How to Be an American Housewife
By: Margaret Dilloway
Rating: Good
Shoko is a Japanese girl at the time of WWII.  She and her brother and sister are in a field when the bomb goes off at Nagasaki.  They are far enough away that the bomb does not affect them until later in life.  Her brother and her are very close until Shoko is a young women and falls in love with a "undesirable" man.  She is forbidden to see the man, and is disgraced.  Her father feels that Shoko only choice to marry would be an American GI. Shoko had been dating Charlie, a GI that she met in the hotel gift shop where she works, and decides to marry him.  Her brother is furious with her for dating someone that is beneath her, and then agreeing to marry an American.  He refuse to talk to her and has disowned her. When she arrives in America, she purchase a book for Japanese women that are moving to America with their husbands.  Shoko has a son, and a daughter, that she raises in America without any connection with her family.  When Shoko gets sick and tries to go back to Japan, she reaches out to her estrange brother, but does not get a response.  She becomes to ill for travel, and her daughter agrees to go in her place. Shoko daughter eventually finds her uncle, and is shocked by what he gives her to take back for her mother. The book is well written, entertaining, and insightful.  A good way to spend time on a rainy day.