Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Harlequin MIRA; Original edition
Release Date: February 26, 2013
ISBN-10: 0778313522
Genres: Adult Fiction, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Women's Fiction
About The Book:
In the dark days of war, a mother makes the ultimate sacrifice. Lucy Takeda is just fourteen years old, living in Los Angeles, when the bombs rain down on Pearl Harbor. Within weeks, she and her mother, Miyako, are ripped from their home, rounded up—along with thousands of other innocent Japanese-Americans—and taken to the Manzanar prison camp. Buffeted by blistering heat and choking dust, Lucy and Miyako must endure the harsh living conditions of the camp. Corruption and abuse creep into every corner of Manzanar, eventually ensnaring beautiful, vulnerable Miyako. Ruined and unwilling to surrender her daughter to the same fate, Miyako soon breaks. Her final act of desperation will stay with Lucy forever…and spur her to sins of her own. Bestselling author Sophie Littlefield weaves a powerful tale of stolen innocence and survival that echoes through generations, reverberating between mothers and daughters. It is a moving chronicle of injustice, triumph and the unspeakable acts we commit in the name of love.
My Thoughts:
I have very mixed feelings regarding this novel as a whole. The first half was astounding...well-developed, thought-provoking, and insightful as well as suspenseful. The author succeeded in bringing attention to a period in American history that is often over-looked and forgotten; for that I am grateful. The relationship between Miyako and her daughter, Lucy, during their internment at Manzanar is one of love and heart-break as Miyako takes drastic measures to protect her daughter from experiencing the same fate as her own and the reader is faced with either despising her actions or sympathizing with her. I was emotionally swept away with this first half, and a box of tissue was always within reach. However, the last half or so of the novel that follows Lucy's journey after Manzanar was utterly disappointing; it lacked a sense of direction as well as fully reaching its plot development. The storyline became overly melodramatic and just too coincidental to enhance the previous believability of the story. And the abrupt twists and turns that occur within the very last pages just left me scratching my head and wondering what just happened. I feel this was a very ambitious undertaking on the author's part and although I still consider a good story, it could have been better with much of the last half left out and the ending further developed. Overall, I would give this a Three.
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