User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I wanted to love this book but came away from it unsatisfied and disappointed. It seems that I am in the minority on this as most readers seem to love it. I have a lot of personal knowledge of Japan because I spent ten years growing up in the country and my mother is Japanese american. At first I thought my problems with the book were unique to me and my knowledge of the language and culture and I was being too harsh. Lemmie overall does a good job with the Japanese vocabulary that she uses but there are some errors that are jarring. A woman would never refer to an older brother as aniki, although the more often used Onee chan is realistic. Lemmie also has Akira call Nori imouto which would never be used in dialogue in that way. The other issues I had were with cultural differences; the Japanese aren't physically demonstrative at all (especially in that time period) so the scenes with hugging or hand-holding felt false. The plot while interesting is very soap-opera like, moving quickly and without a lot of detail and development. Most of the characters are not fleshed out and are sometimes caricature-like. I found parts of the ending interesting (about the car accident) and other parts altogether unsatisying (would Nori really stay in Japan after all she has endured at the hands of her family? would she give up the love she found in London?). Despite the weaknesses of the novel, Lemmie deserves praise for tackling a little-addressed subject and creating an interesting (though far fetched) story. Clearly many other readers absolutely loved her book, I am just not one of them.
Rating: really liked it
If you enjoy cheesy soap operas with twists and turns that defy belief, then this is your book. It reads smoothly for the most part and has all the elements of human emotions that the author can fit in.
If you know anything about Japan, this book is going to aggravate the heck out of you. There is a reason why they say "Write what you know." Or at least do thorough research. There are so many mistakes, impossibilities, careless details and tropes in this book that I gave up on making a list. It's an insult to the culture of Japan to be so misrepresented in this book. For comparison's sake, go read Emma Donoghue's new book The Pull of the Stars (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...) which is also a historical novel and is a model on how to do it right.
Mostly, this is an insult to the Hafu Black and Japanese folks that I know. They all have stories. Their parents have stories. There are real stories that need to be told. I cringe when I think of anyone reading this book and thinking that they've learned anything about Japan or what it is like to be half-Japanese.
I hope the author will stick to what she knows going forward, or learn how to do authentic research. Meanwhile, it's as if she found a template for writing a book and simply plugged in some details. This book could have been set anywhere; it says nothing about Japan.
I will give kudos to the use of the Japanese phrases. I'd say they are about 80% correct which is more than most books that use token Japanese words here and there for a touch of "authenticity." But, a dictionary won't solve all issues. Hint: Yes, in Kyoto and most of Japan, a sister will address her older brother as お兄さん. But, No, he will not address her as "妹."
Rating: really liked it
There are 50 words for rain, as Nori says to Akira once. Rain is a big deal for her:
Q:
“I like rain.”...
“That’s ridiculous. Nobody likes rain. Nobody ever says, ‘I wish it weren’t so sunny today.’”...
“You can’t hear sunshine from the attic,”
Q:
Harenochiame. Rain after a perfect, clear sky….
… hisame: cold rain, the kind that seeps into the air, and seeps into the house, and seeps into your bones. You can’t get warm no matter what you do. ...
Shinotsukuame. Relentless rain. Rain that would never stop. (c)
A great debut book on a God-awful topic. A bunch of them, actually.
Poor little Nori (an illegitimate daughter of a Japanese woman and an Afroamerican man) lives in the attic of her grandparents' house after her mom cuckoos her to them at just 8. She gets beaten, her skin bleached daily, spends all her time in a room in the attic…
Akira, her brother. Where did he get westernalized to all than extent? He could've walked out of some dorama set. Nevertheless, he gets things as interesting as they could get.
The okiya part - a lot like the other geisha stories. I wonder how much of it was inspired by Arthur Golden's 'Memoirs of a Geisha' and Mineko Iwasaki's 'Geisha, a life'. I'm sure this one's gonna be another of my favs.
Noah? Really?
Doing that to him felt quite callouse, didn't it? Like he's a thing to be used and discarded...
Q:
“It is good for a woman to learn silence,” her mother always said. “If a woman knows nothing else, she should know how to be silent.” (c)
The issues with being an obedient girl (who would've guessed all the potential spectrum!):
Q:
“Promise me you will obey.”
The request caught her off guard. Not because it was unlike something her mother would say, but because not once in her life had Nori ever disobeyed. It didn’t seem like something that needed to be requested.
…
Promise me that you will obey in all things. Do not question. Do not fight. Do not resist. Do not think if thinking will lead you somewhere you ought not to be. Only smile and do as you are told. Only your life is more important than your obedience. Only the air you breathe. (c)
Q:
To please her grandmother was a feat that she longed to accomplish. In her mind, it was the most noble of quests. (c)
Good and obedient girls sometimes take daily chemical baths of bleach ('cause the MC is a girl of half-Afroamerican parentage and the grandparents from hell wanted her to be of lighter compexion). Just look at this:
Q:
It came quickly, the pain.
...
It was better to accept the tears, with as much grace and dignity as could be mustered. They would fall silently down her cheeks, constant and cool like a babbling brook.
…
Her left leg had a mottled purple burn on it that she had to hide with extra-long skirts, but she did not mind so much because the skin around the burn was wonderfully fair and bright. (c)
Q:
Dear God,
I’m sorry for my impertinence. I will make sure to ask Saotome-sensei what “impertinence” means so that I can make sure not to do it again. …
Her favorite thing about God was that He was the one person she was allowed to ask questions. In fact, this privilege delighted her so much that she hardly even minded that nobody answered her. (c)
Q:
She had to be patient. More importantly, she had to be deserving of her mother’s renewed interest. Somehow, she had to make herself more appealing than whatever it was her mother had left her for. (c)
They get beaten regularly and brainwashed into smth else:
Q:
“A girl must have discipline. … you are still too impertinent. Too bold in your ways. Like your whore mother.”
…
“You are good at your studies, but this is not so important. You lack poise and grace. I can hear your footsteps shaking the house, like a zou. We are royalty. We do not walk like rice farmers.”
...
Her grandmother’s voice went very low. “You are a cursed, wretched thing.”
The first blow with the spoon landed with shocking swiftness. (c)
Q:
Her abandonment has scarred her, her grandmother has brainwashed her, and she will always see something in the mirror that is not there. (c)
Geisha stuff:
Q:
You must become well versed in the art of conversation.”
“I didn’t know conversation was an art.”
Kiyomi wagged a finger. “For a woman, everything is an art. (c)
Q:
“I have poured tea, I have arranged flowers, I have danced and played the violin,” she goes down the list. “I have quite mastered the art of being useless wallpaper.” (c)
Interesting bits:
Q:
In that moment, she wished she could read every word ever written, in every language from sea to sea. Not being able to read those letters frustrated her to an extent she didn’t understand. (c)
Q:
She still had the pale blue satchel with the little silver clasp. She kept these two things in a far corner of the room so that she would always know where to find them at a moment’s notice. (c) A telling detail.
Q:
But her favorite thing, by far, was the half-moon-shaped window above her bed that overlooked the gardens... As far as Nori was concerned, she could see the entire world. (c)
Q:
For once, she was not shaking. There was no beating on earth that would make her regret what she had done. (c)
Q:
She would curl herself onto the couch and listen to him making paintings out of sound. … From these dead foreigners whose names she was slowly growing accustomed to, Nori was learning what it was to live a thousand lifetimes of joy and sorrow without ever leaving this house. (c)
Q:
All this time, she’d asked God for a gift. She hadn’t realized that she’d been living in one all along. (c)
Q:
I have never believed in anything but my own talent, death, and the ability of people to fall far short of expectations. (c)
Q:
I am still coming to understand, every day, what it is that makes her feel like mine. (c)
Q:
“If you get scared, think of some music,” he told her. “Think of it and you will feel safe.” (c)
Q:
I notice the stares, of course. I am sure she notices them too, but she never flinches. Sometimes she will turn and nod gently, and the offender will blush and scurry away. (c)
Q:
… that it’s always better to be the center of attention on your own terms. For God knows they will talk about you anyway. I know this, and I know it’s true because I’ve learned that I’m not nearly as stupid as everyone has always tried to make me believe. (c)
Q:
“You are my sun.” (c)
Rating: really liked it
TRAGEDY PORN FOR HISTORICAL READERSToo often, people mistakenly believe that the analysis for “how many terrible things befall a protagonist?” is one and the same as “how much merit does this book have?” The more tragic the circumstances, the more “literary” the novel must be. There is beauty in suffering, many believe—especially if the sufferer is a woman. Because a corollary to this misconception is this: a woman’s tragic life is a stand-in for her own character growth. Women are forged by adversity, etc.
Fifty Words for Rain is a beautiful, wonderfully written novel. It is also 100% unabashed tragedy porn. It is nearly 500 pages of watching protagonist Nori suffer through every loss, torture, and deprivation imaginable—beatings, confinement, chemical “skin whitening treatments,” slavery, rape, loss of family members, grief, near-death experiences, racism, xenophobia. You name it, Lemmie probably puts her character through it.
It is so beautifully told, this morbid story of a young girl’s ceaselessly calamitous life. So many critics have praised the author’s prose and the “plot twists” (which are not surprising once you come to understand this book feeds on morbid disasters). I wonder, though, if any have looked beneath the surface and really seen that this is a shocking book built on a nonexistent character arc and some questionable portrayals of a culture the author has no first-hand experience with.
This book is set in Japan in the 1950s and 1960s. Asha Lemmie is not Japanese, though I completely credit that she loves and respects the culture. Yet I wonder if she has the range. Is this depiction of Japan appropriate, or does it feed into our Western stereotypes? For instance: at one point, Nori is sold as a slave to a whorehouse/geisha house. This felt gratuitous and sensationalized. I am not Japanese, so I cannot speak here, but I wonder why Lemmie, a Black American woman, felt qualified to write a story of a Black Japanese woman suffering on account of her identity—and if she considered the consequences of portraying Japan as a country full of immoral racists.
More concerning to me is the protagonist, Nori, and her development over the course of
Fifty Words for Rain. The first 70% of the novel is merely Nori suffering at the whims of those around her—not least her elder half-brother, Akira, for whom she has a near-incestuous love and obsession for, though it is not returned: he treats her horribly up until the night he dies; obviously, any love and tenderness for Nori must quickly be gotten rid of. Lemmie inflicts loss after loss upon Nori, in such a way that the sequence of events seems clearly manufactured and baseless. Throughout the text, Nori’s defining characteristics are her blind love for her brother and her ability to “rise up” from yet another tragedy. This is not character growth; this is not a personality.
And then the end…oh boy, the end. In summary: Nori abandons her fiancé and newborn son in order to take over her family’s corrupt, semi-legal business empire in Kyoto; she agrees to marry a Japanese nobleman and become the ideal model of womanhood, all at the behest of her horrible grandmother (who attempted to kill her multiple times, sold her into slavery, and was complicit in the murder of her beloved half-brother). I hated it, because it just seemed more evidence that Lemmie valued her protagonist’s suffering over any kind of catharsis. Is Nori going to be happy in her role as Japanese crime-boss? Nope! Not at all—the book makes it clear she will be miserable. So what is this? Lemmie truly expects to put her character through a lifetime’s worth of adversity, have her escape and find a happy future…only to have Nori willingly
choose to revictimize herself yet again?
Make it make sense!
The only way this works is if we accept that Nori’s entire personality is her obsession with her brother and if we find this to be admirable rather than pathetic. By assuming the role of head of the family, she is doing what Akira cannot do, since he was murdered for being close to her. I mean…fine. If you think having the main character of your book make self-desctructive choices out of grief and guilt is a sign of Deep Complexity and Character Growth, then I don’t know what to tell you. Wear it if you want to.
The frustrating thing about all of this is that
Fifty Words for Rain is actually quite good! Lemmie’s writing is evocative, and her flair for tragedy is complemented well by her perfect timing and grasp of emotion. The first 70% of the novel is a tragedy fest, but you have hope throughout that Nori’s life will change for the better. I truly cannot express how much I enjoyed the vast majority of this book (though, again: would love to have some Japanese readers weigh in on this depiction of post-war Japan). The end obviously yanks the rug out from under readers in a way that is designed to be shocking rather than sensical, and that’s where I was lost. Up until then: it was great!
Look, if you’re in the market for a story about Sad Events that’s going to make you Feel Things,
Fifty Words for Rain is probably the best you can do. I know a lot of readers
love to read tragedy porn (*cough*
A Little Life *cough*). However, I question if this was tragedy for a good and transformative purpose, or tragedy for the sake of tragedy. I’m inclined to think the latter.
📌 .
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Rating: really liked it
I could easily come up with 50 words to describe this coming of age story and how it made me feel.
Instead I’ll do it in a few that quickly come to mind:
Traumatic. Enraging. Stunning. Enduring. Epic. Captivating.
It’s the early 1950’s and 8 year old Nori is abandoned at the front door of her grandparents in Kyoto.
She is a bastard child, an embarrassment to the wealthy family. She is tucked away in an attic and abused for not learning the Japanese subservient female behaviours.
Old culture threaded in with new. The sibling relationship between her and her half brother. The music. The bravery and strength of character.
Poetically written. This one moved me. However, I have to admit, I wasn’t crazy about the ending but I was crazy about the writing. Looking forward to many more from this up and comer.
4.5⭐️
Rating: really liked it
The number of times that the protagonist “bit her lip, drawing blood” I’m shocked that she had lips by the end of the novel...
Everything went downhill with the last quarter of the book. And the ending contradicted the entire character development. Also not a fan of the nearly incestuous relationship with her brother.
This book has many rave reviews; I just am not seeing it.
Rating: really liked it
There are so many people who grew up with hardship covering their entire lives. In the book, Fifty Words for Rain, by debut author, Asha Lemmie, we meet a young Japanese girl. The time period is after the war in Japan and Noriko "Nori" Kamiza's, an eight year old child, a product of a wealthy Japanese mother and a black G.I father who has to faced daily the repercussions of being a mixed race child.
Abandoned by her mother, forced to abide in the mansion's attic, given bleach baths to try and lighten her skin, her life is one of confinement and cruelty from her grandmother, and a lack of love and care. She learns to treasure the sound of rain for that can be heard in the attic, whereas the sun can not be seen in her prison abode.
Her life takes a turn for the better when her half older brother, Akira, arrives. He is a legitimate son, the future "prince" for his grandparents status and wealth and he becomes for Nori, a way to find a tiny bit of happiness. Akira is her glimpse into the world outside her attic door.
This was such a sad tale, one where a child is being punished for just existing, and as Nori is introduced to the world, she also finds the pain that goes along with being a person, the sorrows and the depths one can face while growing and learning.
As Nori eventually finds sometimes the circle of life brings one right back to the beginning.
Thank you to Asha Lemmie, and Edelweiss for a copy of this touching story.
Rating: really liked it
4.5 stars
This book was very nearly a 5 star read for me – that is, until the last 10 pages or so when I got to the ending, which frustrated me so much that my first reaction was wanting to throw the book against the wall (of course I didn’t do that, but only because I was reading on an electronic device and didn’t want to break it). I think part of the reason why I reacted so strongly to the ending was because, up to that point, I was so emotionally invested in the story and the characters that it was hard for me to accept how things unfolded at the end.
As the main character, Nori stole my heart from the very first page, where we are introduced to her as an eight-year-old girl abandoned by her mother, left on the doorstep of her aristocratic grandparents’ estate in post-WWII Kyoto, Japan. While Nori’s grandparents do take her in, they do so not because they care about her, but because they want to hide her from the world, as Nori’s dark skin is too obvious a reminder of the stain brought on the Kamiza family from their married daughter Seiko’s affair with an African American soldier. Nori is banished to a life of solitary confinement in the attic, where her only companionship is the servant who sees to her daily needs. Remembering her mother’s strict instructions to “obey in all things” and to do as she is told without question or resistance, Nori is obedient to a fault and does not fight whatever is done to her, whether it’s her grandmother’s monthly beatings or the chemical baths she endures daily in order to lighten her skin. But all of that changes when the half-brother Nori never knew she had comes to live with his grandparents after his father dies -- as the legitimate heir to the Kamiza dynasty, Akira is doted on by a grandmother who is willing to give him the world as long as he takes his destined place in the family. As Akira gets to know his half-sister, the siblings form a unique and close bond – a bond that their grandparents will try to break at all costs due to the impact it would have on the path that Akira is destined to lead.
Nori is a wonderfully-drawn character who came alive on the page for me — a character I couldn’t help rooting for from beginning to end. I was drawn to her self-effacing charm, her curious nature, and most important of all, her strength in rising above the odds and defying the circumstances she was born into. With everything she endures throughout the story, I admire the fact that Nori does not easily resign herself to her fate (which, for those who’ve read the book, would explain why I reacted to the ending the way I did). Nori is one of those endearing fictional characters that I know won’t be easily forgotten, though I guess the same can also be said about her brother Akira, another character I absolutely adored. I love the way the author, Asha Lemmie, wrote the dynamic between these two half-siblings who couldn’t be more different from each other, yet shared such a strong, formidable bond. I was tremendously moved by their relationship and how special it was – it actually made me think about my relationship with my sibling and long for the type of bond these two had. Needless to say, several scenes in particular brought me to tears – though I will also say that there were an equal number of scenes that made me angry, especially the ones involving the grandparents and the antiquated mindset that drove all of their actions. It’s been awhile since I’ve read a book that made me smile, cry, and yell out in frustration, all within pages of each other. This book invoked a myriad of emotions that actually still has me thinking about the story and its characters, even now, days after I’ve finished reading. No doubt this is a story that will stay with me for a long time to come.
This is not an easy story to read by any means, but it is an important one, and despite the issues I had with the ending, I feel that Asha Lemmie did a fantastic job. In all honesty, I’m still blown away by the fact that this is a debut novel because it definitely doesn’t read like one! I don’t want to say too much more than I already have for fear of giving away the story, but I definitely highly, highly recommend this one, though with a caveat -- be prepared to experience an emotional roller coaster like I did. I don’t know anything about Lemmie outside of what is in her bio, but I sincerely hope that this won’t be the only novel she writes – I am definitely looking forward to reading more from her.
Received ARC from Dutton via Edelweiss.
Rating: really liked it
I really wanted to love this book, but it just read like a soap opera. I was rolling my eyes at the drama. Totally dramatic things seemed to happen for no reason and didn't affect the plot, literally just happened. Like, okay, put in that piece of drama, now time to move to the next one. Also, not sure why the author, who is not Japanese, felt the need to set it in Japan when it could have been set anywhere, because she doesn't pay much attention to Japanese culture anyway. Also, the other points of view that pop up throughout made it feel kind of disjointed to me. I was really disappointed with this book that I couldn't wait to read. Two stars, rather than one, for being a readable page-turner despite all the melodrama I hated.
..Also, the ending was stupid.
Rating: really liked it
First, thank you to NetGalley for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This book is very reminiscent of other books I've read in the past, Flowers in the Attic comes to mind, as does White Oleander and Memoirs of a Geisha (with a dash of the movie Mommy Dearest, but not with wire hangers). I very much enjoyed the majority of the book, which follows Nori's journey from child with a strict upbringing to woman with emotional baggage to spare. I feel like the last 30% of the book or so took everything I loved about the first 70% and dialed it up to 11, making it slightly unbearable in the process. The ending especially felt like a miss to what I was expecting, because Nori (view spoiler)
[ basically turns into the very person she hated from the beginning. (hide spoiler)] All that said, the book was still mostly enjoyable for me, and I highly recommend it to anyone who really likes dramatic fiction. I especially liked the author's writing style, and came away from the book with many quotes noted down in my notebook.
Rating: really liked it
Noriko is the product of a Japanese woman and African American man, born in Japan after WWII. After being dropped off at her grandmother’s house, Nori doesn’t understand why she has been abandoned by her mother. Put in the attic and shunned by her very traditional Japanese grandparents, Nori merely exists until her half brother, Akira, comes into the picture. The story gets more intense and it is hard to put down the book. Well written and an excellent piece of literary fiction, I recommend and thank Netgalley for the ARC.
Rating: really liked it
What an amazing read! How is this Asha Lemmie’s debut novel? I seriously could not put it down, the fastest and best read all year for me! It was such a beautiful and honest portrayal of Japanese culture and the honor of family during that time period. Your heart breaks for Nori and her eternal love for her half brother Akira. The description and detail are so vivid, you can see Nori sitting up in the tree reading her mother’s journals. You can hear Akira playing Ave Maria on his violin for Nori. Nori lives many lifetimes in just 24 years. Interesting fact, Nori in Japanese is seaweed, which is somewhat black in color (after it has been roasted). Curious if this was intended as symbolism, since Nori is half Japanese and half African American or it could be because she was seen as a blight on the honor of the Kamiza Family. Good book club discussion questions. Be sure to read the author’s acknowledgements at the end. If you weren’t crying already, you will be. This book really touched me because, I am very much like Nori. My mother is Japanese and she met my African American GI father when he was stationed in Japan during the Vietnam War. After marrying my father, my mother was disowned by her family and came to live with him here in the US. I grew up here, but always wondered what it would have been like to live and grow up in Japan. This is such a beautiful story and I cannot wait to share it with my mother.
Rating: really liked it
EWWWW I HATED THIS BOOK’S ENDING SO MUCH IT KNOCKED IT DOWN TWO ENTIRE STARS.
That being said, this book wasn’t very good to begin with. There was WAY too much going on. It seemed like the author was like “let’s throw in a car crash” “let’s make her pregnant” “let’s make her happy” “let’s make her not happy” . I hated this book, one of the worst I have read all year. I do not understand the hype.
Rating: really liked it
The book was absolutely riveting; I read it in two days and any time not spent reading it was spent thinking about it. The ending stunned me, angered me, made me weep, and made absolute sense.
Rating: really liked it
Even without the ending that I hoped for, it was such a good story.
