A Tale for the Time Being in Overdue Podcast

Mar 26, 2019 Liz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: adult-fiction, read-harder-challenge-2019

Really enjoyed this story. Great writer. The two stories and worlds were perfectly intertwined.

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Jan 12, 2015 tysephine rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Wow. What a beautiful story.

A woman named Ruth finds a plastic bag on the beach containing a diary and some letters that belonged to a Japanese schoolgirl who may have died in the tsunami. The story unwinds in a dual narrative as we follow Ruth discovering what became of Naoko after her family moved back to Japan.

The story is so complex and the way Ozeki uses Naoko's family history to keep the story moving is riveting. At times, it was very hard to put down. I needed to know what happened with ...more

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Feb 06, 2018 Camille24 (camilleisreading) rated it it was amazing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I love long novels concentrated around found items -- old letters, secret histories, forgotten diaries -- and the revelation of secrets. This book has that in spades, but it also has humor, quantum physics, suicide, Zen Buddhism, and a Tokyo sex cafe.

On a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, Ruth finds a freezer bag containing a diary written in Japanese, letters written in French, and an old wristwatch, washed up on the beach. The diary belongs to a teenager named Naoko, who says she intends I love long novels concentrated around found items -- old letters, secret histories, forgotten diaries -- and the revelation of secrets. This book has that in spades, but it also has humor, quantum physics, suicide, Zen Buddhism, and a Tokyo sex cafe.

On a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, Ruth finds a freezer bag containing a diary written in Japanese, letters written in French, and an old wristwatch, washed up on the beach. The diary belongs to a teenager named Naoko, who says she intends to write down the story of her great-grandmother's amazing life (a 104-year-old Zen Buddhist nun) before Naoko takes her own life. Her story chronicles her family's move from California back to Japan after the dot com bubble bursts and her family's savings are devastated. There, Naoko endures brutal bullying. When her father begins a series of ill-conceived suicide attempts, Naoko's anger towards him grows. A summer spent at her great-grandmother's Zen Buddhist temple teaches her about true loss and forgiveness and strength.

Back in British Columbia, Ruth, a struggling novelist, is slowly reading the diary with her husband Oliver. Enlisting the help of several friends on the tiny island for translations and history, Ruth slowly draws in the community to help unearth the tale. She becomes so obsessed that she begins to perceive the events that are happening in the diary to be unfolding in real time, and even interacts with some of the main players in her dreams. She is certain that she must do something to save Naoko, and her father, before they take their own lives.

I really loved this book. It is unique and spellbinding. Naoko's voice is so distinctive, and I enjoyed learning about Japanese culture from her. It was not lost on me that Ruth and Oliver are the names of the author and her husband; I actually enjoyed that she inserted herself into the tale because it was a very effective narrative device. The revelation of great uncle Haruki, the suicide bomber, and his sacrifice was heartbreaking. Naoko's great-grandma is the best character in the book, and teaches everyone how to be strong in the face of strife. <3 ...more

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Jul 29, 2017 Colleen C rated it really liked it

I really loved this novel, but it isn't quite deserving of 5 stars. This novel is a split narrative between a 16-year-old Japanese girl named Nao and an older woman named Ruth who lives in Canada and finds Nao's diary and some letters washed up on the shore. The book is sprinkled with interesting tidbits about Japanese life, customs, and language, but it centers on dark topics like suicide, cyber bullying, the 2011 tsunami, and Japan's legacy in WWII. I highly recommend this novel. ...more

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Aug 03, 2017 Jardeen added it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own

The quantum physics and sudden magical realism at the end made me knock off a star, but overal a warm and wonderful (and sometimes even educational) read.

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