Fifty Words for Rain

A beautiful, heartbreaking coming-of-age story about a young woman's search for acceptance in post-World War II Japan from debut author Asha Lemmie.

Japan, Kyoto, 1948. "A woman ought to be able to remain silent if she knows nothing else. Never ask questions. Avoid conflict. Don't struggle against it." This is the first lesson eight-year-old Noriko "Nori" Kamiza has learned. With these last words, her mother left her, and she will never ask why. She is confined to her grandparents' imperial estate's attic and won't resist it. She also won't put up with the regular searing chemical treatments meant to lighten her embarrassing skin.

Nori is an outcast from the beginning, the illegitimate child of a Japanese aristocracy and her African American GI lover. Even though her grandparents take her in, they only do so to hide her because they don't want her to tarnish the royal lineage that they are fighting so hard to maintain in a Japan that is changing. Even with her inherent intelligence and persistent curiosity about what's outside the attic's walls, Nori is obedient to the point of being content with her solitary existence. Nevertheless, fate allows her legal elder half-brother, Akira, to inherit the estate that is his destiny, and Nori finds in him the first person who will permit her to ask questions. The siblings then form an unlikely but strong bond, one that their strong grandparents will not permit and that will forever alter the lives they were destined to lead. Because Nori is prepared to fight to be a part of this world, even if it means losing everything, now that she had a glimpse of one where maybe there is a place for her after all.

Fifty Words for Rain is a brilliant epic that takes place across decades and continents and explores the bonds that hold, the bonds that give you strength, and what it means to strive to break free.