This book was a great story and also a great lesson in the art of temae (tea). I fell in love with the tradition and ceramony that the main family lives by in this book. The live and story of Urako herself was what seemed to make it a little more exciting. She threw herself into their lives and never looked back at her childhood (as it was so painful.) She has such a range of emotion all the time and it can be felt at times so vividly that it may shake you up a little.
I loved the book and will recommend it to others. ( )

I went back and forth about how I feel about this book. In no particular order or sense, my thoughts:

- Great plot idea. An American girl runs away from Uncle after they move to Japan, and hides in a teahouse. When she is discovered by the teahouse's mistress Yukako, she is 'adopted' and allowed to stay on as a personal servant. The clash of cultures gives the author a lot to work with. The narrator can also be used to hide Avery's own occasional exotic-izing of Japan.

- Mixing Japanese into the narrative was interesting. It didn't quite aid me in drawing me into the world of the book, but it was interesting to see how Aurelia (our narrator) processed this foreign tongue.

- OK, I'm going to just get this out there. Aurelia's constant, near-obsessive love and attention to her mistress annoyed me. It reminded me of that old belief that any homosexual friend of mine will secretly have a crush on me and when my guard is down, attempt to jump my bones. I've never taken this particularly seriously, because I've never had any close lesbian friends, but I've had several guys tell me that is one (usually of several) reasons they aren't comfortable around gay men. (Maybe it's a little homophobic of me to think like this. Moving on.) But the point is, this book did nothing to help comfort/erase that particular fear, especially given that the minute Yukako relaxed, Aurelia did try to kiss her/hold her.

- The epilogue was contrived and stupid. It tied things together too neatly to create an unbelievable happy ending. Homosexual relationships may have been more acceptable in the 1920s, but I'm not sure that interracial relationships were, given the anti-immigration legislation that passed during that decade.

- The descriptions were beautiful. I loved Avery's descriptions of silk kimonos and the minutae of the tea ceremony. I could taste the grassy matcha, feel the smooth surface of the lacquered boxes, and imagine the delicacy of the flowers used in the tea room.

If the book had just had these descriptions, and had left the disturbing, obsessive one-sided relationship of Aurelia/Yukako out, I'd rate the book an 8 or 9. ( )

Daughter sneaks around and becomes adept at the tea ceremony. ( )

I enjoyed the theme of this book, especially with the Japanese words blended into the English text. Unfortunately, I didn't really like the writing style, with elements not being very well-developed and just haphazardly thrown in here and there. The end was especially sudden, and the epilogue was not really believable and was pretty ridiculous really. ( )

This book was very hard to get through for me. I was drawn in to the beginning, but had trouble staying the course. I did eventually finish it, but it took at least 3 weeks, which for me is a long time. I'm glad I finished it, but I wouldn't highly recommend it. ( )