A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

Release Date: March 12th, 2013
Publisher: Viking Adult
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 432 Pages
Series: None
Format: Hardcover
Source: From the Library
Reason: Personal interest
Find the Author: Website
Buy the Book:  Amazon | Amazon

Ruth Ozeki's third novel, shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2013. In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace—and will touch lives in a ways she can scarcely imagine.
Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao’s drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.
Full of Ozeki’s signature humour and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.

“The past is weird. I mean, does it really exist? It feels like it exists, but where is it? And if it did exist but doesn’t now, then where did it go?” 

Why oh why did I wait so long to read this beautiful tale? I'll tell you why: Because I can't seem to shake my "Judge a book by it's cover" habit yet! No, this cover is by no means unattractive, it is quite beautiful actually with bold, eye-popping colour. But, it is a cover that I wouldn't really look twice at. Yes, I see it, and then I move along. It didn't pull me in. Well, a co-worker of mine, who knows me well, assured me that I would love this book, so that very day I checked it out of the library...And the rest is history!

I lost a lot of time while devouring this book, and I don't regret one minute of it. What could have been more important than finishing this book? Nothing I tells ya, NOTHING! It was, in all sense of the word absolutely B-E-A-U-tiful(Shout out to Jim carry!) In all seriousness though, I am beating myself up for not reading this sooner.

Nao was a character that I immediately fell in love with. She is just so...Natural. She is a raw and at times foul-mouthed 16 year old. She does not sugar coat a thing and I absolutely loved her for that. Her Journal entries had me laughing out loud at times, and dabbing away the tears at others. Her story is a heart-breaking one. You will feel for not only Nao, but you will sympathize with every member of her family. Jiko also made herself a comfy place in my heart. A very inspiring, beautifully written character.

Although this book is written with two different narratives, not one voice merges with the other. Every single character has a strong voice and are all a very important piece to this ensemble. If one character was missing than this puzzle would have been incomplete. I loved what each character had to offer!

Please don't be a fool like I was and skip this novel another day! And don't let the size intimidate you, it will whisk you away and unfold a beautiful and at times heart-breaking story right in front of your eyes.

In One Word

Cover Love