Review of FIFTY WORDS FOR RAIN by Asha Lemmie

 2.5 Stars

I picked up this novel because its subject sounded so interesting:  the coming-of-age of a biracial girl in post-war Japan.  Unfortunately, the book was a disappointment.

When Nori Kamiza is 8 years old, her mother abandons her to the care of her grandparents.  What she receives is not tender loving care; she is kept hidden in the attic and given daily painful scrubs to lighten her skin and erase evidence of her African-American father.  Then the arrival of her half-brother Akira brings positive change because he becomes Nori’s friend and makes efforts to make her life easier.  However, Lady Yuko, Nori’s grandmother, has different plans for her granddaughter.  As a cousin to the emperor, she values family honour above all else, and Nori’s illegitimacy and skin colour are a disgrace and a threat to their imperial status.

This book belongs to the genre known as misery porn because one misery follows another relentlessly.  Nori experiences psychological and physical abuse, abandonment, loss, racism, and sexual exploitation – and that’s far from a complete list of calamities.  The back-to-back, over-the-top tragedies are reminiscent of those found in melodramatic soap operas.  What are intended to be surprises are not such if the reader is familiar with the plot lines of soap operas. 

The relationship between Nori and Akira does not ring true.  When he arrives to live with his grandparents, Akira is 15 years old.  Nori’s interest in him is understandable because she has spent two years locked in an attic with virtually no outside contact, but would a teenage boy who has a full life take such interest in a half-sister who is five years younger?  What also bothered me is that the relationship borders on the incestuous.  Nori’s nanny even thinks that her charge “has set her heart on something she cannot have.” 

Character development is weak.  Nori lacks depth; she is defined by her obsession with Akira and her ability to endure.  Yet all her adversity does not result in transformative growth.  So often she resorts to childish tantrums when she doesn’t get what she wants.  The choices she makes at the end suggest that she is acting out of grief and guilt to fulfill her brother’s purpose:  “I will rid [the Kamiza family] of fear and of hate, and fill it with humanity and love.  I will . . . help the powerless . . . I will restore true honor.” But in the process, she’s really going to allow someone else to experience the misery she endured as a child, the misery she has spent her entire life struggling to overcome?!  And this comes from a woman who totally forgot Miyuki and never tried to help her even when she was in a position to do so?

Having never lived in or visited Japan, I’m not certain how authentically the book reflects Japanese culture.  I had the impression that the author inserted references to things that non-Japanese would think of when envisioning the country:  geisha, sushi, wasabi and origami.  Shinto and Buddhism are Japan's two major religions, so would a family so closely related to the emperor be Christian?

The writing style tends to be repetitive.  Akira and Will are always smirking.  Nori is always biting her lip so hard she can taste blood, retching, and digging her nails into her palms. 

 This emotionally manipulative melodrama did not appeal to me.