This Light Between Us by Andrew Fukuda - Review

Book Synopsis:

A story of World War II about the unlikeliest of pen pals--a Japanese American boy and a French Jewish girl--as they fight to maintain hope in a time of war.

In 1935, ten-year-old Alex Maki from Bainbridge Island, Washington is disgusted when he's forced to become pen pals with Charlie Levy of Paris, France--a girl. He thought she was a boy. In spite of Alex's reluctance, their letters continue to fly across the Atlantic--and along with them the shared hopes and dreams of friendship. Until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the growing Nazi persecution of Jews force them to confront the darkest aspects of human nature.

From the desolation of an internment camp on the plains of Manzanar to the horrors of Auschwitz and the devastation of European battlefields, the only thing they can hold onto are the memories of their letters. But nothing can dispel the light between them.

My Review:

"Maybe Alex, maybe loving a city, a country, is like loving a person: you love her despite her faults, you forgive her constantly, you always believe in her, fight for her, you never give up on her."

4/5 stars. I loved this book. It kept me so engaged, I was attached to the characters, and I felt so many emotions. I also loved the overall themes. However, the writing style prevented it from being a 5-star book. That might sound nitpicky, but there were many weird, clunky aspects of the writing that were very noticeable and that took me out of the narrative.

I was drawn to this book at first because of the letter format. I love epistolatory books and I think they can be a very interesting storytelling method if done well. While the beginning was consistently like that, and there were a few sections later on that were only letters, I was disappointed at first that it wasn't the entire book. However, I didn't mind as I got into it, because the plot was very engaging and I don't think it would have been as good if it was only told through letters.

Speaking of the plot, I'll talk more about that. I was very invested the entire time. The author wrote everything in a way that held my attention and made me want to keep reading to find out what would happen next. It also helped that I was attached to the characters. I was rooting for them and felt for them, so I wanted to find out if they would be okay.

One of the big themes of the story that I loved was the idea of being patriotic even when you don't agree with everything your country is doing. You can love your homeland and also recognize it has flaws. I loved how this theme was paralleled with both Alex and Charlie. Charlie still loved France despite what was happening to her and her family, and Alex was still proud to be American even when the government was treating his people horribly.

Finally, this book was so sad. I honestly didn't expect what happened at the end. It was bittersweet, but it was good. It was realistic yet not completely depressing and hopeless.

Now I'll share my complaints. One small one is that I wish we got more of Charlie's perspective instead of only hearing about her life through her letters. But my biggest issue was the writing style. There were a few things that stood out to be in a negative way. There were some weird moments where it switched into future tense or into second-person POV. Maybe it was supposed to be for poetic effect, but it didn't work for me and was very jarring. Another big thing is that the writing was full of way too many sentence fragments. Don't get me wrong, I love a good sentence fragment when they're used very intentionally, but the ones in this book didn't feel intentional. It was pretty distracting at times.

Content:

Language: h*ll, d*mn, a**, s*xy, b*tch, p*ss, the n-word and other racial slurs, God's name taken in vain, a mention of giving the middle finger, b*stard

Sexual Content: a mention of lovemaking, a mention of sleeping with girls, a mention of men planning to go to a brothel, a mention of a condom

Violence/Gore: descriptions of the disgusting conditions and Manzanar and the Jewish concentration camps, people getting shot, committing suicide, blood, dead bodies, gruesome war deaths

Drugs/Alcohol: teen/young adult soldiers getting drunk and smoking cigarettes