I absolutely adored THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT, Misa Sugiura’s new book out June 4. It’s the novel with a Japanese American main character that I wish existed when I was teen….
While first generation American stories are dominating shelves, Misa Sugiura breaks away from the pack with a coming of age story that recognizes the experience of fourth and fifth-generation Japanese Americans and the legacy of the Internment.
CJ Katsuyama leads a cast of compelling, complex characters. She’s working in her family’s flower shop with her auntie Hannah. Her mom, Mimi, works for McAllister Venture Capital, the very same McAllisters who took advantage of the Internment and cheated the Katsuyamas out of the flower shop for a fraction of its value. When she discovers the McAllisters transgressions go even further, she finds a cause worth fighting for. CJ’s struggle with balancing her own desires and her mother’s expectations is super relatable, particularly from an Asian American perspective.
THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT is jam-packed thematically, but I never felt overwhelmed. It provides food for thought about racism and the model minority myth, social justice and also the complexity of being young and LGBTQ+ in today’s society. Sure to resonate with a wide range of readers, it’s an important book I’ll be recommending to anyone who’ll listen. Thanks to Misa Sugiura, I’ll be thinking about letting go versus forgetting for a long time to come.
One thing’s for sure, there’s a generation of us who only had Claudia Kishi as a reflection of ourselves in kidlit. THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT made teenage me feel seen and filled a big whole in my heart.
5 STARS
Misa Sugiura will be at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park, CA in conversation with Stacey Lee on Saturday, June 8. If you’re not in the Bay Area, you can also pre-order signed copies of the book from Kepler’s.
Get THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT at The Ripped Bodice | Amazon | Apple Books