Book Review: Gifted Hands: Sainoo No Aru Te by Kenneth Fenter

Charlie and Keiko are deeply in love.  They are in college but they are sure they want to spend the rest of their lives together.  One night Keiko gets devastating news that her father is ill and she must go take care of the family.  Not a problem, right?  She's Japanese and her family lives in Japan.  She must return to Japan and leave Charlie behind.  In the process, she seems to have disappeared, not answering Charlie's letters.

Charlie marries Carla, a friend of both Keiko and his.  They have a happy life together and raise two beautiful children.  However, twenty years after they married, Carla dies of an illness.  I do not believe it's mentioned in the story what it is and if it is it was briefly that I do not recall what it was.  Grieving, Charlie decides to take a world wide trip, starting in Japan.

Do Charlie and Keiko reunite?  I'm not going to spoil it for you, but what do you think? It's a sweet romance novel deeply imploring into Japanese culture.  One problem was they infuse Chinese culture into some of their stuff that I would get confused on if I was reading a story in Japan or in China.

The story is very dialogue heavy.  Instead of setting scenes, each one feels like a bunch of people sitting around talking. Characterization?  I had a hard time remembering who was who.  Well, I mean, I did know who the Americans were, the Japanese, and a Mexican, and so forth, but it was hard to recall their characters.  Why were they in Japan?  Why were they at the Center?  How did Charlie meet them?  There was no development to make each person unique.  Overall, I don't think it was a very well written story.  It has promise, but promise can only get you so far.

I read this book as a review request using the Kindle app on my laptop.  All opinions are my own.  I was not compensated for this review in any way.