Sherri L. Smith

I loved the first two-thirds of this novel set in a dystopian New Orleans devastated by hurricanes and a particularly nasty virus. Fen is a fascinating character, and the plot feels realistic. However, the final third veers into Dan Brown territory. An over the top situation is followed by an even more over the top situation and on and on, keeping the characters in constant peril. I know that a lot of people like this writing style, but I am not one of them. Lose the last 100 or so pages, and you would have a wonderful story.… (more)

In the end, this historical young adult novel moved me.

Granted, despite the publisher's description, I wouldn't call the book a romance. Taro and Hana don't meet each other until about halfway through the novel, and even from there, they don't have the most interaction.

While I liked the nonchronological unfolding of the story, much of the book ambles along through the separate lives of two young people, unknown to each other, who'll cross paths...eventually. I appreciate the story's sense of setting and culture, but perhaps some scenes could have been edited down or omitted to keep the plot moving forward. I think it stalls the progress in a fiction read when, for instance, the narrative spends multiple paragraphs describing how a certain lunch is prepared. The reading was on the slow side for me until some point during the second half.

Still, the novel has moments of aching exquisiteness. Moments of ethereal brilliance, even when they're bittersweet. Those moments were enough to keep me reading until the story truly came alive for me.

Besides, having enjoyed historical fiction from this author before—and after seeing the poignant blend of war, understated emotion, and quiet beauty displayed on the book cover—I wouldn't have been able to resist seeing just how the title and the plot would come together.… (more)

I don't know what I find harder to belive, that Avatar exists and keeps trucking or that I was so blown away by the incredible visual effects to think it was a work of genuis lmfao.

I had no idea what I expected, but I realise if couldn't have been anything else. If l you love Avatar, this is Avatar why everything turned up or down to eleven. You can literally guess the story, though I don't think anyone was expect Na'vi in spaaaaace.

Genuinely, beyond the art, which vacillates between actually gorgeous, through pretty good, to meh, sometimes with consecutive panels side by side, it reads like something from another time, long before the release of the original movie. The noble savage trope is in full effect and the politics and anthropology is as surface level as it comes.… (more)

I love this book and enjoyed Ms Smith's writing style. This is a young adult, historical fiction novel set in the final months of World War II. Although the premise is based on a real-life group of schoolgirls caring for and sending off tokkō pilots, it is about the spaces between sacrifice and duty, grief and hope.

The only thing I knew about tokkō (also known as Kamikaze) pilots is that they deliberately crashed specially made planes directly into enemy warships, which resulted in suicide. It was a desperate policy, obviously.

This book tells us about the lives and feelings of these tokkō pilots, as well as the school girls who cared for them. Ms Smith did her research well. I couldn't put the book down. I felt that I was learning about this particular history in a memorable, personal way.

It's a story about how someone could believe in giving their life for a cause and remain so human.
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