A brutally honest, heart-breaking but thought provoking read, which tells the story of one of the most horrifying events in world history.

This book should be a must read for every school that covers the events of Hiroshima!

In verse and in prose, with haunting illustrations, this is a breathtakingly beautiful and simultaneously heart-wrenching story of the power of a promise.

We experience the devastation of the bomb hitting Hiroshima through the eyes of a teenager. His fear of not knowing what happened, what destroyed their home, but determination keeps him and his best friend on their quest to find Keiko, his friend's 5 year old sister. Tragedy forces him into a promise which he fights tooth and nail to keep. This promise is tainted by fate and his failure haunts him. Is there no salvation from this endless guilt?

Finished it in one sitting, because there was no way I could put it down. This book was emotional perfection. Feeling so much and so strongly, in a story that shines with the power of humanity. Have your tissues ready

This is a fantastic historical fiction book set in 1945 and centered around the bombing of Hiroshima. While I did have some formatting issues on my kindle, I found this to be a very well written book. I was immersed in the story from early on and it is full of emotions. It is split into two perspective, both of which are well written. I would definitely recommend checking this out, if you're interested.

Before reading this book, I have to admit that I was only ever aware of the basics of what happened in Hiroshima, but after reading this I now want to learn more about what happened. When thinking of World War II, it's easy to think of only the bits of it that were directly impacting of the UK, which is what we were taught in school, and it's so easy to forget the other bits that we were just as involved in that didn't directly impact on us. I didn't need reminding of the cruelty this world holds, but I did need reminding that there's still a lot to learn of it.


The story starts and ends in 2018 with a child and their grandfather, but the main story takes place in 1945 centred around two best friends. Ichiro is seventeen, a few days away from his eighteenth birthday, and he sees little of his mother who works much of the time in a shop. Hiro, his best friend, spends most of his time between work and taking care of his five year old sister, Keiko, who looks up to Ichiro as much as she does Hiro. Both of them are her caregivers alongside her mother, as she, too, spends most of her time working as a nurse at the hospital and unable to walk her to and from school, to help her with her homework, cook meals, and do the washing. Hiro is shown to do and say things to resent this, but it's also shown that he loves his little sister very much, and, as the story plays out, we learn just how much.

Ichiro and Hiro are together at Hiro's house when the atomic bomb goes off, the story taking a turn from light and fluffy to horrific and tragic in a split second, and it only goes downhill from there. The fact that the story is told from someone as young as Ichiro is makes the whole thing ten times more distressing, and when Keiko is brought into it, an innocent five year old girl who's never done a thing to harm anyone, it goes beyond an unbearable nightmare. Both of them are burnt and pained, but the thought of finding their mothers' and Keiko get them moving, and their journey begins as they search for their family, discovering all of the chaos and misery left in the wake of the bomb. Neither of them realise what the bomb was, either, which makes it all the more terrifying for them, at a loss of what to do and where to go, and how to survive.

The story is told so beautiful, which is written in a unique style that might not work with most stories and that I might not usually care for, but I can't imagine this particular story being told any other way. And the illustrations to go along with it add the right kind of touch, mere black and white sketches, but full of shadows, and bringing to life the terror of what happened that day and what followed Ichiro around for the rest of his life, the weight of everything he did and didn't do building on his shoulders until he couldn't bare it any longer.

The story carries on to show Ichrio desperately trying to get his best friend and his little sister to safety, losing them one by one along the way, and although he continues on until death is almost upon him, Ichiro is rescued by some miracle, but he never forgets the people he lost along the way, searching for one the whole of his life, leaving behind pages of a book he crafts into paper cranes in the hopes of them finding their intended target and leading them back to him. The ending ties this up from start to finish, weaving the paper cranes throughout the whole thing beautifully, and leaving us with the scars of what happened that day to this character, but also with the hope of what could still come in the future as he clings onto the light when the dark is attempting to swallow him whole.

It's been a long time since I've read anything quite as horrific as this story, the fact that it's based on something that actually happened bringing the nightmare of it crashing down on the reader, but the characters are so beautifully written, three dimensional and empathetic, and the scenarios along the way true to life. From the moment that I picked up the book and started reading, I was glued to the thing, unable to put it down, so heartbroken by the horrors that the people of Japan faced, yet unable to turn away, and I like to think that all those who read this book feel the same. As awful as it is, as disheartening it is to realise the cruelty of the human race is to accept, turning away from it would be unforgivable, and the people who suffered that day and every day beyond it deserve at least that. People shouldn't forget.

I would definitely recommend this book to all those who wish to learn more about what happened, because fiction or not, there will have been stories to tell by those there that day who experienced these tragic events, and those of the random people around them along the way. It pulls you in, throws you around in such a way that you feel each and every blow, and it spits you out and leaves you to think about what happened, to think of all those who died that day and in the days following, and it leaves you wondering how on earth those who were left behind managed to find a way to recover in the wake of it. And it also makes you realise how scary the world is and the people in charge, and how close we could be coming to similar things potentially taking place and what could be done to avoid it. Every country should be prepared for attack, but that doesn't mean any country should ever make that first move, because in the end it's those in between those in power who are the ones to suffer, the ones who pay the price of the decisions made in hidden rooms that are so safe and so far away from the violence they bring.

The copy of this book that I received wasn't the best edited in terms of the format, the images were difficult to see, and the text wasn't quite right in a lot of places, which made it confusing and difficult to follow at times, lines merging into one another. But as it was a free copy in exchange for a review, I let it slide, though hopefully the final Kindle version doesn't run into these errors. I have a strong feeling that as soon as this book is released, I shall be buying a hardback copy of it. It's one of those books that hurt, but that you know you'll read again when you're in the right kind of mindset to cope with it. I know I will, and it's an easy read that appeals to all regardless of the genre it's placed in. As long as you're into fictional stories based on historical events and have an ounce of empathy and humanity, then this is something for all to enjoy - it's tragic, but it's also really quite beautiful.


Thank you to both the author and publisher for allowing me to share in this tragically beautiful story, the characters, and their journey, and I know it's going to be one of those books that sticks with me for a long time to come.