Listening to this as I commute...I like how it goes back and forth from the 1940's to 1986. My thoughts are that it was too sentimental. I knew it was going to have a "happy" ending and that felt long and drawn out. I would have liked a bit more grit, some of the grief and the grim choices the nisei and issei were forced to make. Still for younger audiences it would be a decent introduction to war-era decisions that destroyed the lives of American citizens. ( )

This was such an interesting historical read! While there is romance in the book, there is so much more to be learned. I would encourage anyone who is interested in the interment camps during WWII to read this. The camp is only a minor part of the story, but the attitudes of the people during that time period is well played out. Interesting I finished reading the book on December 7, the day that will live in infamy! ( )

The book was okay--I appreciated that the author put effort into historical details about Seattle, but some of the writing was annoying, specifically the repetition of the pattern towards the beginning that went something like "It was an x. An x that blah blah..." (not to mention that "Oai dekite ureshii desu" (better transliteration, imo) actually means "I'm glad to see you/meet up with you," not "How are you today, beautiful?")

Ford included a lot of nuances of Chinese culture, I'm guessing since that is part of his background, but the Japanese-American characters seemed more cookie-cutter. Editors needed better eyes for typos, and better language-checking (there was another point when Japanese was used, but was missing a letter; can't remember where that happened). Wasn't sure that the romance was realistic given the characters' ages either.

All nitpicking aside, I did enjoy reading this. It was a fun historical fiction novel. Props and congratulations to Jamie Ford for writing a first novel, getting it published, and making lots of money. ( )

Non ho capito il titolo della traduzione italiana... a parte essere molto accattivante, ha qualche altro scopo? ( )

I wanted so much more from this book.........but sadly I just did not get it. This could have been a wonderful historical novel but it ended up being a cute love story and perhaps I expected too much from the book in the first place and therefore was disappointed with the read.

I was really looking forward to this book because it was about a period of US history in World War 2 involving the detention of US citizens of Japanese background which I knew very little about and was looking forward to this read.

I really feel the author had the outline of a great plot but was unable to fill out this story as it lacked so much, it needed more emotion, and a lot more punch.

I found the relationship between Henry and Keiko difficult to accept as these were children 12 years old the relationship and emotions are way too advanced for children of this age and I feel that for me this is where the author got it badly wrong.

This was a love story with a few historical facts thrown in to keep you interested but not the read I thought it would be.

Book Club re-read. My thoughts remain the same. ( )