There are always so many sides to any story. Since the victors write history, we end up having a lot of information about some events and hardly anything about another. This is probably why, despite reading a considerable chunk of historical fiction, I have never had an opportunity to read about Hiroshima.
This is a simply told story of great hardship and mind-numbing events. It is written by someone who in her introduction talks of how, despite having no direct connection to the event, felt the need to put this down in words. The war and related details are minor backgrounds, and the focus is all on an old man telling his grandson for the first time how the day the bomb fell on Hiroshima was for him. There is just one point of view at any given time, two styles of narration and very evocative illustrations. The book is short, and the ending a lot different from what I thought it would be given the type of conversation that took place in the preceding pages. It was a refreshing read among my other usual genres, and the paper crane in itself was a very heart-rending image that carried on throughout the entire tale. It is such a short story in its entirety that there is nothing more that I can add to a review of it.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.
Superfluous Reading 