictable and the resolution a bit pat; overall, I enjoyed it, but not as much as Indian Summer.

9: Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

Oh. Ohhhh. Oh, how I wish I could have read this when I was 14.

I've been hearing Jillian Tamaki's name cited positively in connection with comics for ages, but this is the first time I've ever actually read anything of hers; she drew this graphic novel from her cousin Mariko's script. (Mariko also wrote Emiko Superstar, a GN from the late lamented Minx line.) And it is wonderful. I am slightly biased because, race and geography aside, this could have been about me in a lot of ways. But it's not just empathy that drives my love of this graphic novel: it is just so damned good.

"Skim" is the nickname of Kimberly Keiko Cameron, a quiet, overweight, not-terribly-confident Japanese-Canadian 16-year-old who goes to a Catholic girls' school, wants to be a Wiccan witch, and is painfully in love with Ms Archer, her English teacher. Skim is narrated by her diary entries, complete with stricken-out false starts; there's a gap between what happens and what Kim thinks about what happens, and what she wants to think about what happens, that is handled so deftly you won't even notice the Tamakis are doing anything unusual. But they are; narration in comics is usually just another way of moving the story on, not the careful layering of perception, desire and reality that's going on here. Allied to that is the careful placing of the art: Kim is an astute observer of others, but doesn't push herself forward, and the way the panels move from one slightly off-centre image to another embodies perfectly that way of hanging back and looking at everything, but never too directly in case you get caught staring.

And I'm being all coherent here when what I really want to do is draw hearts around the Tamakis' names and send them embarrassingly gushy emails about how awesome Skim is. It's so honest and so real and so compassionate and so wise and so beautifully drawn and so amazingly written and I was Kim (...not in every way, obviously, but in several very important ways), and I love it to bits and pieces. I want every library in the world to have a copy of this book. I want every queer teenager in the world to have a copy of this book. It's just that good.

meganbmoore.livejournal.com

This is the second book in Michelle Sagara’s (aka Michelle West) Chronicles of Elantra series. While the Sun Sword series she writes as Michelle West is epic fantasy focusing on women and with cultures based on a broad variety of cultures, Elantra is more urban fantasy in a high fantasy setting.

Our heroine, Kaylin, is a Hawk-the equivalent of a police officer-who was once a street child. Currently, she’s chafing against expectations that she learn magic after coming under the wing of one of the city’s lords. She gets pulled into the affairs of the Barrani-the immortals who rule the city-when Teela, a Barrani who works with the Hawks, and so is something of a black sheep, asks her to help with a private matter that turns out to be saving the life of the High Lord’s heir.

Cast in Shadow focused on Kaylin’s backstory and developing the world of Elantra’s lower classes. Cast in Courtlight focuses more on the upper classes and the Barrani (a society that chafes at Kaylin’s delicate street sensibilities) and the history of the city, kicking off what seems to be the main plotline of the series.

I like the Elantra books, and how they catch the better aspects of urban fantasy and use them in a high fantasy setting, but I miss the scope of the Sun Sword books, and the larger world and how it bends genre expectations for the roles of women. And am I the only person to read both series and think that Kaylin is a lot like Jewel? Especially when confronted with arrogance?

sanguinity

28. Marguerite Abouet, Aya.
29. Marguerite Abouet, Aya of Yop City.

These didn't really resonate with me, I'm sorry to say -- they've gotten excellent reviews before on this comm, and I'm sure they will again in the future.

( But just not my thing. )

30. Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, Skim.

Ah, but I loved this. Beautiful, poignant graphic novel about a teenage, goth, lesbian, Japanese-Canadian pagan, trying to learn to love and feel and yet not be too deeply wounded by the world. Oh, she like to broke my heart.

There were many touches here that I loved. The artwork had a way of blindsiding me with panels that would betray a thought that Skim is unwilling to voice, not even in her internal monologue. Then there's the weird, grasping futility of being a teenager, of living life in borrowed spaces, on borrowed equipment, in other people's margins. And there were the lovely inter-character dynamics: the people who ostensibly care about you are too often the people who are the most casually cruel to you; the anti-whatever crusaders trampling and destroying those who they supposedly care about; the irresistable seduction of someone who "gets" you; the way one's feelings -- especially one's crushes -- don't respond to what one knows to be true; the isolation one can feel from people who supposedly share one's identities, belying the idea that it is one's identities that isolate one from others; how difficult it can be to find someone to trust, even in a world that is full of people clamoring at you that they can be trusted. And here is a portrayal of depression, pain, and surviving someone else's suicide that rings true.

I make it sound depressing, don't I? For some, I suppose, it might be. For others, though -- for me -- it's a portrait of pushing on, grasping for a way to live life around the pain, and to find the people who aren't afraid of your pain. The people who are willing to laugh with you, even in the face of what you both know.

wingstodust.livejournal.com

1. Eye of Jade – A Mei Wang Mystery by Diane Wei Liang - First book of a mystery series, features strong Chinese female character who works as a private investigator in Beijing. Unfortunately, the mystery itself didn’t grab me, as I thought the ways in which the protagonist solved the mystery were filled with coincidences and her assistant revealing something he found as he walked along the alleyways of Beijing that helped her discover the truth. Nor did I particularly empathized with the protagonist herself. Yes, yes, she’s independent and full of honour and pride, etc etc, but somehow she felt more like an “idea” of a character, someone that the author keeps telling us about her characters achievements, yet never really gave her leading girl room to react and breathe life into the world the author illustrates.

However, the one thing I did like about this book was the backstory, and how her mother and father were connected into her current case. The bits of what we saw of Mei Wang’s mom and dad were utterly fascinating to me, and the decisions they made during the Cultural Revolution appealed to me the most. Now, if only this story was retooled into a story about her parents working their respective jobs and meeting each other during the Cultural Revolution, I would have gobbled this story up.

But I think this opinion of mine may also be attributed to my personal preferences: I don’t normally go for mystery novels, and novels that take place during a specific time in history (And I find the Cultural Revolution particularly interesting) are far more fascinating to me.

2. Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler - My first novel by Butler. While the whole re-imagining of the vampire lore was utterly fascinating, I found myself rather meh towards the actual story itself. I never really got to like the main protagonist – she felt too alien and inhumane, and I couldn’t find it in myself to be emotionally invested in her adventures. Also, the whole new vampire lore felt very… Stuck forcefully into the story. I got the impression of ‘Oh look, let’s take a paragraph or two to illustrate how my great and complex society works!’ in certain sections of the story I read. It was rather disconcerting, and it took me a long time to finish it because after trudging through one chapter, I’d always get up and go do something else. I never got invested enough in the story to plough through it from beginning to end.

So, the tl;dr – cool concept, actual story didn’t click with me

3. Certainty by Madeleine Thien - Gail Lim, a producer of radio documentaries, goes off to unravel the hidden, untold stories of her parents’ lives.

Let’s get this out first: I really didn’t like this novel. It was a frustrating read, because the whole story felt so heavy-handed with the message the author was trying to send, and I think the author was also trying to do too much all at once, resulting in a jumbled and inconsistent story. The whole thing felt too complicated, what with our protagonist already dead at the very beginning of the story, to the bits where Thien would switch between writing about what happened in the past, what Gail went through as she travelled the world to do her documentaries, and the life of her boyfriend when she was gone. I tend to love, love multiple layers in my fiction—but only if it is done properly. And in Certainty, it just didn’t work. None of the transitions flowed well, and she would never give us enough time to become acquainted and attached to her characters before switching perspectives again. Also, the heavy handed messages about memory, truth, etc. It all felt very… Pretentious. Do not recommend.

4. Hunter’s Oath by Michelle West - Set in a fictional land called Breodanir, wherein the people are under the protection of their gods, the Hunter God, and males of certain families, called the Hunter Lords swear to these gods and partake in the Sacred Hunt every year. To keep in touch with their humanity, Hunter Lords bond with a huntbrother, a male from outside the family.
I didn’t care much for this story, ~~despite the very obvious slash possibilities of such a premise~~ mostly because I didn’t care for our protagonists. I never felt emotionally engaged to the storyline and I found it hard to immerse myself in the book.

5. The Arrival by Shaun Tan The pictures are gorgeous—simple and detailed all in one—and without a single word Tan managed to convey every tiny human emotion, every little moment, and captured how big the world was, and how we are all connected to one another. (more)

6. Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai - One of my favourite novels I read in 2008. And certainly my favourite SF novel I read by a POC so far. It’s set in a future city wherein bank jobs are done through video games, past leaking into the present in the form of a disease, and one of our main protagonists stinks of Durian. What more can anyone want from a story, really? =D

Also, Larissa Lai did a lovely reimagining of the Chinese creation myth and Nu Wa is incorporated beautifully in this novel. And her lead protagonists, all females with agency, were strong and sympathetic and their own person. Made of Win. (more ramblings here)

meganbmoore.livejournal.com

This is book four in Michelle West's The Sun Sword fantasy epic. My posts on the first three books, as well as the prequel duology, can be found under my author tag at my LJ here.

Sea of Sorrows kicks off pretty soon after the end of The Shining Court, with both Jewel and Diora having joined with the Voyani, a nomadic race seeking to cross the Sea of Sorrows-a desert- to find the Lost Cities of Man.

Like the other Sun Sword books, this is pretty dense, and covers a lot of characters and plotlines. Honestly, I’m not sure how two more books will be able to wrap everything up, even though I think they’re both 800-plus page books. Much of this book was devoted to developing the Voyani, and Jewel and Diora establishing relationships there. I love how both women seem to automatically draw people to them. With Jewel it tends to largely be a case of “You! You are in trouble/lonely/friendless/without family/need help. I’m adopting you.” and it works out for the best. With Diora, it’s more like her dignity and presence draw people to her like a moth to a flame (I’m so cliché…) even if neither wants it. I’m honestly not sure I’ve ever encountered a character with as much dignity and presence as Diora has. At one point, a comment is made that the Voyani men didn’t approach her because they knew she wouldn’t condescend to have sex with any of them. I can’t help but think that, at this point, that same thing would ward off even those who normally wouldn’t take disinterest as their cue.

( cut for length )

kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com

Before I picked up this book, I knew nothing about the history of Japanese-Canadians. Sadly, I know almost nothing about Canadian history, period, and it had never even occurred to me that the Canadian government might have had similar anti-Japanese policies during WWII.

The book starts with the narrator, Naomi, as an adult in the '70s. When she goes to see her aunt after her uncle's death, she finds a package from her other aunt containing a diary and letters written during the war, which brings back her own memories of her childhood and the effect of the internment on her life.

I liked the way it was told. Reading other reviews, I've seen complaints about the timeline being confusing, but I didn't find it to be. I did think the ending kind of trailed off a little, though.

The main thing that kept me from really loving this was the language. There is a lot of really stilted, awkward dialogue, which in some places seems to signify that they're speaking Japanese (in many cases I can see what the Japanese is supposed to be by the extremely literal translations), but also occurs in other places where native English speakers are presumably speaking in English. There was also a lot of dialogue in Japanese, which was then repeated in English. This made it seem really repetitive, and the way it was done, with the repetition coming in the dialogue itself rather than clarified in the narrative, made it look as if everyone actually spoke everything twice, once in Japanese and once in English. It was just done in a really awkward way that grated on my nerves the longer it went on.

Still, I recommend the book despite that.

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Writers of Color 50 Books Challenge

Entries tagged with japanese-canadian

33 to 38: various authors

01: Skirmish by Michelle West

44-45: Swami and Friends, Emiko Superstar

#40 - #47: Tamaki, Tan, Papunya School, Lat, Heiss, Gavin, Winch, Sykes

even more fantasy and science fiction

#28. Skim, by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki

Skim; Shortcomings; Still I Rise

Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki, Skim; Malcolm Gladwell, Blink

Skim by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki

7, 8, 9: Indian Summer, Ten Things..., Skim

#10: Cast in Courtlight by Michelle Sagara

Aya, Skim

#1-6 write-ups

#6: Sea of Sorrows by Michelle West

Obasan by Joy Kogawa