I am torn about this book. That doesn’t happen to me often. I usually know right away if I am going to love a book. Or if I am going to endure it. Or if, it’s just not worth my time.

During the course of reading Fifty Words for Rain I had all three sensations. I kept reading and here is what I thought, my book review of Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie

Japan 1948. A time of upheaval and rebirth in Japan but also a time where holding tight to the old customs, pedigree and aristocratic ways was epidemic. This is when we are introduced to eight-year-old Nori when she is abandoned by her mother on the front door of her grandparents mansion.

Nori, a “bastard” child, product of Japanese royal blood mother and a black American GI. Nori is a stain on the family name. She is hidden in the attic and does not leave the house for years. Until her half brother arrives and her life finally begins.

But her skin color, her hair and how she came into the world will scar her, and taint every aspect of her life, despite her brilliance both as a student and a musician. Her grandmother will torture her and shame her until the final pages of this book.

But despite her struggles and triumphs, love and loss, and deep tragedies that change her forever, Nori still returns to Japan and to her hateful grandmother.

And it’s the final chapter of this book that has me torn. Her final choices made me crazy. How could she? I felt she was weak in the end, despite her enormous strength throughout the book.

So, I read it through, enjoyed much of it, endured some of it, and hated the end.

***Three stars for Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie.

Read last week’s review of Peace Like a River.

My current read The Evening and the Morning by Ken Follett

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