Love comes in many different ways. Friends, family, lovers, and even to and from our pets. All of these loves are explored in The Japanese Lover.
Alma lives at Lark House. A home for the elderly in San Fransisco where Irina works. The older woman sees something in the younger and a bond begins to form, and it changes things for them both. As she reveals her story to her grandson Seth and to Irina Alma faces the shame of choices she made in her youth that cost her dearly and continue to do so.
As their love and bond grow Irina learns from Alma what true love means and looks like. And she learns to open up and share her story in order to begin to heal from it.
I enjoyed this story. I will say that I would have loved it more if I had read it before A Man Called Ove instead of directly after it because Ove was so wonderful a read and tough act to follow. It really is a wonderful tale of the price we pay when we make choices and they way these choices continue to play out in our lives long after. It is also about, as I said, the many ways we love.
I was moved by Irina and Seth in the present as they were learning about Ichi and Alma in the past. Alma and her many ways of loving and the depths she loves are beautiful, even as she thinks herself to be not a very nice person and is aware of her flaws, unflinchingly aware.
Not the perfect book but an enjoyable read filled with love and heart.
(Finished July 8, 2017)
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