Fifty Words for Rain

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Lemmie, Asha, Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Lemmie, Asha
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Lemmie, Asha	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Lemmie, Asha	4-week checkout	Due 05-23-2024
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Lemmie, Asha	4-week checkout	Due 05-09-2024

Book club information from jacket.
Kyoto, Japan, 1948. Noriko "Nori" Kamiza will not question why her mother abandoned, or her confinement to the attic of her grandparents' imperial estate. And she will not resist the scalding chemical baths she receives daily to lighten her shameful skin. The illegitimate child of a Japanese aristocrat and her African American GI lover, Nori is an outsider from birth. Her grandparents take her in only to conceal her, fearful of a stain on the royal pedigree that they are desperate to uphold in a changing Japan. When chance brings her legitimate older half-brother, Akira, to the estate that is his inheritance and destiny, the siblings form an unlikely but powerful bond-- one their formidable grandparents cannot allow and that will irrevocably change the lives they were always meant to lead. -- adapted from jacket

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Publishers Weekly Review
Summary / Annotation
Excerpt
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Unreadable submitted by jillrachele on April 10, 2021, 2:48pm I had to stop reading this about halfway through because it was unreadable. Melodramatic, implausible, and worst of all, replete with historical and cultural inaccuracies. I'm shocked that this book got published...at the very least, it needed a thorough revision by editors familiar with Japanese language, culture, and history. It's offensively bad.

Not as expected submitted by cldaniels on July 13, 2021, 2:07pm An interesting concept, but some characters seemed too extreme and stereotyped. The ending did not fit the main character. Overall, unfulfilling.

One of my favorite books of 2021 submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on June 11, 2022, 10:39pm This novel unfolds exquisitely. I almost don’t know what more to say. The characters, the relationships, the world they live in, the history… each is brilliantly described as the story unfolds. I could not put this down. 5/5, and will probably be one of my best books this year. Highly recommended.

Enjoyed the writing but plot and characters were lacking submitted by adimarzo on July 18, 2023, 9:07pm The author writes beautifully but the characters were not well developed and the plot twists were unbelievable and soap-opera-ish. And the ending was a complete 180 from where the characters had been heading throughout the novel.