Although the story was interesting, it really didn’t grab me like I thought it would. It’s not quite a middle grade book, but a little too young to be a YA book. Great idea, but just didn’t do it for me.

This book is entirely paved with good intentions, and it absolutely leads the reader straight to hell. In my opinion.

Like, I don't know where to even start, and my review wasn't going to be like this, but then I rolled my eyes at the end TWICE at two developments and both were worse than the other.

A lot of this will be spoiler tagged because there's no other way to talk about it. But also, of course I am not Japanese and by no means am I any reliable source of information. However, I still wanted to point out that I do speak Japanese and have more knowledge about the culture than just your everyday reader. And while I really wanted not to have problems with the story, it just wasn't possible for me. I see these Japanese names mentioned in the thank you section of the book, and I have questions. Did they read the whole thing? Or am I just wrong about these things I personally noticed?

So first of all, the book begins with interweaving stories of a boy and a girl, except the boy is living nowadays, and the girl is a survivor-to-be in Hiroshima. The parts of this book about the girl are really striking and strong, I mean it's hard to not write something strong about this subject matter. But... They are also cut short and underused for what they could have been in the story. The girl is still only there to be the boy's story. She is not really a character - more on that later.

You can also tell that the author can't really write teenagers. What teenager would look for information in a library, instead of the internet? There is also a lot of fatphobia, and what I felt like very forced diversity (diversity is great, but not when you're ticking boxes). I don't even know what I think about the deaf best friend who can lip read. I've read too many opinions by actual deaf people that this is not researched or good for representation, even if your end-goal is good. The simple fact of the matter being, that not many deaf people actually do lip read, because it's more complicated than that, and writing it that way hugely distorts how the hearing people see deaf people. Like "why don't you just lip read like all those characters in the media?" Eh, not how that works, buddy. Then there's the "wise disabled best friend" trope... But again, I'm not deaf, so I'm not necessarily right about this. Just pointing it out that I wasn't a big fan. Would be interesting to hear what a deaf reader thought about this. And whether they beta-read this book prior to publication.

Then there's the whole second eye-roll bit at the end. <spoiler>The author really needed a plot twist, so he put "European skinheads" in an alley IN JAPAN. Who try to attack the only Brown girl. Yeahhhh. Cause that sounds so amazing and plausible and I'M SORRY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, AUTHOR? This is what I mean about forced diversity. This wasn't needed. Skinheads in a very safe Asian country, and a Brown girl having to be defended by two white kids with a Samurai sword, all because you need a plot twist? What is this? This was the part where I started rewriting my review. Like, I'm white and I'm embarrassed for you writing this, what is this? I'm also not often complaining about tokenism, but this Brown girl was Brown by way of skin color, plus her dad having an ethnic restaurant down town. That's all. I am all for letting characters just be there without them having to represent the entirety of their culture, but something about this, especially the need to have her be defended, just makes her such a token character for me. Did not enjoy that.</spoiler>

And yet, there were more things in the book that I think could have benefited from sensitivity readers who actually know the things written about, as opposed to the author doing their well intentioned but rather poorly done research. A thing I found funny, and a thing that reveals that the author might have not been very aware of Japanese culture, especially for as long ago as WWII, is that when the book starts out, a Japanese girl is getting up in the morning. And she drops her feet down from a bed. Except even now many Japanese sleep on a rolled futon on the floor, and not a bed, it would have been much more so in the case of WWII times. In fact, she wakes up to get birthday presents from her mom, and... Well, birthdays were not celebrated in Japan until after WWII. It's a Western tradition. Again, I wonder what those Japanese people in the thanks section had to say about this? So maybe I'm just wrong, it could be, but I've read books in Japanese and even most of the current ones just have characters sleeping on futons more often...


About the writing itself, I also thought the parts where the kids just go around as tourists in Japan were incredibly boring. He's just describing the most famous sights - probably all things you've heard about - and it's just... I don't know. If I wanted that, I'd watch a travel show. It doesn't help the plot or the setup. And yet, despite this - there are almost no descriptions of the landmarks when they actually reach Hiroshima - they're mostly just mentioned, but not much is said by way of description, so I had to Google all of them to be able to imagine the scenes.) This wasn't the only thing that made me feel like that, it just felt like the book needed more editing. In places, it's including a lot of detail that's just unnecessary. For example, a book's name and author for a book which the character pulls out, opens and puts back? Why? Or did you want to promote a friend's book? (Looked that book up, mostly cause I'm just that curious. Also fatphobic and under-researched and grossly inaccurate about diabetes. Score...) It just felt like so many unnecessary things that could have been made better.

In the end, even though the message is about peace and guilt, and the generational trauma of something vast and horrible, that's all well and good, but it bothered me that <spoiler>it skirted a little bit too close to "this war horror survivor has to come and meet you to assuage your white guilt right now". (The boy meets someone who's related to a survivor and immediately asks to meet them.) Like, okay, this boy didn't make the bomb, his ancestor did. Sure, it makes sense that this boy feels guilty. But why in the world should a victim of the bomb give even a minute of their time to assuage this guilt? How can you even ASK? Do they owe you something? And also, if you feel guilty, do you think you're benefitting the victim by having them come help you with YOUR guilt? I'm not sure I'm putting my point across, but man, if I felt guilty about my ancestors doing something, I'm not sure I would seek out these persons and go like "please take time out of your life now to make me feel less guilty because this guilt hurts, and please now tell me this boo boo isn't so bad". Like, would you rock up at a protected Native settlement and ask to talk to the elder to make yourself feel better about your ancestors' handiwork? No? WHY NOT, I wonder? (I hope it's not a bad example, but that's exactly how that plot felt to me.)Ugh. I mean. Ugh. Even worse that this lady is apparently a saint who tells him that no, she's not angry (that her entire city was killed) and that he should be proud of his great-grandfather. Like yeah, there was that part of message about war being war and forgiveness, but it just left a nasty taste in my mouth.</spoiler> I felt like this greatly dehumanized a war crime victim and didn't sit right with me. And I don't even know if I need to begin with white saviorism here, not sure it fully applies, but if your ancestor did something bad, I'm not sure you have to go save anyone. Because they're probably fine now after all those years. Maybe I'm just stretching it here, but it just irked me a lot, as you can see.

So nope, did not enjoy this book, unfortunately. I think it won an award? Maybe I should Google who gives these awards. It would probably answer a lot of my questions. I would imagine all those people live in a bubble who think this was a great message to send. I do think it was well-intentioned, but I also think that it's not... Quite right.

I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.

I probably would have loved this book when I was a teenager. Or at least connected with it more. Rather than question if the atomic bomb was necessary, it dove into the complex realities surrounding it. I just didn't like how rushed the ending felt.

Good middle grade fiction dealing with a difficult subject. Christian finds out when his beloved great-grandfather dies, that he was involved with the making of the bombs that were dropped on Japan in WWII. He struggles with reconciling the wonderful man he knew with what he once worked on. Christian goes on a school trip to Japan and finds a woman who was a child when the bombs dropped. He wants to make it up to her in some way. I don't want to spoil it but I thought the ending was done well.


NetGalley Copy in exchange of an honest review.

I received a copy of And Then the Sky Exploded from Dundurn via NetGalley in exchange for an honest and original review. All thoughts are my own.

This book... this book is something unique and good and important.

I don't have much in common with Christian Larkin, it's true. I'm not a teenage boy born in Canada and moved to America, lucky enough to go on high school trips to Japan. And despite this utter lack of similar, shared experiences, I feel some connection to Christian.

I suppose it's about genealogy. And history, very much about the history.

Long story short, Christian's GG Will (short, 21st century-speak for Great-Grandfather William) dies and there are protesters outside his funeral because he, in this fictional tale, was one of the scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project and helped to develop the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Christian had spent his short life believing only that GG Will was a cool old guy who knew lots of things and occasionally played street hockey.

Alerted to this dark family secret, Christian dives into research, trying to understand just what the Manhattan Project meant and suggesting his high school Travel Club (why oh why did my high school not have a Travel Club??? oh, right... we were so poor we had to get paper donated so we could print stuff *sigh*) go to Japan instead of to England.

Christian, the semi-popular and always amusing narrator of the story, wants to atone for the role GG Will had in one of the darkest moments in human history. He wants to understand why and how the man he looked up to could be a part of that.

And strangely, it's a Hiroshima grandmother who was eleven on the day the bomb was dropped who gives him the closure he needs, teaching him that he can still admire the man who simply part of something so much more awful than that one moment and that one action.

It's a very well-rounded story full of meaning. I think it's very important for it's targeted demographic to read.

Historical fiction with a modern connection. When a teen discovers that his great-grandfather was part of the team responsible for creating the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, he plans a way to make restitution.

This is a lovely story that tells the horror of the atomic bomb and its aftereffects on survivors and the descendants of the creators. It asks the questions of ethics and responsibility and whether the "sins of the fathers" carry on to children, grandchildren, and more. In the story of the young survivor, the horrors of the bomb are not glossed over, yet they are not too gruesome for young teens (middle school). The emotions of the modern teen trying to cope with what he discovers about his great-grandfather ring true, and his reactions and resolution seem true-to-life as well.

Some will see this as a bit too sweet and "happily-ever-after", but it's a nice change from some of the all-too real YA fiction that abounds lately. AND it certainly addresses some big topics that should foster discussion. Recommended for middle school (grades 6-10).

4.5 stars

It was at the funeral that Christian first realized there was something important he didn't know about his grandfather. His quest led him to a point of change: to admit the past, or to discard it.

Written for teenagers but not dumbed down, Poulson uses Christian's thoughts to work through concepts few adults will admit to, including the sense that an immense tragedy is too difficult to comprehend. The parallel story, of Christian's journey and Yuko's own personal experience of Hiroshima, draws the reader to each in turn as they discover more of themselves and the world around them, and brings the initial effects of Hiroshima to life as Christian researches his grandfather's history.