“Sometimes you do find what you’re looking for closer than you think.”

Love, forgiveness and friendship are all given a voice in this historical fiction. Creel uncovers a landscape slowly. The characters captured my heart, but mostly, the theme: there is magic in ordinariness. This was one of my first exposures to American Japanese internment camps, leading me to better understand racism in the U.S.

Throughout this book, I kept waiting for that moment, that thing, the explosion of passion, but it never came. I cherished it. The characters choose to forgo the crazy adventures that society makes us think life is all about for the more important things: family, love, and stability. Ah, the humanness.

Additionally, there’s a movie, by the same title, that I cannot vouch for (I generally despise movies based on books; cinema and literature are completely separate things). However, I do so enjoy Keri Russel.