A highly readable work of historical fiction that will appeal to teenagers as well as adults.
Kono’s (Ho'olulu Park and the Pepsodent Smile and Other Stories, 2004, etc.) debut full-length novel is a bildungsroman based on historical events, which traces a brave teenager’s journey to Tokyo during World War II.
For Himiko Aoki, a teenager living in Hawaii, life is anything but simple. Her father dies suddenly from an infection, leaving Himiko with her strict and often harsh mother and her cloying sister, Miyo. Himiko finds solace in the arms of Akira, her secret boyfriend, and the two comfort each other as the war around them looms ever closer, calling for rationing and constant concern. But Himiko’s sorrows are far from over; she becomes pregnant and is sent away to spare her the shame and grief that her own neighborhood would heap upon her. She arrives at the home of her aunt and uncle in Tokyo, where she is quickly put to work and treated by all except for her uncle as more of a burden and a slave than a relative. Himiko suffers verbal abuse from her aunt and cousin and is subjected to a series of humiliations as she tries to navigate her new environment and struggles through the final stages of her pregnancy. Himiko learns quickly that she has only herself to count on and grows independent and fierce as she defends herself against her family and fights to survive the threat of war that has followed her. But Himiko’s newfound strength proves a liability when the war brings devastation to nearby Hiroshima, endangering the very family she has resented for so long. Himiko soon learns that there is sacrifice in survival, and that time will never heal some scars. Lyrical and almost hypnotic in its telling, Himiko’s story is written with a sure hand and a keen eye for detail. Himiko’s growth as a character is deeply felt, and the vivid characters she encounters make for a colorful, evocative read. Enriched with the texture of historical fact, the novel not only traces the trajectory of one girl’s coming-of-age, but also captures a time period fraught with tension and fear.
A highly readable work of historical fiction that will appeal to teenagers as well as adults.Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-910043-83-0
Page Count: 327
Publisher: Bamboo Ridge Press
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
