A review by ktoumajian
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

4.0

Such an interesting and beautiful read...quietly profound as it chronicles the collective lives (all but the last chapter is written in first-person plural) of Japanese immigrants who come to California as "picture brides", who settle into less than ideal lives as wives and mothers and doing the jobs that "Americans" won't, and then must endure the attack on Pearl Harbor and the unsettlingly slow and then sudden disappearance of the Japanese husbands then whole communities as they are resettled into the internment camps. The last chapter is told in third person from the point of view of the "townspeople" who are troubled by the unexplained disappearance of their neighbors, housemaids and gardeners but who do little to question it or intercede. At times a bit of style over substance (whole novel is written in parallel structure and lists) but lovely writing overall.