The Color of the Sky Is the Shape of the Heart cover art

The Color of the Sky Is the Shape of the Heart

 Preview

Get 30 days of Standard free

£5.99/mo after trial. Cancel monthly.
Try for £0.00
More purchase options

The Color of the Sky Is the Shape of the Heart

By: Chesil, Takami Nieda - translator
Narrated by: Greta Jung
Try for £0.00

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £10.47

Buy Now for £10.47

Summary

The story of a one-girl revolution that broke literary ground in Japan—now in English translation for the first time.

Seventeen-year-old Ginny Park is about to get expelled from high school—again. Stephanie, the picture book author who took Ginny into her Oregon home after she was kicked out of school in Hawaii, isn’t upset: she only wants to know why.

But Ginny has always been in-between. She can’t bring herself to open up to anyone about her past, or about what prompted her to flee her native Japan.

Then, Ginny finds a mysterious scrawl among Stephanie’s scraps of paper and storybook drawings that changes everything: The sky is about to fall. Where do you go?

Ginny sets off on the road in search of an answer, with only her journal as a confidante. In witty and brutally honest vignettes, and interspersed with old letters from her expatriated family in North Korea, Ginny recounts her adolescence growing up Zainichi, an ethnic Korean born in Japan, and the incident that forced her to leave years prior.

Inspired by her own childhood, author Chesil creates a portrait of a girl who has been fighting alone against barriers of prejudice, nationality, and injustice all her life—and one searching for a place to belong.

(P)2022 Recorded Books Difficult Situations Health, Lifestyle & Relationships Literature & Fiction Racism & Discrimination Discrimination Witty
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_c
All stars
Most relevant
I really felt for the young Korean girl growing up in Japan dealing with the impact of racism and discrimination where people are seen as less than human. The long reaching effect of trying to survive following a traumatic event led to her being misunderstood until she finally found someone who she felt she could trust with her story. The author really understood the challenges young people face with their strong sense of justice and limited access to do anything to make the changes that seem so obvious to them.
The narrator did a great job of bringing the character alive.

This story reminded me of Go: A coming of age novel by Kazuki Kaneshiro which had similar themes from that era from a young man’s perspective.

A sad reminder that people do the best they can with what they know

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.