A review by bex_knighthunter
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka

Did not finish book. Stopped at 35%.
I was really interested in learning more about this horrific part of American history, but I just found I wasn't getting anything out of this read. The writing style is very unemotional and detached, with the characters feeling generic and flat. This is probably intentional, as it even went so far as to call the main characters 'the boy' and 'the mother' etc., and I've seen this done before as a way of telling a story that so many people had in common, but in this instance it was just leaving me disconnected. Even dramatic events like in the first chapter were explained in a matter-of-fact way and gave no clue as to any inner conflict of the characters. The writing drew our attention to little details of their lives, including name dropping brands that were probably meant to be recognisable to an American audience but didn't to me. This concentration on details made me feel like I wasn't really picking up on the wider narrative and what was going on. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings