24 Jul / Shadow Child by Rahna Reiko Rizzuto [in Library Journal]
Dreading her twin sister Keiko’s visit from Hawai’i, Hanako deliberately delays returning to her Manhattan apartment, but when she does, she finds Kei in the shower, unconscious from a mysterious attack. While Kei lies comatose in the hospital, Hana recalls their inseparable, even interchangeable childhoods until adolescence cleaved them into good Hana and wild-child Kei. Their mother’s and stepfather’s deaths reunite them – at least in physical distance – but Hana must somehow bring Kei back from the darkness.
Interspersed with the sisters’ saga is Lillie’s tragic story as a Japanese American woman imprisoned in Manzanar during World War II who is deported to Japan before war’s end, horrifically losing loved ones in Hiroshima, but ultimately survives to return home to the United States.
How the dual narratives are linked won’t be surprising, and despite multiple red herrings, readers will probably intuit whodunit sooner rather than later. With such predictability, wading through more than 13 hours of psychological meandering risks devolving into tedium.
Perhaps Christine Lakin’s narration could have been more engaging, her Japanese phrases and Hawaiian pidgin more consistent, the various characters more succinctly distinguished. That said, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s (Hiroshima in the Morning) already uneven text limits opportunities for transformative aural enhancement.
Review: “Media,” Library Journal, July 1, 2018
Readers: Adult
Published: 2018