The Bhudda in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

Wow, do I have a lot of reviews to catch up on. I'm always surprised by this, because I feel more and more that I don't have time to read--I do, but this spring and summer brought many eye-straining activities, so it's more that I need to make ergonomically friendly time to write! I'd also like to finish my travel posts before it's been a year since I went to Australia. And, of course, I'd like to make more time for reading other blogs, something that my much-curtailed-of-late online time hasn't allowed.

So, then quickly: The Bhudda in the Attic by Julie Otsuka (Random House - Knopf) was a gift. I got it in paperback (the cover with the woman on it), but isn't the hardback cover intriguing, too? The hardback gives more of a hint of what the 2001 National Book Award finalist is about: the emigration of Japanese picture brides to the United States in the early 20th century.

While not very long, the book manages to--cleverly--tell hundreds of stories via plural-first-person POV (think Greek chorus). Instead of I, it's we. Otsuka did a lot of research to create the stories, all told at the same time, of women, and by extension, of their families and struggles. I found it tough to read, at times, because of the harshness of (at least some of) the stories, as the women found their way into farm work and, later, to internment camps, but also very poetic and beautiful while addressing identity, erasure, and culture. The voice won't be for everyone; I just now looked at a few reviews, and saw that some readers felt it read more like a laundry list--so as with any review of mine, YMMV.