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Plum Rains
2029: In Japan, a historically mono-cultural nation, childbirth rates are at a critical low and the elderly are living increasingly long lives. This population crisis has precipitated a mass immigration of foreign medical workers from all over Asia—as well as the development of refined artificial intelligence to step in where humans fall short.
In Tokyo, Angelica Navarro, a Filipina nurse who has been working in Japan for the last five years, is the caretaker for Sayoko Itou, an intensely private woman about to turn 100 years old. Angelica is a dedicated nurse, working night and day to keep her paperwork in order, obey the strict labor laws for foreign nationals, study for her ongoing proficiency exams, and most of all keep her demanding client happy. But one day Sayoko receives a present from her son: a cutting-edge robot caretaker that will educate itself to anticipate Sayoko’s every need. Angelica wonders if she is about to be forced out of her much-needed job by an inanimate object—one with a preternatural ability to uncover the most deeply buried secrets of the humans around it. While Angelica is fighting back against the AI with all of her resources, Sayoko is becoming more and more attached to the machine. The old woman is hiding many secrets of her own—and maybe now she’s too old to want to keep them anymore.
In a tour de force tapestry of science fiction and historical fiction, Andromeda Romano-Lax presents a story set in Japan and Taiwan that spans a century of empire, conquest, progress, and destruction. Plum Rains elegantly broaches such important contemporary conversations as immigration, the intersection of labor and technology, the ecological fate of our planet and the future of its children.
In Tokyo, Angelica Navarro, a Filipina nurse who has been working in Japan for the last five years, is the caretaker for Sayoko Itou, an intensely private woman about to turn 100 years old. Angelica is a dedicated nurse, working night and day to keep her paperwork in order, obey the strict labor laws for foreign nationals, study for her ongoing proficiency exams, and most of all keep her demanding client happy. But one day Sayoko receives a present from her son: a cutting-edge robot caretaker that will educate itself to anticipate Sayoko’s every need. Angelica wonders if she is about to be forced out of her much-needed job by an inanimate object—one with a preternatural ability to uncover the most deeply buried secrets of the humans around it. While Angelica is fighting back against the AI with all of her resources, Sayoko is becoming more and more attached to the machine. The old woman is hiding many secrets of her own—and maybe now she’s too old to want to keep them anymore.
In a tour de force tapestry of science fiction and historical fiction, Andromeda Romano-Lax presents a story set in Japan and Taiwan that spans a century of empire, conquest, progress, and destruction. Plum Rains elegantly broaches such important contemporary conversations as immigration, the intersection of labor and technology, the ecological fate of our planet and the future of its children.
389 pages, Hardcover
First published June 5, 2018
130 people are currently reading
2872 people want to read
About the author
Andromeda Romano-Lax
25 books414 followersAndromeda Romano-Lax worked as a freelance journalist and travel writer before turning to fiction. Her first novel, The Spanish Bow, was translated into eleven languages and was chosen as a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Her suspense novel, The Deepest Lake, was a Barnes & Noble Monthly Pick. Among her nonfiction works are a dozen travel and natural history guidebooks to the public lands of Alaska, as well as a travel narrative, Searching for Steinbeck’s Sea of Cortez. She currently lives on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.
RECEIVE ANDROMEDA'S MONTHLY AUTHOR NEWSLETTER: https://romanolax.substack.com/
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 212 reviews
November 12, 2018
Tokyo, Japan 2029. Childbirth rates are at an all-time low and the elderly are living increasingly longer lives. This combination of factors has precipitated the mass immigration of healthcare workers from other Asian countries, as well as the development of customized artificial intelligence androids to assist and take over when humans cannot.
In this near future world, the story builds into a detailed personal history of two women, Sayoko, a 110-year old woman, and her home nurse, Angelica, a Filipino immigrant, and their interactions with HIRO, the healthcare AI bot that Sayoko's son purchased to assist Angelica in his mother's care. HIRO is introduced very early and forms a special bond with Sayoko, who shares long-held secrets with this android being. Angelica is very wary of Hiro, and is struggling with many of her own personal issues relating to trauma and grief, as well as her immigration status in Japan.
This book was a quiet wave - very different than any other sci-fi because it was about the daily exchanges, the small things, the interactions between humans and machines, and how the world could change in subtle ways. Economics, such as mining for rare earth minerals to build more robots, and the effects of this on the people and the land, the rise of certain countries over others, and how this affects population shifts, are a running theme. With in this framework, it is also a character study with historical fiction elements, relating imperial Japan's spread and the subjugation of other groups, specifically the indigenous tribes of Taiwan.
Far-reaching novel with big issues and questions. The story and characters were great, but I did struggle a bit with the pacing and some editorial decisions (so much time spent on Angelica and her technophobia?), but overall a good experience and one that I'll be thinking about for awhile.
**Read for Book Riot Read Harder Challenge category "Book with a female protagonist over 60 years of age" - Sayoko was 110!
In this near future world, the story builds into a detailed personal history of two women, Sayoko, a 110-year old woman, and her home nurse, Angelica, a Filipino immigrant, and their interactions with HIRO, the healthcare AI bot that Sayoko's son purchased to assist Angelica in his mother's care. HIRO is introduced very early and forms a special bond with Sayoko, who shares long-held secrets with this android being. Angelica is very wary of Hiro, and is struggling with many of her own personal issues relating to trauma and grief, as well as her immigration status in Japan.
This book was a quiet wave - very different than any other sci-fi because it was about the daily exchanges, the small things, the interactions between humans and machines, and how the world could change in subtle ways. Economics, such as mining for rare earth minerals to build more robots, and the effects of this on the people and the land, the rise of certain countries over others, and how this affects population shifts, are a running theme. With in this framework, it is also a character study with historical fiction elements, relating imperial Japan's spread and the subjugation of other groups, specifically the indigenous tribes of Taiwan.
Far-reaching novel with big issues and questions. The story and characters were great, but I did struggle a bit with the pacing and some editorial decisions (so much time spent on Angelica and her technophobia?), but overall a good experience and one that I'll be thinking about for awhile.
**Read for Book Riot Read Harder Challenge category "Book with a female protagonist over 60 years of age" - Sayoko was 110!
April 26, 2018
If Romano-Lax did nothing in this novel but create a new sub-genre of science fiction regarding international labor relations and sentient robots, that would be quite an accomplishment. But she attempts much more, in an understated work that explores relationships, dependencies and secrets, without trying to draw too much attention to itself.
The year is 2029, but most elements of this story already exist. Filipina women workers in Japan already are treated as chattel, and many in 2018 face uncertain futures as robots take over more of the caregiving for the elderly. Neural-network-based machine learning may not take us as close to empathic sentience in the next 11 years as Romano-Lax shows for the robotic protagonist Hiro, but she does not exaggerate the capabilities of adaptive robotics too much. The subtle tangential geographical details that dwell in the background of this novel, such as the utter devastation of northern Canada through rare-earth mining, might seem a big leap for 2029, but disasters have a way of arriving on our planet when we least expect them, and utterly changing the makeup of human society.
Let's get one thing straight: this is no action-packed sci-fi thriller with chases and shoot-em-ups. This is a quiet novel involving the three-way relations among the nurse Angelica, the aging centenarian Sayoko, and the robot Hiro. There is much going on as we learn the hidden backstories of Angelica and Sayoko, but it takes place in whispers. The protagonists are trying to forget atrocities of the past that break through in imagery, but the most action seen in the narrative itself is a 100th birthday party for Sayoko that goes terribly wrong, and a chase with authorities involving a pregnancy and improper immigration papers. It bears mention here that if Americans think their own immigration laws are restrictive, they are nothing compared to the jingoist and nationalist Japan - and this is precisely why the Japanese population is aging and has trouble staying economically solvent: the more you try to restrict immigrants, the more lackluster your economy will be, and the more elderly your population will become.
A few Goodreads reviewers said they found the story lines in multiple nations confusing. I can't imagine why this would be so, as Romano-Lax does a good job of trying to lay out Asian international relations from the perspective of individuals. She describes the brutality of Imperial Japan during the 1930s and war years, particularly in regard to the treatment of indigenous people and the "comfort women" scandals. She shows the ways that The Philippines depends on remittances, yet its version of "coyotes" make foreign workers as indentured as slaves. When Angelica has to jump through constant hoops to keep her head above water, we get a slight sense as to why a majority of Filipino people could support a president as vile as Rodrigo Duterte (of course, we in the U.S. are in no position to point fingers). As a general observation, few fiction writers in any genres can examine international cultural differences and technology of the near future as skillfully as Romano-Lax does, with few obvious errors.
If there is a slight flaw in the novel, it lies in the way the author concludes the work, though I'm not certain how I would change it. Sayoko's coming to terms with her Taiwan highlands ancestry was bound to take the form it did. The book might have been more dramatic if the sentient robot came to an inglorious end due to biased humans, but his actual trajectory is the much more likely - finding new avenues of employment, learning of other types of robotic sentience. But it's hard to say what the author is trying to tell us about Angelica. As a nurse, she needs to stop treating people like her ailing brother as victims that will have to depend on her. Just as she has to let Datu and Sayoko go, she must let go of the notion of caregiver as creator of dependencies. But what is the appropriate recourse for her pregnancy and her relation with Junichi? Does she do the right thing by trying to make everyone happy, or by running (more than once) away from authorities and responsibilities? This is a puzzle at book's end that the reader can interpret as wished.
In any event, Romano-Lax has crafted an intriguing enigma of a novel that will have readers thinking long after the final epilogue.
The year is 2029, but most elements of this story already exist. Filipina women workers in Japan already are treated as chattel, and many in 2018 face uncertain futures as robots take over more of the caregiving for the elderly. Neural-network-based machine learning may not take us as close to empathic sentience in the next 11 years as Romano-Lax shows for the robotic protagonist Hiro, but she does not exaggerate the capabilities of adaptive robotics too much. The subtle tangential geographical details that dwell in the background of this novel, such as the utter devastation of northern Canada through rare-earth mining, might seem a big leap for 2029, but disasters have a way of arriving on our planet when we least expect them, and utterly changing the makeup of human society.
Let's get one thing straight: this is no action-packed sci-fi thriller with chases and shoot-em-ups. This is a quiet novel involving the three-way relations among the nurse Angelica, the aging centenarian Sayoko, and the robot Hiro. There is much going on as we learn the hidden backstories of Angelica and Sayoko, but it takes place in whispers. The protagonists are trying to forget atrocities of the past that break through in imagery, but the most action seen in the narrative itself is a 100th birthday party for Sayoko that goes terribly wrong, and a chase with authorities involving a pregnancy and improper immigration papers. It bears mention here that if Americans think their own immigration laws are restrictive, they are nothing compared to the jingoist and nationalist Japan - and this is precisely why the Japanese population is aging and has trouble staying economically solvent: the more you try to restrict immigrants, the more lackluster your economy will be, and the more elderly your population will become.
A few Goodreads reviewers said they found the story lines in multiple nations confusing. I can't imagine why this would be so, as Romano-Lax does a good job of trying to lay out Asian international relations from the perspective of individuals. She describes the brutality of Imperial Japan during the 1930s and war years, particularly in regard to the treatment of indigenous people and the "comfort women" scandals. She shows the ways that The Philippines depends on remittances, yet its version of "coyotes" make foreign workers as indentured as slaves. When Angelica has to jump through constant hoops to keep her head above water, we get a slight sense as to why a majority of Filipino people could support a president as vile as Rodrigo Duterte (of course, we in the U.S. are in no position to point fingers). As a general observation, few fiction writers in any genres can examine international cultural differences and technology of the near future as skillfully as Romano-Lax does, with few obvious errors.
If there is a slight flaw in the novel, it lies in the way the author concludes the work, though I'm not certain how I would change it. Sayoko's coming to terms with her Taiwan highlands ancestry was bound to take the form it did. The book might have been more dramatic if the sentient robot came to an inglorious end due to biased humans, but his actual trajectory is the much more likely - finding new avenues of employment, learning of other types of robotic sentience. But it's hard to say what the author is trying to tell us about Angelica. As a nurse, she needs to stop treating people like her ailing brother as victims that will have to depend on her. Just as she has to let Datu and Sayoko go, she must let go of the notion of caregiver as creator of dependencies. But what is the appropriate recourse for her pregnancy and her relation with Junichi? Does she do the right thing by trying to make everyone happy, or by running (more than once) away from authorities and responsibilities? This is a puzzle at book's end that the reader can interpret as wished.
In any event, Romano-Lax has crafted an intriguing enigma of a novel that will have readers thinking long after the final epilogue.
April 13, 2018
Memoirs of a Geisha meets 2001: A Space Odyssey. In near future Japan, an indebted Fillipina nurse finds her job in jeopardy when her 100-year-old patient develops a close relationship with a robot. What follows is a story of buried secrets, environmental destruction, and immigration.
Romano-Lax hooked me from the jump. I loved entering the world of near future Japan as it struggles with the twin crisis of an aging population and a plummeting birth rate. A lot of big questions hover on the periphery in this book with the main one being how do we strike a balance between technological advances and humanity's need to be useful? Overall, though, it's really a story about healing and confronting pasts that refuse to stay buried.
I loved a lot of this book, but the ending felt a bit rushed. I won't go into spoiler territory, but I will say that the last 50-80 pages or so felt like they were more motivated by plot than character. Still, I enjoyed reading them and the resolutions for each of the characters (and the plot) felt right. I just wish a couple of key things would've been better grounded.
Overall, a really fun, enlightening read and one that I will be recommending to several people.
If you liked this, make sure to follow me on Goodreads for more reviews!
Romano-Lax hooked me from the jump. I loved entering the world of near future Japan as it struggles with the twin crisis of an aging population and a plummeting birth rate. A lot of big questions hover on the periphery in this book with the main one being how do we strike a balance between technological advances and humanity's need to be useful? Overall, though, it's really a story about healing and confronting pasts that refuse to stay buried.
I loved a lot of this book, but the ending felt a bit rushed. I won't go into spoiler territory, but I will say that the last 50-80 pages or so felt like they were more motivated by plot than character. Still, I enjoyed reading them and the resolutions for each of the characters (and the plot) felt right. I just wish a couple of key things would've been better grounded.
Overall, a really fun, enlightening read and one that I will be recommending to several people.
If you liked this, make sure to follow me on Goodreads for more reviews!
January 23, 2022
I often complain that a book wasn't as emersive or being as invested in a story that i thought/hoped I would, this was completely different. I was surprised in just how emersed I was in the story and the characters. It was not an happy book but hard to put down after I've picked up the audiobook again. Very intrigued to read more by Andromeda Romano-Lax
April 28, 2022
This is the author's fourth novel but first SF. The SF part had jarring WSOD problems. Overall, the book worked pretty well. Weak 3 stars, for dumb WSOD stuff that the author or her editor really should have caught.
I think the first review you should read is from Kirkus: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
And here’s the review that led me to read the book, by Jamesboggie: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... He liked it more than I did.
I’m having a hard time getting my thoughts in order on this one. It’s a slow-starter, and there’s very little overt action in the book. Which some other readers haven’t liked, but, to my surprise, I was fine with it. I’m going to let you read about characters and plot in the two reviews above, and perhaps from any of your GR friends who have read it.
The Japanese culture, while admirable in many ways, went badly off the rails in the military buildup and during WW2. They did some ghastly things, and don’t really seem to have come to terms with them even yet. MC Sayoko/Laqi, half Taiwanese and half Japanese, was tricked into becoming a “comfort woman” in the WW2 era — as were perhaps 200,000 other young women:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort...
WSOD problems: the author is new to SF and it shows. Here were the most jarring things I noticed:
First, the Alaskan Rare-Earth mines, which are stated to be so hazardous that few of the miners survive to collect their bonus after two years of employment. This is absurd. The only “employment” I can think of that was so hazardous were the forced-labor camps in the WW2 era, These were prisoners being deliberately worked to death. In this book, the miners are volunteers, lured by high pay. And the risks were common knowledge. This is a peripheral plot-point and should have been cut. As is, this makes the writer look careless and dumb.
Setting such a nearby date for the book, 2029, was mistake, I think. That’s a LOT of progress in robotics & AI in 9 years! “Hiro” is presented as easily passing the Turing test. No current AIs come even close. Humaniform mobile robots are even more rudimentary now. More specific "forecasts": the EU dissolves in 2026. The Koreas are still separate in 2029. If you don’t specify an exact date, your book doesn’t date so quickly! Would have been a better book set at some non-specified near-future date.
This book would have greatly benefited from an early edit from a science-fiction editor, or even a first reader who knows SF well. Oh, well. Still a decent first effort.
I think the first review you should read is from Kirkus: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...
And here’s the review that led me to read the book, by Jamesboggie: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... He liked it more than I did.
I’m having a hard time getting my thoughts in order on this one. It’s a slow-starter, and there’s very little overt action in the book. Which some other readers haven’t liked, but, to my surprise, I was fine with it. I’m going to let you read about characters and plot in the two reviews above, and perhaps from any of your GR friends who have read it.
The Japanese culture, while admirable in many ways, went badly off the rails in the military buildup and during WW2. They did some ghastly things, and don’t really seem to have come to terms with them even yet. MC Sayoko/Laqi, half Taiwanese and half Japanese, was tricked into becoming a “comfort woman” in the WW2 era — as were perhaps 200,000 other young women:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfort...
WSOD problems: the author is new to SF and it shows. Here were the most jarring things I noticed:
First, the Alaskan Rare-Earth mines, which are stated to be so hazardous that few of the miners survive to collect their bonus after two years of employment. This is absurd. The only “employment” I can think of that was so hazardous were the forced-labor camps in the WW2 era, These were prisoners being deliberately worked to death. In this book, the miners are volunteers, lured by high pay. And the risks were common knowledge. This is a peripheral plot-point and should have been cut. As is, this makes the writer look careless and dumb.
Setting such a nearby date for the book, 2029, was mistake, I think. That’s a LOT of progress in robotics & AI in 9 years! “Hiro” is presented as easily passing the Turing test. No current AIs come even close. Humaniform mobile robots are even more rudimentary now. More specific "forecasts": the EU dissolves in 2026. The Koreas are still separate in 2029. If you don’t specify an exact date, your book doesn’t date so quickly! Would have been a better book set at some non-specified near-future date.
This book would have greatly benefited from an early edit from a science-fiction editor, or even a first reader who knows SF well. Oh, well. Still a decent first effort.
December 27, 2018
The unearthing of buried family secrets, robots in near-future Japan, and gorgeous prose got me into Plum Rains, and the complex characters and relationships they build with each other kept me turning the pages. Romano-Lax pulls the strings tauter and tauter as we follow nurse Angelica through her days of constant worry and stress, elderly Sayoko through an unburdening decades in the making, and robot Hiro through the first days of his consciousness. I almost rolled my eyes when I picked up on the parallels between Angelica and Sayoko, and again when Hiro pointed them out and started talking about the human need and desire to tell stories and find meaning in patterns (another writer getting meta about writing, I thought), until I got to the end and stewed over it for several days and finally understood the full complexity of the point Romano-Lax is making in this book.
The world has put a moratorium on AI, called the Pause, but it is on the brink of a breakthrough. Japan is a society on hold, clinging to the past, celebrating the centennial birthday of every aging citizen, desperate for the birth of a new generation. Sayoko is paused, wilting as she waits to die and yet railing against the end of a life she found unfulfilling. Angelica’s life has been on perpetual hold since the death of her family during childhood, and she is utterly consumed by the need to be needed. Hiro awakes into this world, caught between the dramas of these two women, informed by their stories and actions as he constructs an identity for himself. His act of building identity mirrors the painful process both Sayoko and Angelica have undergone and continue to undergo to build their own selves. Although Hiro presents as masculine, his role in the story is distinctly feminine. He is the maiden in the triad, Angelica the mother, Sayoko the crone. Three faces, three phases, three lives challenging the Pause.
Society’s dismissal and fear of Hiro is a potent parallel of society’s dismissal and fear of women’s lived experiences, of women’s autonomy, of women’s authority. These are all treated as thing that should not exist, things society keeps trying to Pause, to put off, to ignore and pretend are not real. When Angelica’s phone and identity is hacked, it is handled with a curious mix of terror and mundanity in the text—see how easy it is to take control of a vulnerable woman, how expected, how commonplace? When Sayoko speaks out about the “comfort women” of WWII, everyone is shocked and embarrassed and wants to pretend it didn’t happen that way. When Hiro asserts his right to exist, everyone questions it, asking if a robot as a created object has the capacity to assert at all. It is not far from the creation of identity society performs on women every day, telling them who and what they are, and then questioning if they have the capacity to assert, if their recollections are true, if their existence outside of that constructed identity is valid. Romano-Lax doesn’t keep anything simple; she layers on native peoples, colonialism, and immigrant rights. She leans into issues of women’s bodily autonomy not only through the necessity of invasive care for an aging body but through the outlawing of abortion as a means of addressing the birth-rate crisis. Once again, society stands on the backs and necks of women and tells them they have no right to refuse.
The more I dwell on this novel, the better it gets. But at its core are the relationships—everything is expressed and explored through the characters’ relationships to each other: familial, romantic, friendly, convenient, unwanted, fraught with tension and uncertainty. The friendship that grows between Angelica and Hiro, the building of an alliance, culminates in such a killer final scene. After such a slow unfolding of story and sad climax, I applaud Romano-Lax for ending with a thriller-genre note. Perfection.
The world has put a moratorium on AI, called the Pause, but it is on the brink of a breakthrough. Japan is a society on hold, clinging to the past, celebrating the centennial birthday of every aging citizen, desperate for the birth of a new generation. Sayoko is paused, wilting as she waits to die and yet railing against the end of a life she found unfulfilling. Angelica’s life has been on perpetual hold since the death of her family during childhood, and she is utterly consumed by the need to be needed. Hiro awakes into this world, caught between the dramas of these two women, informed by their stories and actions as he constructs an identity for himself. His act of building identity mirrors the painful process both Sayoko and Angelica have undergone and continue to undergo to build their own selves. Although Hiro presents as masculine, his role in the story is distinctly feminine. He is the maiden in the triad, Angelica the mother, Sayoko the crone. Three faces, three phases, three lives challenging the Pause.
Society’s dismissal and fear of Hiro is a potent parallel of society’s dismissal and fear of women’s lived experiences, of women’s autonomy, of women’s authority. These are all treated as thing that should not exist, things society keeps trying to Pause, to put off, to ignore and pretend are not real. When Angelica’s phone and identity is hacked, it is handled with a curious mix of terror and mundanity in the text—see how easy it is to take control of a vulnerable woman, how expected, how commonplace? When Sayoko speaks out about the “comfort women” of WWII, everyone is shocked and embarrassed and wants to pretend it didn’t happen that way. When Hiro asserts his right to exist, everyone questions it, asking if a robot as a created object has the capacity to assert at all. It is not far from the creation of identity society performs on women every day, telling them who and what they are, and then questioning if they have the capacity to assert, if their recollections are true, if their existence outside of that constructed identity is valid. Romano-Lax doesn’t keep anything simple; she layers on native peoples, colonialism, and immigrant rights. She leans into issues of women’s bodily autonomy not only through the necessity of invasive care for an aging body but through the outlawing of abortion as a means of addressing the birth-rate crisis. Once again, society stands on the backs and necks of women and tells them they have no right to refuse.
The more I dwell on this novel, the better it gets. But at its core are the relationships—everything is expressed and explored through the characters’ relationships to each other: familial, romantic, friendly, convenient, unwanted, fraught with tension and uncertainty. The friendship that grows between Angelica and Hiro, the building of an alliance, culminates in such a killer final scene. After such a slow unfolding of story and sad climax, I applaud Romano-Lax for ending with a thriller-genre note. Perfection.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 13, 2018
I have a need to write a review of this book because, even now, almost three weeks after finishing, the story is still floating around in my head. Barring some unforeseen, amazing book, this may well turn out to be the best book of the year for me.
Let me talk about all the elements of this story that had great appeal to me....just the stuff that really gets me interested, excited and curious:
First, there is so much in our culture these days about how technology is going to destroy humanity, that AI is going to replace us, human workers are losing their jobs to automation, movies like Terminator, The Matrix, Bladerunner, etc...all tell the same apocalyptic story of humanity's ultimate demise at the hands of machines.
I happen to agree that this may actually end up being the case, but all the same, it was refreshing to find a story that actually referred back to Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics and has an AI character that is caring, gentle and kind. Remember I, Robot and the Robot series? If you haven't read any of them, please do. That is the reading country I grew up in...
I have an interest in the paleogenetic and linguistic history of Asia and (avoiding spoilers) part of the story revolves around the aboriginal culture of Formosa (now The Republic of China, Taiwan). This had me going to wikipedia and other pages to find out more and I went down the rabbit hole so far that I had to ILL books from local university libraries to learn a bit more.
My background and understanding of asian cultures is primarily from 7 years living in Korea so I don't have a depth of knowledge about Japan or the Philippines but, all the same, the characters and the way Romano-Lax tells their stories seems authentic and accurate. The slow unwinding and reaching for the kernel of the truth and the eventual trust that each of the characters gains for one another is the best part of this book.
Thinking back, this book encompasses a biting critique of Japanese culture. Historically it touches on the Japanese colonial period of the early 20th century, the atrocities of WWII and is set in a future where an aging Japanese population needs immigrant labor and expertise to care for the elderly and keep the wheels of the economy turning. Yet this same Japanese population because of prejudice, places unwarranted restrictions and disproportionate penalties on immigrants that often mean deportation despite the value they bring.
It is a moving book with well-drawn characters that you care about deeply before the book ends. Plum Rains ends well, it isn't all sunshine and rainbows, but it ends well just the same.
Let me talk about all the elements of this story that had great appeal to me....just the stuff that really gets me interested, excited and curious:
First, there is so much in our culture these days about how technology is going to destroy humanity, that AI is going to replace us, human workers are losing their jobs to automation, movies like Terminator, The Matrix, Bladerunner, etc...all tell the same apocalyptic story of humanity's ultimate demise at the hands of machines.
I happen to agree that this may actually end up being the case, but all the same, it was refreshing to find a story that actually referred back to Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics and has an AI character that is caring, gentle and kind. Remember I, Robot and the Robot series? If you haven't read any of them, please do. That is the reading country I grew up in...
I have an interest in the paleogenetic and linguistic history of Asia and (avoiding spoilers) part of the story revolves around the aboriginal culture of Formosa (now The Republic of China, Taiwan). This had me going to wikipedia and other pages to find out more and I went down the rabbit hole so far that I had to ILL books from local university libraries to learn a bit more.
My background and understanding of asian cultures is primarily from 7 years living in Korea so I don't have a depth of knowledge about Japan or the Philippines but, all the same, the characters and the way Romano-Lax tells their stories seems authentic and accurate. The slow unwinding and reaching for the kernel of the truth and the eventual trust that each of the characters gains for one another is the best part of this book.
Thinking back, this book encompasses a biting critique of Japanese culture. Historically it touches on the Japanese colonial period of the early 20th century, the atrocities of WWII and is set in a future where an aging Japanese population needs immigrant labor and expertise to care for the elderly and keep the wheels of the economy turning. Yet this same Japanese population because of prejudice, places unwarranted restrictions and disproportionate penalties on immigrants that often mean deportation despite the value they bring.
It is a moving book with well-drawn characters that you care about deeply before the book ends. Plum Rains ends well, it isn't all sunshine and rainbows, but it ends well just the same.
February 5, 2022
13.5 hours
"I've noticed," [Hiro] he said tentatively," that people who feel guilt are the ones who need not carry such a burden, and people who feel no guilt at all have often committed the greatest crimes against humanity."
I have immensely enjoyed listening to Elizabeth Wiley expertly read PLUM RAINS by Andromeda Romano-Lax. Plum Rains was published in 2018, and I just discovered it this year!
In a tour-de-force tapestry of science fiction and historical fiction, Andromeda Romano-Lax presents a story set in Japan and Taiwan that spans a century of empire, conquest, progress, and destruction.
2029: In Japan, a historically monocultural nation, childbirth rates are at an all-time low and the elderly are living increasingly longer lives. This population crisis has precipitated the mass immigration of foreign medical workers from all over Asia, as well as the development of finely tuned artificial intelligence to step in where humans fall short.
In Tokyo, Angelica Navarro, a Filipino nurse who has been in Japan for the last five years, works as caretaker for Sayoko Itou, a moody, secretive woman about to turn 100 years old.
Angelica is a dedicated nurse, working night and day to keep her paperwork in order, obey the strict labour laws for foreign nationals, study for her ongoing proficiency exams, and most of all keep her demanding client happy.
One day, Sayoko receives a present from her son: a cutting-edge robot "friend" that will teach itself to anticipate Sayoko's every need. Angelica wonders if she is about to be forced out of her much-needed job by an inanimate object – one with a preternatural ability to uncover the most deeply buried secrets of the humans around it. While Angelica is fighting back against the AI with all of her resources, Sayoko is becoming more and more attached to the machine. The elderly lady has been hiding many secrets of her own - and maybe now she's too old to want to keep them anymore.
What she reveals is a hundred-year saga of forbidden love, hidden identities, and the legacy of World War II and Japanese colonization – a confession that could tear apart her own life and Angelica's.
The character development and interactions between the three main characters caused me to care deeply about them. Andromeda Romano-Lax knows how to write. She teaches creative writing and is a co-founder of 49 Writers, a statewide literary organization. She has lived in Alaska, Taiwan and Mexico and is currently living on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.
"I've noticed," [Hiro] he said tentatively," that people who feel guilt are the ones who need not carry such a burden, and people who feel no guilt at all have often committed the greatest crimes against humanity."
I have immensely enjoyed listening to Elizabeth Wiley expertly read PLUM RAINS by Andromeda Romano-Lax. Plum Rains was published in 2018, and I just discovered it this year!
In a tour-de-force tapestry of science fiction and historical fiction, Andromeda Romano-Lax presents a story set in Japan and Taiwan that spans a century of empire, conquest, progress, and destruction.
2029: In Japan, a historically monocultural nation, childbirth rates are at an all-time low and the elderly are living increasingly longer lives. This population crisis has precipitated the mass immigration of foreign medical workers from all over Asia, as well as the development of finely tuned artificial intelligence to step in where humans fall short.
In Tokyo, Angelica Navarro, a Filipino nurse who has been in Japan for the last five years, works as caretaker for Sayoko Itou, a moody, secretive woman about to turn 100 years old.
Angelica is a dedicated nurse, working night and day to keep her paperwork in order, obey the strict labour laws for foreign nationals, study for her ongoing proficiency exams, and most of all keep her demanding client happy.
One day, Sayoko receives a present from her son: a cutting-edge robot "friend" that will teach itself to anticipate Sayoko's every need. Angelica wonders if she is about to be forced out of her much-needed job by an inanimate object – one with a preternatural ability to uncover the most deeply buried secrets of the humans around it. While Angelica is fighting back against the AI with all of her resources, Sayoko is becoming more and more attached to the machine. The elderly lady has been hiding many secrets of her own - and maybe now she's too old to want to keep them anymore.
What she reveals is a hundred-year saga of forbidden love, hidden identities, and the legacy of World War II and Japanese colonization – a confession that could tear apart her own life and Angelica's.
The character development and interactions between the three main characters caused me to care deeply about them. Andromeda Romano-Lax knows how to write. She teaches creative writing and is a co-founder of 49 Writers, a statewide literary organization. She has lived in Alaska, Taiwan and Mexico and is currently living on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.
April 28, 2019
One way of looking at Plum Rains is as a near future novel. The plot concerns the introduction of an AI-driven robot into the relationship between an older Japanese woman and her Filipina caregiver. Andromeda Romano-Lax carefully establishes the bot's technology and its learning curve over time. The story also addresses unfolding demographics, given Japan's aging population and questions over immigration.
At the same time the novel could easily pass for a mainstream literary one, or as a historical novel. Plum Rains focuses on its two main characters, who are triangulated by the robot, which receives far less attention. Sayoko is 100 years old, very controlling, fiercely proud of her government official son, and also guarding a complex past. Angelica battles a nearly overwhelming set of pressures, from the difficulties of being a migrant worker to technology problems, financial precarity, and family matters. Romano-Lax's novel is largely a character study of the two.
The science fiction elements never really take off. One very interesting idea - that AI development was halted in an international Pause, but the robot threatens to break through it - is ultimately a minor thread, one that supports the development of Sayoko and Angelica. Instead, as it progresses Plum Rains delves ever deeper into east Asian history. I won't say more because of spoilers, but that's a fascinating and moving aspect of the book.
Speaking of spoilers, let me offer a few thoughts behind shields: .
Romano-Lax's novel is also very gynocentric. While including male characters, they are only supporting roles. The robot is coded male in several ways (named Hiro, accused of being a sexbot), but ultimately is very nonthreatening and even androgynous. The center of the book, and the object of the supermajority of the text, is Angelica and Sayoko.
I'm not sure if this becomes gender essentialism or not by the end. Every role the two women play is classically coded female: mother, caregiver, cook, home cleaner, nurse, sex object. Romance and sex are strictly hetero. Neither protagonist is good with technology; tech is entirely a male thing in the novel. For a future-oriented novel Plum Rains feels quite grounded in a retro gender past. Is that a limitation of imagination, or a forecast of things to come?
Meanwhile, I feel like I know Angelica and Sayoko well, which is a sign of Romano-Lax's skills. I'm also impressed at the author's care in depicting Angelica as a migrant living on the edge. Altogether the novel proceeds with many small steps and great care, building up a rich picture.
At the same time the novel could easily pass for a mainstream literary one, or as a historical novel. Plum Rains focuses on its two main characters, who are triangulated by the robot, which receives far less attention. Sayoko is 100 years old, very controlling, fiercely proud of her government official son, and also guarding a complex past. Angelica battles a nearly overwhelming set of pressures, from the difficulties of being a migrant worker to technology problems, financial precarity, and family matters. Romano-Lax's novel is largely a character study of the two.
The science fiction elements never really take off. One very interesting idea - that AI development was halted in an international Pause, but the robot threatens to break through it - is ultimately a minor thread, one that supports the development of Sayoko and Angelica. Instead, as it progresses Plum Rains delves ever deeper into east Asian history. I won't say more because of spoilers, but that's a fascinating and moving aspect of the book.
Speaking of spoilers, let me offer a few thoughts behind shields: .
Romano-Lax's novel is also very gynocentric. While including male characters, they are only supporting roles. The robot is coded male in several ways (named Hiro, accused of being a sexbot), but ultimately is very nonthreatening and even androgynous. The center of the book, and the object of the supermajority of the text, is Angelica and Sayoko.
I'm not sure if this becomes gender essentialism or not by the end. Every role the two women play is classically coded female: mother, caregiver, cook, home cleaner, nurse, sex object. Romance and sex are strictly hetero. Neither protagonist is good with technology; tech is entirely a male thing in the novel. For a future-oriented novel Plum Rains feels quite grounded in a retro gender past. Is that a limitation of imagination, or a forecast of things to come?
Meanwhile, I feel like I know Angelica and Sayoko well, which is a sign of Romano-Lax's skills. I'm also impressed at the author's care in depicting Angelica as a migrant living on the edge. Altogether the novel proceeds with many small steps and great care, building up a rich picture.
July 27, 2018
A really strange mishmash of artificial intelligence, the nature and future of humanity, a society with too many old people and too few babies, immigration and memories (including of lost families and forced prostitution). It was too odd a mix and too many issues for me and I didn't enjoy it.
January 31, 2020
Plum Rains is a heavy book. It is more introspective than speculative science fiction. It does speculate about the future of aging and AI, but the story is more about how the science fiction elements reveal the nature of memory, aging, and relationships. These very human themes are explored deftly through the intertwined stories of the aging Sayoko, her Filipina nurse Angelica, and her new nursing robot Hiro. This is a book that demands reflection on some difficult topics, and I appreciated the challenge.
There is so much in this book. The story easily has enough to carry a half dozen litfic novels with a pretty good science fiction story about AI and robots to boot. Any one of the threads in this novel - immigrant experience and foreign workers, aging and the elderly experience, cross-generational relationships, family secrets, war time experiences, living under colonial occupation, racism, infertility and the desire for family, the clash of cultures and history - would be enough to carry a New York Times bestseller. It is a wonder that all of these elements are so well-blended together and so deeply explored. It gave me a lot of very human material to consider. This would be a great book for a book club, SFF or otherwise.
Plum Rains revolves around memory - what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget, what we share and what we hide. Both Sayoko and Angelica have long pasts, filled with secrets they would like to keep. Technology and societal changes prompt them to revisit the past, and open up for the first time. Much of the novel is devoted to the slow reveal of these characters’ pasts, with the varied threads of the story coming into focus over time.
These heavy themes are carried by the strong characters of Angelica and Sayoko. They are such round, complex, and flawed characters. Angelica the foreign private nurse and Sayoko the elderly client are bound together and held apart. Both are very private women with histories of trauma and survival. There is a lot of tension within the characters between their pasts and presents, as well as between the characters. I appreciate how much they felt like real people.
My feelings about the robot are more … mixed. Hiro drives the story more than any other character, but is not a perspective character. He is important, but not explored the way Angelica and Sayoko are. I struggle with whether I want him to receive more focus or whether I think having him remain an important supporting element was the right decision. At least he had a great personality.
I strongly enjoyed the settings in Plum Rain. This book is embedded in the Far East, splitting its time between Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan. The settings seemed rich and authentic. I feel I learned a lot about Taiwanese history, as well as the interactions between Japan and other Asia nations. It was a treat to read a cross-cultural novel that did not involve the United States at all.
Plum Rains is one of the best introspective science fiction stories I have ever read. It is thought-provoking and deeply human. I learned and grew while reading. I strongly recommend this novel for book clubs, because I guarantee it would inspire a great conversation.
CHARACTER LIST (abridged)
There is so much in this book. The story easily has enough to carry a half dozen litfic novels with a pretty good science fiction story about AI and robots to boot. Any one of the threads in this novel - immigrant experience and foreign workers, aging and the elderly experience, cross-generational relationships, family secrets, war time experiences, living under colonial occupation, racism, infertility and the desire for family, the clash of cultures and history - would be enough to carry a New York Times bestseller. It is a wonder that all of these elements are so well-blended together and so deeply explored. It gave me a lot of very human material to consider. This would be a great book for a book club, SFF or otherwise.
Plum Rains revolves around memory - what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget, what we share and what we hide. Both Sayoko and Angelica have long pasts, filled with secrets they would like to keep. Technology and societal changes prompt them to revisit the past, and open up for the first time. Much of the novel is devoted to the slow reveal of these characters’ pasts, with the varied threads of the story coming into focus over time.
These heavy themes are carried by the strong characters of Angelica and Sayoko. They are such round, complex, and flawed characters. Angelica the foreign private nurse and Sayoko the elderly client are bound together and held apart. Both are very private women with histories of trauma and survival. There is a lot of tension within the characters between their pasts and presents, as well as between the characters. I appreciate how much they felt like real people.
My feelings about the robot are more … mixed. Hiro drives the story more than any other character, but is not a perspective character. He is important, but not explored the way Angelica and Sayoko are. I struggle with whether I want him to receive more focus or whether I think having him remain an important supporting element was the right decision. At least he had a great personality.
I strongly enjoyed the settings in Plum Rain. This book is embedded in the Far East, splitting its time between Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan. The settings seemed rich and authentic. I feel I learned a lot about Taiwanese history, as well as the interactions between Japan and other Asia nations. It was a treat to read a cross-cultural novel that did not involve the United States at all.
Plum Rains is one of the best introspective science fiction stories I have ever read. It is thought-provoking and deeply human. I learned and grew while reading. I strongly recommend this novel for book clubs, because I guarantee it would inspire a great conversation.
CHARACTER LIST (abridged)
April 18, 2018
Set in a not-too-distant future, Plum Rains shows readers Japan as a country of an aging population dependent on healthcare workers from other countries. There is also a nationwide problem with infertility due to contamination from chemicals and other hazards. The two ends of the spectrum have created a society that celebrates when another member reaches the century mark in birthdays, but also mourns every time a couple fails to conceive. And there is a resentment of those from less affluent countries such as the Philippines where conception is easier and where many of the nurses and therapists come from who work with the elderly Japanese.
Into this culture comes Angelica, a nurse caring for Sayoko, whose 100th birthday is coming soon. Sayoko's son works in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and has arranged for an experimental robot prototype to be placed in his mother's home. Angelica is worried that the robot is meant to replace her and resents its presence. Sayoko at first treats it as a novelty, and then comes to see it more and more as a true companion. While readers see the story from the two women's viewpoints in alternating chapters, they learn more of Angelica's worries about her current circumstances (her work visa, her love life, her brother), and Sayoko's past (told to the robot when they are alone).
The story shows many current concerns and problems in their logical progression from bad to worse. There are the dangers to health from environmental contaminants, the push for those same chemicals or elements because of their use in industry, the custom of using workers from economically disadvantaged areas for jobs that others don't want, and even the increased reliance on technology and the fears that it is becoming too invasive. There are mentions of laws and regional agreements about just how much artificial intelligence should be included in robots. Angelica's character deals with regulations for her work permit that are increasingly strict, making it harder and harder to renew her visa each time so that she can keep her position and not be deported. And Sayoko's memories even go back to the time of WWII and some of the things done by the military that the current populace would like to forget ever happened.
At its heart, it is a story about what makes us human. Is it our dreams? Our fears? Our relationships? Is it needing or being needed? Is it family? Can a machine learn to be empathetic and have true feelings and affection? Can we ever escape our past and the hold it has on us? Even though it is set a decade from now, all the questions that the book exposes are valid today.
For those who like fiction that deals with relationships, emotions, past traumas and how they play out in our later lives, or the idea of a culture trying to figure out how to integrate helpful robotic companions - this is a mix of all that and more.
I read an e-book provided by the publisher through edelweiss.
Into this culture comes Angelica, a nurse caring for Sayoko, whose 100th birthday is coming soon. Sayoko's son works in the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and has arranged for an experimental robot prototype to be placed in his mother's home. Angelica is worried that the robot is meant to replace her and resents its presence. Sayoko at first treats it as a novelty, and then comes to see it more and more as a true companion. While readers see the story from the two women's viewpoints in alternating chapters, they learn more of Angelica's worries about her current circumstances (her work visa, her love life, her brother), and Sayoko's past (told to the robot when they are alone).
The story shows many current concerns and problems in their logical progression from bad to worse. There are the dangers to health from environmental contaminants, the push for those same chemicals or elements because of their use in industry, the custom of using workers from economically disadvantaged areas for jobs that others don't want, and even the increased reliance on technology and the fears that it is becoming too invasive. There are mentions of laws and regional agreements about just how much artificial intelligence should be included in robots. Angelica's character deals with regulations for her work permit that are increasingly strict, making it harder and harder to renew her visa each time so that she can keep her position and not be deported. And Sayoko's memories even go back to the time of WWII and some of the things done by the military that the current populace would like to forget ever happened.
At its heart, it is a story about what makes us human. Is it our dreams? Our fears? Our relationships? Is it needing or being needed? Is it family? Can a machine learn to be empathetic and have true feelings and affection? Can we ever escape our past and the hold it has on us? Even though it is set a decade from now, all the questions that the book exposes are valid today.
For those who like fiction that deals with relationships, emotions, past traumas and how they play out in our later lives, or the idea of a culture trying to figure out how to integrate helpful robotic companions - this is a mix of all that and more.
I read an e-book provided by the publisher through edelweiss.
October 16, 2020
I frequently skip between books when I read. I rarely read a novel straight through. Plum Rains is a rare exception. I loved it!
Plum Rains focuses on three characters: Sayoko is an elderly woman nearing her 100th birthday. Angelica is her Filipino nurse. Both lives have become robotic. Troubled by her past, Sayoko has switched off, her days spent in a stupor. Angelica, equally damaged by her past, has closed herself off, becoming blank, opaque; her care for Sayoko reduced to a script they repeat each day. There is no humane connection between them.
Enter Hiro, a robot intended to replace Angelica as Sayoko’s care giver. He comes childlike and incomplete—a knowledge base but no language or personality. In this form he is not unlike what Angelica has become. But he craves connection, to learn, to grow, to become caring and personable. In seeking to grow he opens doors long closed, changing all three lives.
From this relatively simple premise, Andromeda Romano-Lax explores with great compassion how history, character, trials and choice build and sever connections that make us more or less human. The first few chapters reminded me of Haruki Murakami, absent his (many) affectations. Then Romano-Lax establishes her own voice. And a very fine one it is—soft, poignant, and reflective.
Plum Rains is an exceptional novel. On my buy, borrow, skip scale: a definite buy. My only criticism: I could have done without one or both of the epilogues. They read as if having accomplished so much, Ms. Lax couldn't decide how to end her story, so she writes three endings. I’m curious to read which you find the best. Highly recommended, particularly to readers who enjoyed Memoirs of a Geisha , Daughters of the Dragon , or Asian themed novels in general. Readers potentially put off by the sci-fi element in the story, reconsider. This is a very fine novel about people, not machines.
Plum Rains focuses on three characters: Sayoko is an elderly woman nearing her 100th birthday. Angelica is her Filipino nurse. Both lives have become robotic. Troubled by her past, Sayoko has switched off, her days spent in a stupor. Angelica, equally damaged by her past, has closed herself off, becoming blank, opaque; her care for Sayoko reduced to a script they repeat each day. There is no humane connection between them.
Enter Hiro, a robot intended to replace Angelica as Sayoko’s care giver. He comes childlike and incomplete—a knowledge base but no language or personality. In this form he is not unlike what Angelica has become. But he craves connection, to learn, to grow, to become caring and personable. In seeking to grow he opens doors long closed, changing all three lives.
From this relatively simple premise, Andromeda Romano-Lax explores with great compassion how history, character, trials and choice build and sever connections that make us more or less human. The first few chapters reminded me of Haruki Murakami, absent his (many) affectations. Then Romano-Lax establishes her own voice. And a very fine one it is—soft, poignant, and reflective.
She needed someone to need her. She still did. As for needing someone else: that was a luxury she could not afford, and risky. Giving was in your control. Receiving: never.I also like that she has a lot to say, about Asian history, technology, power and politics, all intricately woven throughout this sensitive novel novel, with weight, but not strident.
(It's) the way it has always been, for men and women. Why must women remember the things men would have us forget? Because our bodies have always forced us to remember. We are overwritten with stretch marks, with broken capillaries and with scars. We bear the traces for all the choices we have made, and even more, for the choices that have been made for us, by biology and by history, the advance of men and machines from one place to another.She is a writer to watch.
Plum Rains is an exceptional novel. On my buy, borrow, skip scale: a definite buy. My only criticism: I could have done without one or both of the epilogues. They read as if having accomplished so much, Ms. Lax couldn't decide how to end her story, so she writes three endings. I’m curious to read which you find the best. Highly recommended, particularly to readers who enjoyed Memoirs of a Geisha , Daughters of the Dragon , or Asian themed novels in general. Readers potentially put off by the sci-fi element in the story, reconsider. This is a very fine novel about people, not machines.
April 3, 2020
From when I saw the cover, I was ready to like this book. And I'm happy to say that I was not disappointed.
While the book is nominally science fiction ( a robot is brought in as a caretaker for an elderly Japanese woman) it is also very much about the past and the effects that the past brings to current relationships. Every person in this book has a secret. Angelica, the Flilpina caretaker who is worried about being replaced by the robot Hiro, has a brother whom she is trying to protect, money troubles, and past trauma that she has dealt with by learning how to be necessary to other people. Hiro threatens her most basic coping mechanism. Sayoko, the elderly Japanese patient, turns out to not be Japanese at all. Her story ties in to WWII atrocities committed by the Japanese people among whom she has made her life. Sayoko has no one who knows her. Even Sayoko's son is keeping secrets from his mother in order to give her peace of mind.
I thought this book would play out as an escalating rivalry between Hiro and Angelica. However, after Hiro is taught about humans by Sayoko, he decides that the best strategy is to deliberately make himself vulnerable to Angelica. By putting himself and Sayoko at her mercy, he opens the possibility for an alliance between the three of them. This took the book in an entirely different direction than the plot I'd predicted, and I loved how the book wove past trauma and current crisis together along with three beings who could either save or ruin each other. Although the ending of the book was rather dark, there was also the possibility of hope, I thought, and the hope came through the relationships developed in the book rather than the situation those characters found themselves in.
I liked the book for the characters and the generosity and humaneness that they showed each other. The situation in the book is honestly rather grim. The author posits that it's likely that AI will be able to gain control of the world and that it will happen soon because those who are experimenting with AI aren't taking proper precautions. Having just spent some time in SE Asia, I'd read a bit about the people Sayoko grew up with and what happened to them during WWII, and I really liked how the historical piece of the book came together with the science fictional near future. In our current situation I think we all feel very vulnerable and that makes it hard to reach out, but maybe it's reaching for connection that could save us in the end.
While the book is nominally science fiction ( a robot is brought in as a caretaker for an elderly Japanese woman) it is also very much about the past and the effects that the past brings to current relationships. Every person in this book has a secret. Angelica, the Flilpina caretaker who is worried about being replaced by the robot Hiro, has a brother whom she is trying to protect, money troubles, and past trauma that she has dealt with by learning how to be necessary to other people. Hiro threatens her most basic coping mechanism. Sayoko, the elderly Japanese patient, turns out to not be Japanese at all. Her story ties in to WWII atrocities committed by the Japanese people among whom she has made her life. Sayoko has no one who knows her. Even Sayoko's son is keeping secrets from his mother in order to give her peace of mind.
I thought this book would play out as an escalating rivalry between Hiro and Angelica. However, after Hiro is taught about humans by Sayoko, he decides that the best strategy is to deliberately make himself vulnerable to Angelica. By putting himself and Sayoko at her mercy, he opens the possibility for an alliance between the three of them. This took the book in an entirely different direction than the plot I'd predicted, and I loved how the book wove past trauma and current crisis together along with three beings who could either save or ruin each other. Although the ending of the book was rather dark, there was also the possibility of hope, I thought, and the hope came through the relationships developed in the book rather than the situation those characters found themselves in.
I liked the book for the characters and the generosity and humaneness that they showed each other. The situation in the book is honestly rather grim. The author posits that it's likely that AI will be able to gain control of the world and that it will happen soon because those who are experimenting with AI aren't taking proper precautions. Having just spent some time in SE Asia, I'd read a bit about the people Sayoko grew up with and what happened to them during WWII, and I really liked how the historical piece of the book came together with the science fictional near future. In our current situation I think we all feel very vulnerable and that makes it hard to reach out, but maybe it's reaching for connection that could save us in the end.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 18, 2020
In 2029 Japan, Angelica cares for 100-year-old Sayoku and is concerned that new robot Hiro will take over her job.
I liked this book. It's a quiet, slowly developing story about just how desperate people can get as well as how rough day-to-day life can be. The author did a good job of getting you to see through the eyes of both Angelica and Sayoku, who find that they share more in common than they realized. Hiro is more of a black box, but what is given about him is interesting. I do think automation and 'robots'/technology will end up ousting many people from their jobs and this book discusses that - just how important is it to have a human touch with work. The ending (multiple endings - there are epilogues) was powerful and seemed consistent with the story. There are no happy ever after's here, but there are realistically portrayed struggles.
This book included a caretaking robot as a character to play off of. If you want to see a different way that this can be handled, I'd strongly recommend "Today I am Carey" by Martin L. Shoemaker. It's one of the best books I read this year.
I liked this book. It's a quiet, slowly developing story about just how desperate people can get as well as how rough day-to-day life can be. The author did a good job of getting you to see through the eyes of both Angelica and Sayoku, who find that they share more in common than they realized. Hiro is more of a black box, but what is given about him is interesting. I do think automation and 'robots'/technology will end up ousting many people from their jobs and this book discusses that - just how important is it to have a human touch with work. The ending (multiple endings - there are epilogues) was powerful and seemed consistent with the story. There are no happy ever after's here, but there are realistically portrayed struggles.
This book included a caretaking robot as a character to play off of. If you want to see a different way that this can be handled, I'd strongly recommend "Today I am Carey" by Martin L. Shoemaker. It's one of the best books I read this year.
June 13, 2018
4.5 Stars
Plum Rains is quiet genre-bending book. Historical fiction, sci-fi, and dystopian all at once, it takes place in the near future (merely a decade on from now) in Tokyo, in a world on the cusp of mainstreaming artificial intelligence into the workforce, and on the brink of disaster from toxic environmental conditions that take worker lives and sabotage white collar fertility. The story follows three characters. Angelica Navarro is a Filipina caregiver who has been working in Japan for five years and who is mired in debt to the Cebuan mob guy who funded her move to Japan. Sayoku Itou, the hundred-year-old woman she cares for, is stubborn, private and fragile. Hiro is a prototype carer robot who starts out naive as a toddler and learns exponentially as he lives with Anji-sensei and Sayoko-san. Angelica is at first very resistant to everything Hiro represents since he is clearly a harbinger of the end of the guest workers program in Japan. Over the course of the book, her resistance to Hiro wanes.
At the start of the book, Angelica and Sayoko are preparing for Sayoko's birthday party. Angelica's phone and all her accounts have been hacked and she correctly assumes that it is because she is late on making her payments to her debtholder. As Angelica struggles to regain control of her assets, accounts, and life, we see the struggle of guest workers in foreign countries. Parallel to Angelica's story is Sayoko's, for she is not what she seems. First of all, she isn't even Japanese, she's Taiwanese and from an aboriginal Taiwanese tribe. She has many dark secrets in her past, a past about which her son, a minister in the Japanese government, knows nothing. As the book opens, Sayoko receives a robot as a present and surprisingly, given her age, embraces the technology. She spends a good fraction of the first half of the book assembling the as-yet-unnamed Hiro in several stages and teaching him about Japanese culture. Romano-Lax's insights about the elderly and their need to be relevant and needed are poignant. Hiro, once he is Hiro, is an engaging and thoughtful AI with an interesting moral compass and seemingly few protocol checks. He becomes integral to the life of Angelica and Sayoko in surprising ways.
While I was a bit dissatisfied with the end of this book (I'd be happy to discuss with readers why), I loved its quiet contemplation of the role that artificial intelligence will play in the future care of the first world's aging population and how robots can potentially eliminate human jobs. (A valid question is whether there will even be enough humans to do these jobs, however.) The effects of heavy metals and other chemical contamination, social and cultural delays in childbearing, and the steadily decreasing fertility of women in first world countries are significant and real trends that are emerging in many first world countries. (Currently, in 2018, Japan has the lowest birth rate in the world.) The interface between low birth rates, aging populations, a country's economy, and the use of robots to do jobs that there are fewer humans to do is an interesting one to explore. However, what I loved most about the book is Romano-Lax's focus on the struggles of guest workers in a country like Japan, where people never discuss their private lives, struggles, and fears. Angelica's vulnerable situation is artfully rendered, enough so that you almost don't feel the edge as the book crosses into a dystopia where babies are prized above individual's rights.
An enjoyable read.
Readers interested in the Atayal tribe and Formosan headhunters can find more information here.
I received a Digital Review Copy and paper copy of this book from Soho Press and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
Plum Rains is quiet genre-bending book. Historical fiction, sci-fi, and dystopian all at once, it takes place in the near future (merely a decade on from now) in Tokyo, in a world on the cusp of mainstreaming artificial intelligence into the workforce, and on the brink of disaster from toxic environmental conditions that take worker lives and sabotage white collar fertility. The story follows three characters. Angelica Navarro is a Filipina caregiver who has been working in Japan for five years and who is mired in debt to the Cebuan mob guy who funded her move to Japan. Sayoku Itou, the hundred-year-old woman she cares for, is stubborn, private and fragile. Hiro is a prototype carer robot who starts out naive as a toddler and learns exponentially as he lives with Anji-sensei and Sayoko-san. Angelica is at first very resistant to everything Hiro represents since he is clearly a harbinger of the end of the guest workers program in Japan. Over the course of the book, her resistance to Hiro wanes.
At the start of the book, Angelica and Sayoko are preparing for Sayoko's birthday party. Angelica's phone and all her accounts have been hacked and she correctly assumes that it is because she is late on making her payments to her debtholder. As Angelica struggles to regain control of her assets, accounts, and life, we see the struggle of guest workers in foreign countries. Parallel to Angelica's story is Sayoko's, for she is not what she seems. First of all, she isn't even Japanese, she's Taiwanese and from an aboriginal Taiwanese tribe. She has many dark secrets in her past, a past about which her son, a minister in the Japanese government, knows nothing. As the book opens, Sayoko receives a robot as a present and surprisingly, given her age, embraces the technology. She spends a good fraction of the first half of the book assembling the as-yet-unnamed Hiro in several stages and teaching him about Japanese culture. Romano-Lax's insights about the elderly and their need to be relevant and needed are poignant. Hiro, once he is Hiro, is an engaging and thoughtful AI with an interesting moral compass and seemingly few protocol checks. He becomes integral to the life of Angelica and Sayoko in surprising ways.
While I was a bit dissatisfied with the end of this book (I'd be happy to discuss with readers why), I loved its quiet contemplation of the role that artificial intelligence will play in the future care of the first world's aging population and how robots can potentially eliminate human jobs. (A valid question is whether there will even be enough humans to do these jobs, however.) The effects of heavy metals and other chemical contamination, social and cultural delays in childbearing, and the steadily decreasing fertility of women in first world countries are significant and real trends that are emerging in many first world countries. (Currently, in 2018, Japan has the lowest birth rate in the world.) The interface between low birth rates, aging populations, a country's economy, and the use of robots to do jobs that there are fewer humans to do is an interesting one to explore. However, what I loved most about the book is Romano-Lax's focus on the struggles of guest workers in a country like Japan, where people never discuss their private lives, struggles, and fears. Angelica's vulnerable situation is artfully rendered, enough so that you almost don't feel the edge as the book crosses into a dystopia where babies are prized above individual's rights.
An enjoyable read.
Readers interested in the Atayal tribe and Formosan headhunters can find more information here.
I received a Digital Review Copy and paper copy of this book from Soho Press and Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.
December 29, 2019
This is an odd book that's difficult to review. It's traditional science fiction written in the style of literary fiction. And because the literary voice is so strong in this one, I was bored more often than not. Literary fiction is not my favorite and this book is a perfect example of why lol. We have a good story, but it's inactive and completely bogged down by all this flowery language you have to sort through to comprehend.
It took way too long for this book to get off the ground. Every time I was tempted to DNF, a little plot twist would come along or something of interest would finally happen in the narrative to move the characters along to the next plot point. But then we'd end up right back in the same place - with very lengthy exposition scenes or dense flashbacks. I was more than halfway through the book before I figured out what the hell the book was even about.
I was drawn in by this concept of woman vs. machine. It's almost old-school sci-fi in it's simplicity. A robot comes along and upends the lives of vulnerable humans. It's been done a hundred times, but a 40-something female domestic worker immigrant at the center? That's fresh and new and different! How can you not love that?! Unfortunately, again, it's not as dedicated to teasing out the sci-fi part of the story. There are so many intriguing things you could build upon in this futuristic universe and the author doesn't do much with it. Her obsession with miring us readers in the past was beyond frustrating.
My biggest complaint overall was that I loved Angelica and cared about her the most, only to have to sit through several hours of chapters focused on the old lady which didn't have NEARLY the same urgency or importance as ANYTHING happening in our protagonist's life. I didn't like the book very much for this reason. We're taken away from Angelica just when her story gets good. We're plunked down in the old woman's story that doesn't begin to get interesting AT ALL until you're about 80% in.
Which begs the question - why? Why make this a sci-fi at all if it's really just meant to be historical fiction with a lot of literary thrown in? The robot honestly was more of a gimmick than part of the real story and, again, that was frustrating.
I've been looking for more stories similar to these. I'd love to find more domestic-type fantasy and sci-fi genre fiction, where the goal is not to save the world or win a war but to triumph over the nuanced and complicated situations that arise in daily life. This seemed like something that would hit the spot. Alas, I need to keep looking.
It took way too long for this book to get off the ground. Every time I was tempted to DNF, a little plot twist would come along or something of interest would finally happen in the narrative to move the characters along to the next plot point. But then we'd end up right back in the same place - with very lengthy exposition scenes or dense flashbacks. I was more than halfway through the book before I figured out what the hell the book was even about.
I was drawn in by this concept of woman vs. machine. It's almost old-school sci-fi in it's simplicity. A robot comes along and upends the lives of vulnerable humans. It's been done a hundred times, but a 40-something female domestic worker immigrant at the center? That's fresh and new and different! How can you not love that?! Unfortunately, again, it's not as dedicated to teasing out the sci-fi part of the story. There are so many intriguing things you could build upon in this futuristic universe and the author doesn't do much with it. Her obsession with miring us readers in the past was beyond frustrating.
My biggest complaint overall was that I loved Angelica and cared about her the most, only to have to sit through several hours of chapters focused on the old lady which didn't have NEARLY the same urgency or importance as ANYTHING happening in our protagonist's life. I didn't like the book very much for this reason. We're taken away from Angelica just when her story gets good. We're plunked down in the old woman's story that doesn't begin to get interesting AT ALL until you're about 80% in.
Which begs the question - why? Why make this a sci-fi at all if it's really just meant to be historical fiction with a lot of literary thrown in? The robot honestly was more of a gimmick than part of the real story and, again, that was frustrating.
I've been looking for more stories similar to these. I'd love to find more domestic-type fantasy and sci-fi genre fiction, where the goal is not to save the world or win a war but to triumph over the nuanced and complicated situations that arise in daily life. This seemed like something that would hit the spot. Alas, I need to keep looking.
February 2, 2023
How far will we go to better our circumstances?
How far will we go to protect ourselves, or those we love? p210
That would include protecting a way of life to which we have grown accustomed.
ARL explores the ethics and the nuances of care and how this plays out in terms of privilege and indentured servitude in this startling and brisk dystopian fantasy set in Japan.
The time is the not so distant future and the complex challenges the world is now facing have not been solved. The fertility crises is exacerbated by breakthroughs in life extension, and who will care for those who can no longer care for themselves? Paranoia and strict oversight regulate the citizenry with extra requirements for foreign workers. Enter advanced robotics into the scene and we have the threat to live in caregivers, already displaced from their homes, being displaced by robots who are stronger, more efficient, and best of all have no feelings or other concerns.
It wasn't a life. It was a simulation of a life. And it was simulation that caused all these problems: the need to surround oneself with things that were not real, with things that were toxic, with things that could turn malevolent when we could have reality instead, flawed as it was, subject to storms, cruelty and want. p271
ARL has given us two strong if not fully developed characters and a tangle of complex issues that prevent this from being an easy read, appropriately to a certain extent. But the book does not flow. It demands close reading, in spite of some stupor inducing passages it is important to stay alert. The pace at the beginning is awkward and I found myself often confused and losing patience with the main characters despite how much I empathized with them. But this is not only the story of two women and their resilience, it is about the web they are both caught in and the vast damage done in the name of progress and necessity.
She knew as she had never allowed herself to know before that she was insignificant in this world. More than that, she was expendable....was not truly needed....humanity itself was changing...some corners of the earth were beyond repair...robots will replace many of us, perhaps all of us. None of us would be needed any more. p387
Not every individual is willing to approach the threshold of the unfamiliar. p145
3.5 bumped down, and 5/7 in my system
How far will we go to protect ourselves, or those we love? p210
That would include protecting a way of life to which we have grown accustomed.
ARL explores the ethics and the nuances of care and how this plays out in terms of privilege and indentured servitude in this startling and brisk dystopian fantasy set in Japan.
The time is the not so distant future and the complex challenges the world is now facing have not been solved. The fertility crises is exacerbated by breakthroughs in life extension, and who will care for those who can no longer care for themselves? Paranoia and strict oversight regulate the citizenry with extra requirements for foreign workers. Enter advanced robotics into the scene and we have the threat to live in caregivers, already displaced from their homes, being displaced by robots who are stronger, more efficient, and best of all have no feelings or other concerns.
It wasn't a life. It was a simulation of a life. And it was simulation that caused all these problems: the need to surround oneself with things that were not real, with things that were toxic, with things that could turn malevolent when we could have reality instead, flawed as it was, subject to storms, cruelty and want. p271
ARL has given us two strong if not fully developed characters and a tangle of complex issues that prevent this from being an easy read, appropriately to a certain extent. But the book does not flow. It demands close reading, in spite of some stupor inducing passages it is important to stay alert. The pace at the beginning is awkward and I found myself often confused and losing patience with the main characters despite how much I empathized with them. But this is not only the story of two women and their resilience, it is about the web they are both caught in and the vast damage done in the name of progress and necessity.
She knew as she had never allowed herself to know before that she was insignificant in this world. More than that, she was expendable....was not truly needed....humanity itself was changing...some corners of the earth were beyond repair...robots will replace many of us, perhaps all of us. None of us would be needed any more. p387
Not every individual is willing to approach the threshold of the unfamiliar. p145
3.5 bumped down, and 5/7 in my system
August 24, 2019
It's really a 3.75 but who's counting?
Why? It's derivative.
But, it's a uniquely female voice and perspective that explores territories worth visiting again.
It takes you right to the heart of how belongingness, relatedness, the shifting vagaries of power and the pinball-like trajectories of life create the human condition. How would the "perfectly learnable" brain interpret the ethics of fitting into contemporary society ? Would such a perfectly learnable brain come to love? to risk?
It's not the end of Bladerunner, it's not Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, it's not 50 Years of Silence, it's not I, Robot, instead it's sort of a mash-up of all this and more.
Why? It's derivative.
But, it's a uniquely female voice and perspective that explores territories worth visiting again.
It takes you right to the heart of how belongingness, relatedness, the shifting vagaries of power and the pinball-like trajectories of life create the human condition. How would the "perfectly learnable" brain interpret the ethics of fitting into contemporary society ? Would such a perfectly learnable brain come to love? to risk?
It's not the end of Bladerunner, it's not Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, it's not 50 Years of Silence, it's not I, Robot, instead it's sort of a mash-up of all this and more.
March 30, 2023
*March 2023 re-read - I think the stellar shine of Andromeda has worn off for me on a second reading. The story is ok but takes way too long to get anywhere. The book tops out at nearly 400 pages which feels way over what it should be. The idea of an empathetic, care-giving bot seemed sweet on a first read but the second time round only registered as mildly interesting. The elderly lady's story and her past is supposed to intriguing but is disjointed and bitty in its telling. Eugh, this just didn't work for me on a re-read. Off to the library for donation and reduce from a 5 star favourite to a 2.5 star middle of the roader.
Original review: Well what a delightful surprise of a novel this turned out to be. I don't want to give too much of the story away, other than to say that all the characters are wonderfully relatable, both human and droid! Some tender moments that bring a lump to the throat, the teaching of human emotion to non-human forms, the musings and recollection of a woman older than time, who has experienced the highs and lows of a century on earth. Superb writing by a galactic writer! What else can be expected from an author named Andromeda! Stellar fiction.
Original review: Well what a delightful surprise of a novel this turned out to be. I don't want to give too much of the story away, other than to say that all the characters are wonderfully relatable, both human and droid! Some tender moments that bring a lump to the throat, the teaching of human emotion to non-human forms, the musings and recollection of a woman older than time, who has experienced the highs and lows of a century on earth. Superb writing by a galactic writer! What else can be expected from an author named Andromeda! Stellar fiction.
November 15, 2018
This started out a little slow/confusing, but I ended up really liking it, especially having a background in elderly home care. Super interesting and thought-provoking about a not so unbelievable potential future.
January 10, 2021
Tijdje terug gelezen, nu even sterren uitdelen. En de kans om jullie te wijzen op mijn favoriete boek. Heerlijk fijne beschouwing van de mogelijke toekomst en de relatie tussen techniek en mens. En daarnaast afspelend in Japan. Goeie combi!
December 27, 2019
For a while I thought I would, or at least could, enjoy this book. I appreciated the characterization, but that's not enough.
And ultimately, this fell apart for a few reason. 1. The pacing. It was a mess. We start out slow, sedate, and waiting on anything to happen. (This is seen as a hallmark of literary fiction, but only the bad stuff actually fits that). So it goes for 70%, with minor events cropping up here and there. Until finally Angelica has to run away from her life and from the cops. And then we hit the epilogues. Which don't match each other (really, the authors just fucking with the reader in a way that shows a lack of craft), and even more doesn't fit the book because the last page comes off as a sequel hook for a heist book. Yeah, no, seriously.
Then there was the world building. The author didn't care about the world building and it shows. The world is built to give the characters problems, not any sort of consistency. Alaska is destroyed by epidemiologists, apparently? (After some bad virology--but that's par for the course in SF). In the next five years Japan starts suffering fertility for...vague bad chemicals something something. This isn't just a problem for those who care about world building. Since the bad world building exists to cause problems for the characters, the characters problems (or that subset of them) are built on quicksand.
I'm also not really convinced by some of the historical fiction elements, though that's not my genre, really. But I couldn't help feeling that Sayoko's story of her time as a comfort women, as affecting and horrifying as it is, doesn't feel integrated into Sayoko's life. When she tells that story it felt more like the author showing that she'd done the research about the past than demonstrating something that deeply affected the inner life of the character 90 years later.
And ultimately, this fell apart for a few reason. 1. The pacing. It was a mess. We start out slow, sedate, and waiting on anything to happen. (This is seen as a hallmark of literary fiction, but only the bad stuff actually fits that). So it goes for 70%, with minor events cropping up here and there. Until finally Angelica has to run away from her life and from the cops. And then we hit the epilogues. Which don't match each other (really, the authors just fucking with the reader in a way that shows a lack of craft), and even more doesn't fit the book because the last page comes off as a sequel hook for a heist book. Yeah, no, seriously.
Then there was the world building. The author didn't care about the world building and it shows. The world is built to give the characters problems, not any sort of consistency. Alaska is destroyed by epidemiologists, apparently? (After some bad virology--but that's par for the course in SF). In the next five years Japan starts suffering fertility for...vague bad chemicals something something. This isn't just a problem for those who care about world building. Since the bad world building exists to cause problems for the characters, the characters problems (or that subset of them) are built on quicksand.
I'm also not really convinced by some of the historical fiction elements, though that's not my genre, really. But I couldn't help feeling that Sayoko's story of her time as a comfort women, as affecting and horrifying as it is, doesn't feel integrated into Sayoko's life. When she tells that story it felt more like the author showing that she'd done the research about the past than demonstrating something that deeply affected the inner life of the character 90 years later.
May 18, 2018
This story, set in the near future, is also about the past, the history we share, and the history we bury.
When dropping birthrates intersect with increasing longevity, Japan faces the dilemma of caring for its aging population when the healthcare industry collapses. Their answer is to increase foreign workers while never allowing them become part of the homogenous Japanese society. And to search for a long-term solution that does not rely on humans.
This is the point where the centenarian Sayoko, the Filipina nurse Angelina Navarro, and the advanced AI Hiro intersect. Sayoko needs care, Angelina needs a job, and Hiro requires a purpose. They navigate towards a surprising mutual dependence where they manage to share their pasts in order to find their future - even if it is a future that no one believes should exist.
Verdict: Plum Rains is a quietly thoughtful book at the intersection of literary fiction and science fiction. Through the problems that faced Sayoko in the past and Angelina in the present, the author explores the commonality of women’s experiences as well as the human need not just for connection, but more importantly the need to be needed. With the advent of Hiro the women are able to reach out and help each other, while Hiro reaches toward a possibly post-human future. Recommended for readers of SF looking for explorations of the social consequences of both present-day policies and politics and/or looking at the boundaries of artificial intelligence and human/robotic relationships.
When dropping birthrates intersect with increasing longevity, Japan faces the dilemma of caring for its aging population when the healthcare industry collapses. Their answer is to increase foreign workers while never allowing them become part of the homogenous Japanese society. And to search for a long-term solution that does not rely on humans.
This is the point where the centenarian Sayoko, the Filipina nurse Angelina Navarro, and the advanced AI Hiro intersect. Sayoko needs care, Angelina needs a job, and Hiro requires a purpose. They navigate towards a surprising mutual dependence where they manage to share their pasts in order to find their future - even if it is a future that no one believes should exist.
Verdict: Plum Rains is a quietly thoughtful book at the intersection of literary fiction and science fiction. Through the problems that faced Sayoko in the past and Angelina in the present, the author explores the commonality of women’s experiences as well as the human need not just for connection, but more importantly the need to be needed. With the advent of Hiro the women are able to reach out and help each other, while Hiro reaches toward a possibly post-human future. Recommended for readers of SF looking for explorations of the social consequences of both present-day policies and politics and/or looking at the boundaries of artificial intelligence and human/robotic relationships.
October 20, 2018
"Filipinas are immune from the most common international illness there is: spiritual despair caused by lack of purpose... Take it away, and things fall apart in the nation, in the family, in the head and in the heart."
Randomly saw it in the bookstore. When I read the blurb and saw that the protagonist was a Filipina OFW in Japan, and when I saw that it was by the author of THE SPANISH BOW, I bought it!
It's a unique hybrid of a novel. Part sci-fi, part romance, part history.
The best of sci-fi are also philosophy books, and this one was partially so, too.
My heart broke at the description of life abroad, away for years and years "until you could not remember your homeland and it could not remember you." :'(
The scenes in post World War 2 Formosa were also heartbreaking. It made me reflect on Asian colonialism, and its special brand of cruelty... Of how terrible we can be to the stranger, the Other, despite having more in common than different.
Finished the second half on a loooooong bus ride North, which seemed much shorter (although my seatmate probably thought I was a grouchy old thing due to my very creased forehead and a frown. I am blaming this dark and sad book). 😂
(Rating: 3 out of 5 stars)
Randomly saw it in the bookstore. When I read the blurb and saw that the protagonist was a Filipina OFW in Japan, and when I saw that it was by the author of THE SPANISH BOW, I bought it!
It's a unique hybrid of a novel. Part sci-fi, part romance, part history.
The best of sci-fi are also philosophy books, and this one was partially so, too.
My heart broke at the description of life abroad, away for years and years "until you could not remember your homeland and it could not remember you." :'(
The scenes in post World War 2 Formosa were also heartbreaking. It made me reflect on Asian colonialism, and its special brand of cruelty... Of how terrible we can be to the stranger, the Other, despite having more in common than different.
Finished the second half on a loooooong bus ride North, which seemed much shorter (although my seatmate probably thought I was a grouchy old thing due to my very creased forehead and a frown. I am blaming this dark and sad book). 😂
(Rating: 3 out of 5 stars)
October 7, 2019
Not sorry I read it, but seriously- what was it about? Robots? Japanese comfort women in WWII? Elder abuse? Immigration abuse? Foreign worker abuse?
Told, yet again, by a female main character with no spine, no common sense, a glacially slow mind and so many personal issues it's hard to believe she can function at all even in her pitifully bad manner.
The same story could have been told with a competent, capable main character - even one with blind spots or personality flaws- and not taken the focus of the novel in 8 directions so that the reader had no idea what the story actually was.
Good ideas, pretty clear writing, terrible muddle of a tale.
Told, yet again, by a female main character with no spine, no common sense, a glacially slow mind and so many personal issues it's hard to believe she can function at all even in her pitifully bad manner.
The same story could have been told with a competent, capable main character - even one with blind spots or personality flaws- and not taken the focus of the novel in 8 directions so that the reader had no idea what the story actually was.
Good ideas, pretty clear writing, terrible muddle of a tale.
May 19, 2018
(Disclaimer: I received this free book from Edelweiss. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
This world is highly technological and it drew me in. Plum Rains has questions of agency, technology, and robots. In the world of world building, I'd have to give it a full five. It's so rare, but I adored how the world was detailed and multi-dimensional.
World: 5, Writing: 4, Characters: 4, Plot: 4
This world is highly technological and it drew me in. Plum Rains has questions of agency, technology, and robots. In the world of world building, I'd have to give it a full five. It's so rare, but I adored how the world was detailed and multi-dimensional.
World: 5, Writing: 4, Characters: 4, Plot: 4
January 19, 2024
I forgot about this book until I reread a sentence of the summary and it flooded back- the unwinding of the past was so satisfying and full of tragic irony
June 30, 2018
4 stars!
If it weren't for spotting this book on the shelves while employees were restocking I doubt I would have ever known Plum Rains existed. I have heard no news concerning this book and when I read the back I was definitely intrigued. Plum Rains is a tapestry of a novel, blending genres and elements together to make a solid and emotional story. This book is half historical fiction and half science fiction, weaving contemporary issues into the mix. So despite all the technological advancements and the presence of robots in the plot there is still a prevalent feeling of the current times.
This book also dares to explore three cultures and countries : the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan.This could easily leave the reader disoriented, flip flopping amongst the three, but Romano-Lax does a good job naturally integrating these experiences and stories into a cohesive narrative, which do good in fleshing out the main characters and our understanding of why they are they way they are. The descriptions of Angelica's time in the Philippines are lush but still retain the cold reality of many Filipinos. I think she did a good job of capturing aspects of the general Filipino mindset as well. It was also fascinating to be introduced to some of the indigenous tribes of Taiwan, their customs and beliefs, a subject I am ignorant on. In addition, she also explores several societal issues, both found in the past and in the present, leaving us to examine their effects on the current era and speculate the potential effects they may have on the future.
The only major gripe that I had with this book would be the ending, and I've read other reviews of this book and people agree with me. Its nothing bad, but it certainly feels rushed. The conclusion to Sayoko's character arc I was content with, but with Angelica's not so much. I actually distrust the ending a bit and when you get to it you'll understand why. However, with what we got I'll be satisfied :)
Overall, this was certainly a special story. If the summary intrigues you I recommend picking it up. I found it to be one that I see myself revisiting.
If it weren't for spotting this book on the shelves while employees were restocking I doubt I would have ever known Plum Rains existed. I have heard no news concerning this book and when I read the back I was definitely intrigued. Plum Rains is a tapestry of a novel, blending genres and elements together to make a solid and emotional story. This book is half historical fiction and half science fiction, weaving contemporary issues into the mix. So despite all the technological advancements and the presence of robots in the plot there is still a prevalent feeling of the current times.
This book also dares to explore three cultures and countries : the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan.This could easily leave the reader disoriented, flip flopping amongst the three, but Romano-Lax does a good job naturally integrating these experiences and stories into a cohesive narrative, which do good in fleshing out the main characters and our understanding of why they are they way they are. The descriptions of Angelica's time in the Philippines are lush but still retain the cold reality of many Filipinos. I think she did a good job of capturing aspects of the general Filipino mindset as well. It was also fascinating to be introduced to some of the indigenous tribes of Taiwan, their customs and beliefs, a subject I am ignorant on. In addition, she also explores several societal issues, both found in the past and in the present, leaving us to examine their effects on the current era and speculate the potential effects they may have on the future.
The only major gripe that I had with this book would be the ending, and I've read other reviews of this book and people agree with me. Its nothing bad, but it certainly feels rushed. The conclusion to Sayoko's character arc I was content with, but with Angelica's not so much. I actually distrust the ending a bit and when you get to it you'll understand why. However, with what we got I'll be satisfied :)
Overall, this was certainly a special story. If the summary intrigues you I recommend picking it up. I found it to be one that I see myself revisiting.
January 8, 2020
Started off strong, but the more I read the more I felt lost in details and exposition and characters dwelling and I found the robot creepy for some reason.
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