An Award-Winning Author
A Most Anticipated Book of the Summer from People, The Atlantic, TIME, Boston Globe, Bustle, and Publishers Weekly
A Best New Book of the Week from Parade
In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt's family. Tomoko's aunt is an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home - and handsome foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company - are symbols of that status. The family is just as beguiling as their mansion - Tomoko's dignified and devoted aunt, her German great-aunt, and her charming uncle, who sits as the family's patriarch. At the center of the family is Tomoko's cousin Mina, who draws Tomoko into an intoxicating world full of secret crushes and elaborate storytelling.