An uneven but often affecting tale of an American woman and her Japanese family.
In Kamata’s novel, three characters navigate love, baseball, and the cultural space between the United States and Japan.
Christine, an American,came to Japan in 1988 hoping to improve people’s lives by teaching them English. After a discouraging time volunteering in a refugee camp in Thailand, she returned to Japan to marry her boyfriend, Hideki Yamada. Now they live in Tokushima Prefecture with their two children, 5-year-old Koji and 6-year-old Emma, the latter of whom suffers from multiple disabilities. Hideki works as a high school baseball coach, while Christine raises the kids at home. She’s a “baseball widow,” rarely seeing her spouse, who’s consumed by his desire to bring his team to the national championship. Christine is so overwhelmed and lonely that she jumps at the chance to take her kids to the States for a few months—and it’s possible that she won’t come back. Meanwhile, teenage power hitter Daisuke Uchida, born in Japan but raised in Atlanta, may be just what Hideki needs to make his team a contender. Daisuke’s acclimation to Japanese society isn’t the smoothest, but his budding relationship with fellow student Nana Takai gives him a very good reason to stick around. Kamata’s prose is direct and elegant, as when Christine and Emma run into Daisuke’s mother at a video store: “She wondered if the mothers of Hideki’s players knew that Coach Yamada had a disabled child. If not, they’d probably know by tomorrow. Word traveled fast.” The Christine-centered sections are particularly engrossing, as they explore the everyday life of an immigrant in Japan with a Japanese family and the experience of raising a disabled child with little help from an absent spouse. The sections that focus on Hideki are less dynamic, although their depiction of the world of Japanese baseball will be fun for those who are unfamiliar. Daisuke’s storyline feels less relevant to Kamata’s work, and the novel as a whole doesn’t quite cohere into a balanced narrative. As a slice-of-life story, however, it has much to offer.
An uneven but often affecting tale of an American woman and her Japanese family.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-95-433207-2
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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