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A carefully researched little novel, Otsuka’s first, about the US internment of Japanese citizens during WWII that’s perfect down to the tiniest detail but doesn’t stir the heart. Shortly after the war begins, the father of an unnamed Japanese family of four in Berkeley, California, is taken from his home—not even given time to dress—and held for questioning. His wife and two children won’t see him until after war’s end four years later, when he’ll have been transformed into a suddenly very old man, afraid, broken, and unwilling to speak even a word about what happened to him. Meanwhile, from the spring of 1942 until the autumn after the armistice, the mother, age 42, with her son and daughter of 8 and 11, respectively, will be held in camps in high-desert Utah, treeless and windswept, where they’ll live in rows of wooden barracks offering little privacy, few amenities, and causing them to suffer—the mother especially—greater and greater difficulty in hanging on to any sense of hope ...

Sister of My Heart  is a novel by  Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni . First published in 1999, this novel was followed in 2002 by a sequel  The Vine of Desire . The story centers on the lives of two  Indian  girls, Anju and Sudha. The girls use their own voices to narrate the story of their lives. In alternating chapters the reader closely follows the lives of Sudha and Anju through childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Although some of the characters immigrate to the United States, most of the story is set in India. Indian traditions and culture are part of the rich environment portrayed in the novel and the descriptions of Calcutta are especially vivid.  Sister of My Heart  is a story about family, friendship, and the bond between sisters. Princess in the Palace of Snakes  follows two cousins from birth until their wedding day. The sudden death of their fathers on a reckless hunt for rubies sends Anju and Sudha’s mothers into premature l...