the lives of all her touched and changed in different ways and Merritt finds herself as a person and not just a caretaker. He assures people who are estranged, and those who care about them, that they are not alone and that fissures can be bridged. Moving from California to New York, from Haifa to Toronto and Munich, its stories unwind back through the years until, reaching the Second World War, the devastating secret at the heart of the family’s history is finally revealed. The fault line is in the earth in CA and the fault lines are in the lives of the characters - mother Merritt, her daughter Glynn, and Merritt’s sister Laura. Picture your run-of-the-mill, stereotypical, middle-aged man pulling up to a stoplight in his red Corvette convertible with one hand on the wheel and one arm around his trophy mistress.

I do like the challenge of rich vocabulary and the visuals that are created by detailed descriptors. There’s so much humor and warmth in this story, and I appreciated that the slow-build relationship between her and Kiyoshi focused far more on their friendship than the expected stuff. A bittersweet love story and a piercing portrait of female identity, it introduces Emily Itami as a debut novelist with astounding resonance and wit.The story goes from Atlanta, where Merrick does nothing but take care of everyone -- her mother-in-law with Alzeimer's who almost sets the house on fire, her teenage daughter recovering from anorexia, and her often-absent doctor husband -- to Hollywood, where Merrick's younger sister is trying to become an actress and also will need her help. In Fault Lines, Rajan demonstrates how unequal access to education and health care in the United States puts us all in deeper financial peril, even as the economic choices of countries like Germany, Japan, and China place an undue burden on America to get its policies right. Narrated by Mizuki, a lounge singer turned housewife, the novel instantly immerses the reader in the frustration and disappointment of its protagonist. Mitzuki, the protagonist of Emily Itami’s brilliant debut novel Fault Lines, finds herself not only submerged in a world of expectation and comparison, but is also trying to face the cultural expectations that are placed on Mitzuki as a Japanese housewife.

The book was bogged down in so many paragraphs of flowery descriptive passages that I grew weary of them right away, and the characters were hard to cheer for with the exception of tiny amounts of time here and there which always seemed to disappear far too soon for me.Pillemer combines dramatic stories, science-based guidance, and practical repair tools to help people find the path to reconciliation. I was once told by an editor that the best stories offer an 'A' and a 'B' ending, but then delight a reader with a surprising but inevitable 'C. When Mitzuki starts to spend time with Kiyoshi, they explore the city together, and she sees the world with fresh eyes. She has a part time job as a Inter Cultural Consultant, a hardworking husband, two beautiful children and an apartment that is amazing. This was another Marmite book, but yet again, after hearing the author chat about the book, her upbringing and her hectic life as a mum, author and teacher, the book took on a whole new meaning.

If you’ve ever wondered how exactly you ended up where you did in life, or realized your teenage self would never have imagined this for you, I think this book will really hit home. Set in Tokyo, the novel begins with housewife Mizuki debating jumping off the balcony of her highrise apartment where she lives with her husband and two children. She just needs to be seen and understood by someone in her life, and I think it could’ve been pulled off without the romantic elements to it.

At just over 200 pages, the book can be polished off in a sitting, but it punches above its weight in its themes and the maturity with which it examines them, such as how love intertwines with or comes up against duty, and the feeling of having lost a part of oneself. In a country with a myriad of customs and social conventions, she is constantly trying to be what everyone else wants her to be, and has learned to put her own needs and desires reluctantly to one side. Their sixteen year old daughter has growing pains, and Merritt's bohemian younger sister, Laura, who is an actress on the wane in California is a constant worry. I carried this with me when we went to Seattle but was unable to read much at all as I was too worried and distracted.