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Forgiveness

a Gift From My Grandparents
Jun 07, 2019CarolynAnn4 rated this title 2.5 out of 5 stars
I was excited about reading this book based on the summary -a real life biography by a man whose paternal grandmother was a Japanese-Canadian woman who lost everything to the Canadian government during WWII and his maternal grandfather who had been a Japanese POW. It boggled my mind thinking, "what are the chances that this could even happen in one family" let alone how they would forgive. I expected an amazing story about how these two grandparents-in-law would get beyond their horrible ordeals to teach Forgiveness to their children and grandchildren. Unfortunately, I was disappointed as I found that the first half of the book detailing the terrible ordeals of the Japanese woman and the POW rather weakly written... I think the author was trying to write it like a fictional novel to add flavour (maybe) but, while the ordeals were horrible, the writing didn't work for me. And once the war was over, the story veered away from the grandparents and moved on to the parents and the author himself which I also found distracting... I was much more interested (and expected from the title) to hear about the journey the grandparents had to come to a point to be able to Forgive what they'd endured and become a tight-knit family.... how did they learn the lessons they gifted to their grandson? So, a great topic and an absolutely amazing tribute to two very significant Canadian heroes, in my mind, but, unfortunately for me, not particularly well-written or captivating.