Monday, April 30, 2012

Buddha in the Attic

Forgive me for gushing, but it's been a while since I've read such a wonderful book, that I won't be able to help myself. Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka was different than I expected. It is a small book, but is jam packed with beauty.

It is a meditation on the experience of a group of Japanese brides coming to America in the early 1900s. We follow them on their journey and then through various successes and disappointments of life up to the internment camps of WWII. It is told with such honesty and yet such delicacy for these women who lived and loved and lost so much. 

Otsuka shows the passage of time with the changing of seasons in a way that is beautiful and makes you forget the individual suffering of these women for a moment.

Overall, this small book is one I would highly recommend.

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