Misa Sugiura

Book on CD performed by Joy Osmanski
3.5***

CJ Katsuyama never seems to meet her Type-A mother’s expectations. She’s not super smart, or talented at music, art or sports. She’s not a leader at school. She does like helping her aunt Hannah at the family flower shop, though she doesn’t buy into Hannah’s “magic of flowers” theories. Still, she shows a knack for creative and distinctive arrangements. But then her mother decides to sell the shop to the descendant of the racist man who swindled her grandfather out of his property by taking advantage of the USA’s policy to intern Japanese Americans during WW2. Now CJ is fighting mad and determined to make a difference.

This is a charming YA novel about family, social justice, friendship and loyalty. There’s also a little romance thrown in.

CJ is a pretty mature teen. Although she frequently doubts herself, she usually follows her inner compass and makes solid decisions. Of course, this is a young adult novel, so there is bound to be some of the drama typical in teen life – prom-posals, mean girls, cliques, attractions based strictly on looks, best friends who maybe aren’t anymore. There’s also an LGBTQ relationship in the mix; I liked the way CJ handled this.

On the other hand, I was not thrilled with how the author handled CJ’s pregnancy. Not at all sure that needed to be part of the story.

Joy Osmanski does a fine job of narrating the audio version. Her diction is clear, and she sets a good pace. The only difficulty is that there are several flashbacks, and at first, I didn’t catch on and that confused me for several chapters until she went back to it. That isn’t the fault of the narrator, however. But I think I would have been less confused if I had been reading the text rather than listening.… (meer)