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A review by pattydsf
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
4.0
I think this book is growing on me. It was very hard to get into at first - how many books have you read that are told in first person plural? Once I adjusted to the fact that there were multiple narrators and my links with them would be slim, I was able to enjoy the book. It just took adjusting my expectations of a novel.
I mostly read to connect in some way to the characters and to learn something new. Sometimes the new things are actual facts and sometimes they are just figuring out other people's amazing imaginations. I do really want to find links with the characters and Otsuka has stretched my brain because this novel doesn't contain the usual kind of connections. It is hard to connect to a series of voices rather than a particular person.
My book group read this and it was the lack of common ideas or traits that caused many of us to dislike the book. Apparently most of us read to find some of ourselves in the people in the books. None of us are Japanese-Americans so we did not have any cultural similarities. Otsuka made it hard by giving few names and no real narrative thread.
In the long run, for me, the novel overcame all the problems that I had at the beginning. Because I had to work a bit to get this book, I think it will have more staying power for me. As a whole, I found the story unforgettable.
I recommend this to anyone willing to work at their reading; to women who want to know what other women have experienced and to readers who liked Otsuka's first book. They are very different, but the subjects are linked.
I mostly read to connect in some way to the characters and to learn something new. Sometimes the new things are actual facts and sometimes they are just figuring out other people's amazing imaginations. I do really want to find links with the characters and Otsuka has stretched my brain because this novel doesn't contain the usual kind of connections. It is hard to connect to a series of voices rather than a particular person.
My book group read this and it was the lack of common ideas or traits that caused many of us to dislike the book. Apparently most of us read to find some of ourselves in the people in the books. None of us are Japanese-Americans so we did not have any cultural similarities. Otsuka made it hard by giving few names and no real narrative thread.
In the long run, for me, the novel overcame all the problems that I had at the beginning. Because I had to work a bit to get this book, I think it will have more staying power for me. As a whole, I found the story unforgettable.
I recommend this to anyone willing to work at their reading; to women who want to know what other women have experienced and to readers who liked Otsuka's first book. They are very different, but the subjects are linked.