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What Members Thought
The mountains are as I have always remembered them, the first light of the morning melting down their flanks.
A few weeks ago, I was discussing with some Goodreads friends about whether we had read a perfect novel. This is it. (Or, close to it.). This is the perfect novel.
This is a book about forgetting and remembering, about betrayal and loyalty. Maybe that sounds too grandiose. This is a book about people who have been through some serious shit, suffered, lived to tell the tale, and still ...more
oh my this was a wonderful book - one of my favorites in a very long time. it was a beautiful story about love and loss and choices and the writing was beautiful, too. I listened to this and then went back to read favorite passages. I'd give it more than 5 stars if I could!
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At the center of this novel is a Japanese garden, created in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia by Aritomo, a renowned Japanese gardener who left Japan before WWII. Yun Ling, a Chinese-Malay woman, the lone survivor of a brutal Japanese internment camp in Malaya, wishes to atone for her survivor guilt by making a Japanese garden to honor her sister, killed in the same camp, who loved Japanese gardens. She meets Aritomo through friends and, to her surprise, he agrees to allow her to learn from him
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I enjoyed this, though it wasn't a book that really stuck with me. It's the story of a woman who survives a Japanese concentration camp, and how the loss of her sister and the brutality of the camp itself affect her for the rest of her life. The main part of the story is framed as a flashback, and she writes her memoirs after retiring as a very successful judge. Most of the story is concerned with the time not long after she leaves the camp, when she is apprenticed to a Japanese gardener in an a
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Sep 13, 2014
Terri
rated it
really liked it
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review of another edition
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booker-prize
A wonderful, immersive read! Review to follow.
Sep 11, 2012
Martha
marked it as to-read
Jun 16, 2013
Carly Thompson
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Jul 24, 2013
Amy (folkpants)
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Aug 01, 2013
Mary
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Nov 19, 2013
Jessica FA
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Mar 25, 2014
Sarah
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Nov 17, 2015
Arianna
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Nov 21, 2015
Sarah left GR
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Dec 20, 2015
Dayna
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Mar 09, 2016
alana
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Apr 07, 2016
Jillian
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Sep 09, 2016
Wendy E.
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Oct 02, 2018
Adjrun
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May 26, 2020
Isabel
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Jul 07, 2020
Laura
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Nov 29, 2024
Linnea
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