531 reviews for:

Sisters Under the Rising Sun

Heather Morris

3.8 AVERAGE

lottie1803's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

strawberrymivvy's review against another edition

4.0

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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Only very rarely do books make me cry, but this one did - as we might expect from this author.

Other than vague memories of watching Tenko as a kid, I know very little about this part of WWII history and how women and children came to be in POW camps.

Nesta is a young Australian nurse, Norah a young mum fleeing Malaya then Singapore with her family.  The ship they are sailing on is bombed and sinks, leaving all the passengers to their fate.  Many died in the water, but Nesta, Norah and others made it to Indonesia where they were imprisoned in a series of camps.

This true story is heartbreaking in so many ways, but as so often in these cases also incredibly uplifting as we learn about the little kindnesses, the love and compassion shown to each other, and the joy brought by music into the camp.

megancmahon's review against another edition

1.0

challenging emotional inspiring sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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Spoilers!

I feel as though I should be monetarily compensated for suffering through this atrocity.

What I liked:

• This book retains a single star because it brought my attention to a really fascinating and inspiring group of women in history: those British women and Australian nurses who survived internment in a Japanese POW camp for three whole years
• The music bits were also cool. It's really a pity the author didn't tell us more about Norah's musical education, because that had potential to be a really cool detail to expand on (which she doesn't)

What I didn't like:

• The writing style was choppy and simplistic. It felt as though Morris was trying to write a book for fourth graders - however, I've read other books marketed to fourth graders that included fascinating characters and an easy-to-read style that did NOT include sentences that read as if they'd been chopped off at the knee
• The way these women were portrayed was deeply disappointing. They had no emotional depth at all and were basically wooden caricatures. None of the women had any separate personality traits or complexities that distinguished them from one another
• Maybe my biggest gripe is that the book was so SACCHARINE. My GOD. This is a historical fiction novel about women suffering through a POW camp - please allow them to feel negatively and gripe and complain and cry. That, to me, would make it feel as if I'm reading about an actual person and not a caricature of British Pluck. Every time a woman feels negatively in this book she is Reminded Of The Good Things in Life in nine billion irritating ways
  • Every few pages the women are crying at something that is "so beautiful despite their situation" and I feel that sort of thing is only really effective if it's used sparingly. This was not done sparingly.
• The dialogue was choppy, overly sweet, and completely unrealistic. Every character's voice was the same
• There was SO MUCH TELLING. I quote: "Friends and families separated when the Vyner Brooke sank reconnect in emotional scenes that affect all around them." Did it not occur to Morris to try DESCRIBING these scenes?? Why didn't she bother?? Did she forget??

Honest to goodness this book felt like an extremely long outline for a book Morris was going to write in the future. This book could have been a lot longer and more interesting given that it's about a group of incredible women, and I'm really bitter it wasn't better, especially as Morris' other books are so lauded.

rkeefer1011's review against another edition

4.0

emotional sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

jillbishop's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous emotional inspiring medium-paced

lottie_c's review against another edition

3.0

emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

madison_bernabe88's review against another edition

3.5

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

georgiarose710's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

leilah_'s review against another edition

3.0

challenging emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

sara_neville's review against another edition

4.0

emotional slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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I want to hear the songs ive ead you can on the audio book!!! The information at the back of the book had me in tears. The last few pages were sooooo emotional.