If you didn't keep track of the January vote, let me say, I was not a fan of Black Rain winning, to say the least! :p Modern war and its dire aftereffects are among my least favourite subjects, and this one didn't appeal to me from the start. I remember the month it was first up I was so happy it didn't win. I just feel like I hear about modern war and its destruction all the time. I don't mind depressing or grim stories, but a story about radiation poisoning from the Hiroshima bombing during WWII sounds as interesting as a rash of poison ivy.
I don't mean to sound insensitive, but I'm overexposed to stories of war and destruction through the news and our culture. I feel like this book will be about teaching a harrowing anti-war lesson and I don't need to be taught a harrowing anti-war lesson.
In fact, I even considered the idea of giving myself one veto for book club selections for my reading challenge, just so I could veto this one off of my list!
Some know that I am no fan of Storm Front but I wonder if I may have even rather it had won the month (it was also in contention).
So why am I reading it then, you ask? Well, I just feel compelled to as part of my challenge already laid out. I know many wouldn't bother with a book they object to so much, but I feel compelled to soldier on and see what I get out of it.
So, with all that in mind, I began yesterday.
My goal was 37 pages for the day but I didn't get that far. I'm in Chapter 2 now. The book starts on page 11 and I made it to page 31-32 (in ebooks some pages are displayed as multiple page numbers since epubs count pages by words I think). So rounding down, I read 20 pages yesterday!
Good start in my opinion. Not 37 but hopefully I'll catch up another day. It was slow going; I'm usually always the slowest reading in the beginning of a book while I'm getting used to the author and style. I also made a lot of annotations and notes.
The book is nice enough so far, and I want it to surprise me and make me like it. It's nicely written but so far is exactly the kind of thing I was expecting. It's starting out as a story about an older working girl and her aunt and uncle who all happened to be near Hiroshima when the bomb fell. Close enough to get radiation poisoning but far enough to survive. They go back to the little town they're from and live. After a few years, people talk about the uncle, one of the few left who is surviving radiation poisoning, gossiping about how he should work harder even though that's what usually kills those afflicted. If the afflicted work hard and pimples break out, they will die if they don't rest heavily and eat lots of good food. And he's survived so long by taking it easy in a culture obsessed with working hard, leading to gossip of laziness and taking advantage of his situation.
Their niece though seems to be the main character. She is unmarried and though she was close enough to Hiroshima to get radiation, she hasn't shown signs of poisoning. But nevertheless rumours have spread around town that she was closer to Hiroshima during the bombing than she really was and has radiation poisoning, rendering her lonely and unable to marry.
All I see in the future for this book is a slow boil of suffering for this family. Well, we'll see what happens!
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