A review by ezrasreadingcorner
The Thing about Luck by Cynthia Kadohata

3.0

I find it really hard to describe my feeling towards this book. It was by no means bad, I actually loved the fact that this book provided us with a whole new point of view on the modern American work situation. As this book focuses on a Japanese family living in America and working as harvest workers during the summer, it tackled a topic I didn't really know anything about before. Added to that I liked the thoughtfulness of this book, the way it dealt with mental disorder, migration, hierarchies and family. However, I didn't really connect to any of the characters or the story at all, which resulted in me being bored a lot of the time. Just nothing happened and while it sometimes was interesting to just follow Summer's thoughts, most of the time the book just dragged, which was really sad. Another thing that bothered me was the relationship between Summer and her grandparents. Being someone who grew up with my grandparents living with us and having a very close relationship with them I was expecting a beautiful relationship between Summer and her grandparents, a relationship starting off quite bad and full of misunderstandings, but one that will turn into a loving one eventually. And even if it kinda did I was just so disappointed by the way it turned out. I found the relationship terribly cold-hearten and every time I thought that I would get all touchy and beautiful I got slapped in the faces. Furthermore I found every relationship in this book to be kind flat and cold and not a single one was able to give me what I was hoping for. To sum up my thoughts: A intersting read if you a interested in the harvesting culture of America and the struggle of a migrant family in the US then this might be something for you, I personally missed good character development, good relationships and a story where something actually happened.