It never surprises me how inhumane one person can be to another. I wish it did. This book by Maureen Lindsay is the most perfect piece of fiction, which comes wrapped up in a history lesson. Albeit one in a very horrendous and scary time. Don’t let the word lesson put you off. The book is unputdownable. I just wanted to drop everything and read it cover to cover.

Ghandi has an amazing quote, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. This book is also a moral tale on what happens when an entire race pays for the sins of a select group, or in this case, their birth country.

The story starts in early 1940s California. Satomi and her parents own a farm and work hard. She is half Japanese, half white, and she doesn’t fit in anywhere before Pearl Harbour. After Pearl Harbour the Japanese are treated as the enemy. They are rounded up by the government and put in concentrations camps. They have their money and property taken away from them, and this all really happened. I have the quotes from the first page below.

These real quotes are shocking. What happened to the Japanese in America, most of whom were born there, is a piece of history that has been largely forgotten, if it was even known at all.

The character of Satomi is one of the greatest literary heroines in modern literature. Feisty, smart and proud. She stands up for herself and becomes a great human being, despite all that she and her mother suffer together. I reckon actresses in Hollywood will soon be fighting over the role.

I hope this book becomes a bestseller, and I also hopes it makes its way into schools. Five stars.  A Girl Like You is now one of my favourite books of all time.

If you read this book and liked it also try Guests of the Emperor by Janice Young Brooks