Shizuko's Daughter

Rating:
Summary: A story of hope
Review: Yuki Okuda was only twelve years old when her mother, Shizuko, comitted suicide. Such a shock left a big impact on the young Yuki's outlook on life. When she was only thirteen, a year later, her father married another woman, Hanei. (Yuki's father had been seeing Hanei from when her mother had been alive)Yuki and Hanei never managed to get along very well, and Hanei found Yuki as a spoiled brat. Yuki changed from the cheery, happy child she once was to a solemn, sober young woman who was always serious. Yuki thought that love brought pain and she never wanted to experience it again. This book tells of Yuki's life through different years in every chapter and also tell the story through other family member's eyes. You get to see Hanei's view in a chapter, Shizuko's view before she comitted suicide and many other characters who are vital in the story. Yuki undergoes a growth of strength and hope, and learns that sometimes to achieve joy you must first endure pain.

Rating:
Summary: A beautifully written, bittersweet story
Review: _Shizuko's Daughter_ is a wonderful book not only because it is beautifully written, but because it is told with an intensity and passion that will draw any reader in, make them weep, and leave them wanting the story to go on and on. This is a story of a unique, talented, and independent girl in 1970's Japan whose beloved mother kills herself when Yuki is 12. Yuki is left with her distant father and hateful new stepmother, cut off from her mother's family, to grow up virtually alone. Most inspiring is the way that Yuki, despite her pain and grief, finds strength in her memories of her mother to go on and find happiness again. At the end, you know Yuki will survive.