Pat D. (pat0814) reviewed on 7/22/2010 + 379 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

This is a very engaging debut novel that incorporates passages from a booklet entitled "How To Be An American Housewife" written for Japanese war brides. Shoko's life in Japan until she married Charlie, an American serviceman, was impoverished when her father renounced the law as his lucrative profession and moved his family to a small village where he became a church leader. This well-written novel takes us back and forth between Shoko and Charlie's life in America and her youth in Japan. Their daughter, Sue, is enlisted to return to Japan to try to heal the rift between Shoko and her only remaining sibling, Taro.

Margaret Dilloway deftly portrays the difficulties of assimilation into another culture and examines the mother/daughter relationship between Shoko and Sue. There is a poignancy in these interactions that increases our knowledge of all that transpired.

I recommend this book, and look forward to the next book by this talented writer. ( )

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