Wednesday, September 15, 2010

PFL: Orchards by Holly Thompson

There are many different memes out there for bloggers to feature the books they're really, really looking forward to. Unfortunately, none of them really meet my needs as I tend to find books I consider my possible future loves in droves rather than one at a time. And I don't feel like featuring those books in droves either. When I fall for a book before its pub date, that usually means something! That means, from now on, you will occasionally (or for the next few weeks: quite some days) find this new feature here.



Orchards by Holly Thompson
February 22, 2011

Summary from Goodreads:

After a classmate commits suicide, Kana Goldberg—a half-Japanese, half-Jewish American—wonders who is responsible. She and her cliquey friends said some thoughtless things to the girl. Hoping that Kana will reflect on her behavior, her parents pack her off to her mother's ancestral home in Japan for the summer. There Kana spends hours under the hot sun tending to her family's mikan orange groves.
Kana's mixed heritage makes it hard to fit in at first, especially under the critical eye of her traditional grandmother, who has never accepted Kana's father. But as the summer unfolds, Kana gets to know her relatives, Japan, and village culture, and she begins to process the pain and guilt she feels about the tragedy back home. Then news about a friend sends her world spinning out of orbit all over again.



A few years ago, I started developing "a thing" for anything Japanese. It started out with anime series, mangas and Japanese TV series and even though I don't watch any of the series anymore and haven't read many mangas this year, Japan still holds a special place in my heart. I'm curious to see how Kana deals with spending time in Japan where she has to learn how to fit in.



1 comment:

Alyssa Kirk said...

I haven't read much Japanese stuff but this looks interesting. Thanks.