Reviews - Fifty Words for Rain

1.36k reviews for:

Fifty Words for Rain

Asha Lemmie

3.71 AVERAGE

mepresley's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

At one point, her friend Alice will tell Nori that Nori cannot run from love because she embodies it and will attract it. I can’t help but agree. Nori, I suspect is a broken 2, someone driven by shame, comfortable denying her own needs and earning love through helping others.

I am glad that Nori got her reunion with her brother, got to feel him choose her and play with him (which reminds me of the final ballet Sam and Jules dance); that she got to travel and see the world she was locked away from; that she found her voice and her agency. Her tragic story is one that anyone who has faced neglect and abuse and gaslighting—who has internalized the belief that the bad things done to her are her fault—can relate to strongly.

At the same time, though, the author brings to live a culturally rich and distinct world of dying upper-class Japanese power in the 1940s and 1950s.

Nori’s experience is a unique one: a half-black, half-American bastard, she represents her mother’s betrayal of her arranged marriage and the family name and is made to feel it.

Nori’s character growth is a slow burn and I’m so glad she found the desire that her mother got to experience and that Alice pitied Nori for never having known.

I’m of two minds about the ending. It’s of course gratifying to see the evil old hag needing Nori and I’m glad Lemmie didn’t go the cheap route of having Nori’s favor—to find her mother— turn out successfully. It’s always neat when a story successfully comes full circle and this one sees Nori returning to the house that rendered her powerless, the place where her life began as far as she was concerned, in a way that truly emphasizes how much she has grown from the scared, desperate-to-please girl who was locked away in the attic. But it’s a little too tidy and on the nose perhaps, especially when Nori relives her mother’s story, choosing to take her place as heir at the expense of the love of her life and birthing a bastard child who will never be valued the same way the legitimate children of the loveless, arranged marriage will be valued.

morathornton's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

shisharka's review against another edition

4.0

emotional inspiring fast-paced

dapiedimonte's review against another edition

1.0

There was nothing about this book I enjoyed. Not the characters, not the plot, not the prose. The writing was a mix of platitudes or left me feeling completely devoid of emotion. Despite Nori’s struggles, I never felt any connection with this character. The plot points are trite and this reads like a bad soap opera but was simultaneously boring. I don’t mind a sad book, but this was overkill and it felt like I was trying to be manipulated into feeling for Nori, because of all the tragedy. Instead I found myself just… over it. This is historical fiction and set in Japan, but other than the dates and locations noted at the beginning of each chapter, there is not any aspect of this book that takes you to that setting. I strongly considered DNFing this at 50% but decided to skim the last half only because it was a book club pick and wanted to be able to contribute to the conversation. I should have just DNFed it instead.