Reviews with content warning for Confinement - Quando l'imperatore era un dio

"And remember, its better to bend than to break."

Fast-paced story about the forced confinement of Japanese people during the 2nd world war. Its mostly about people keeping their head down to survive. Its one thing to read about the conditions of the camps in a textbook, but its another to read about how mind-numbingly boring and hopeless they were.

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grey_writes_love's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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directorpurry's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

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rory1387's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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lalalayna's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

this book made me so sad.

the last chapter with the father broke me

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wai's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book is slim and a very quick read but one that stays with you. I found the end particularly poignant, discussing the surrealism of returning to society after internment and facing both overt and covert forms of racism and complacency in the white majority. The family survives but the trauma they all faced in imprisonment and the current social climate has taken its toll and begs the question - how much did they really survive?

I'm a quarter Japanese American and this just reminded me of all the history classes I've taken that discussed WWII, how little they all discussed Japanese internment and how much justification we were given for the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan. More of this rhetoric exists still today than people realize and is hard for Japanese diaspora and their families.

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