Book Review and Writing Lessons: Within These Lines by Stephanie Morrill

Evalina Cassano’s life in an Italian-American family in 1941 is quiet and ordinary … until she falls in love with Taichi Hamasaki, the son of Japanese immigrants. Despite the scandal, it would cause and the fact that interracial marriage is illegal in California, Evalina and Taichi vow they will find a way to be together. But anti-Japanese feelings erupt across the country after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Taichi and his family are forced to give up their farm and are incarcerated in a Japanese internment camp.

Degrading treatment at Manzanar Relocation Center is so difficult, Taichi doubts he will ever leave the camp alive. Treasured letters from Evalina are his sole connection to the outside world. Embracing the boldest action she can to help Taichi, Evalina begins to radically speak out at school and at home, shining a light on this dark and shameful racial injustice.

With their future together on the line, Evalina and Taichi can only hold true to their values and believe in their love against all odds to have any hope of making it back to one another.

Genre: YA Historical Fiction
Publisher: Blink (March 5, 2019)
Page Count: 352 pages

This is a bit of a tough book to review since it touches on such a sensitive subject and a dark part of US history. 2020 has been a year full of way too much politics than I normally like to be involved in and at the time of writing this post it’s a little over a week till the election. So it’s a stressful time for sure.

Another thing I’ll note is something stated in the Afterword quoted a history professor about how we can’t view history with a modern lens. We can’t judge people back then as if they lived in the year 2020 because 80 years ago or even hundreds of years ago the world was a very different place. I love my country even though like every country it isn’t perfect. It’s gone through many terrible growing pains like every country on this planet but this is an event that should be remembered.

The Plot

The book starts not long after Pearl Harbor and there are rumors of a Japanese American evacuation which I thought was an interesting place to start since I thought it would be on Pearl Harbor. There’s a tense atmosphere from the beginning since people are still reeling from the tragedy and what it means for the country like the involvement of the States in World War II. As is characteristic with historical novels the book takes place over quite some time. From the beginning of the Japanese internment to the end of it. I know Stephanie Morrill personally and I know she took the utmost care in researching this piece, so she did pretty well with the politics.

My only real criticism of the book was I thought the events of Pearl Harbor were expanded enough. A reader who doesn’t know much about the history of the event may not understand the anger people felt about it back then. I personally have family members who survived Pearl Harbor just barely. I have a great uncle who fought in China in WWII and was the only surviving member of his battalion when they were captured and shot in the head one by one.

Now I love Japanese culture and people. I intend to go into Asian studies in school and I’m also very aware that modern Japan is very different than imperial Japan, but I can still understand the anger people would have felt back then. It wasn’t right but it was justified. Pearl Harbor was a terrible massacre and my heart goes out to the soldiers and the Japanese pilots so manipulated to kill themselves to kill Americans. I felt like a conversation or two with someone who had personal ties to people in Pearl Harbor would have been better than just a passing statement from an unlikeable character.

The Characters

Evalina is a spirited and passionate young woman as she fights for the cause to expose the Japanese Internment camps. I could relate to her passion since I feel the same amount of passion for the pro-life cause. I like how she rationalized her arguments with others and didn’t just spurt facts from feelings. I like how she refused to accept an unjust thing as normal. That takes courage. I also like that she thought of the long term with Taichi. Not a passing thing but a romance to last a lifetime. The only part where I didn’t like her was when she didn’t want to celebrate Memorial Day. Despite the hot dogs and BBQs, Memorial Day is when we commemorate soldiers who have fallen, and that includes soldiers at Pearl Harbor and Japanese American soldiers. 

“Can’t I feel grateful for the freedoms of my country as well as voice my opinion about errors in judgment that I see?”

I thought the author did a great job with Taichi Hamasaki and Japanese culture. She did great showing a Japanese sense of pride and save face and not wanting to burden others even if it means telling lies and being uncomfortable. I felt really accurate and he had to be my favorite character for his tenderness and sacrificial nature. I really felt for him and his family in this unjust situation.

One line that really struck me with both of these characters is how Taichi felt like somehow Pearl Harbor was his fault and Evalina felt like Mussolini was his fault. It’s easy to feel somehow responsible for a tragedy committed by one’s race or nationality but we’re only responsible for our own actions. Not others’.

I also like that the author showed a church trying to help the Japanese Americans and do something to help their conditions and fight for them. That’s what churches are meant to do.

The Setting

The story takes place mostly in San Francisco and Manzanar. The author really did her research for both settings and made them both feel very vivid: the vintage feel of San Francisco and the inhumane conditions of Manzanar. The most intense events definitely took place in Manzanar with unrest with axis loyalists known as the Black Dragons, but I think it was important to see how people thought about the camps from the outside too. Some people thought Democrat President Franklin D Roosevelt was doing the right thing because that’s all they were told.

The Theme

I feel like a big theme is anger. Both Caucasian Americans and Japanese Americans show anger and it’s justified with loved ones being lost in Pearl Harbor and also losing homes and freedom by the government. But both sides express it in very wrong and evil ways like racism and violence. 

“That doesn’t make it okay for him to disregard every other point of view. The things they were saying about Ted, that he’s a stool pigeon. Grown men yelling at him to shut up and get out of there. Why must disagreement so often reduce use to childish behaviors?”

Content Cautions

The author wasn’t afraid to show the gritty details of Manzanar but she did it really delicately. She shows a great balance of reality and discrepancy. The areas of caution are a character gets a bad case of diarrhea, racism, people are nearly beaten to death, people are shot, and one person shows his butt to taunt.

What We Can Take Away For Our Writing

1.) Writing a Political Theme – I commend the author for taking on such a difficult and hot button topic. I believe she handled it the best she could and did decently well to respect all sides of the issue.

How this can be applied to writing: Research is such a vital thing with politically-centered books. Research should also be conducted from all sides. Even ones you may not agree with.

2.) Writing a Character of a Different Culture – Again, I’m so thoroughly impressed with how well the author captured Japanese culture. I’ve done a lot of studying about Japanese culture and everything I saw felt so accurate since Japanese culture is very different than Western. It’s a culture far more centered on the whole than the individual among many other facets. 

How this can be applied to writing: It can be really tough to write a character from a different culture. It can be hard to fathom that other people think differently than us like how in France it’s rude not to finish all of your food or in Japan it’s polite to only eat in designated areas. But doing apt research can help you make even more in-depth characters. It’s one reason I started my So Your Character Is … series. 

Conclusion

This was a bit of a tough read, but it was a good read. I’m better knowing more about Japanese Internment. Thank you, Stephanie, for tackling this subject.

About the Author

Stephanie Morrill is the author of several young adult novels, including the 1920’s mystery, The Lost Girl of Astor Street (February 2017, Blink/HarperCollins). Despite loving cloche hats and drop-waist dresses, Stephanie would have been a terrible flapper because she can’t do the Charleston and looks awful with bobbed hair. She and her near-constant ponytail live in Kansas City with her husband and three kids.