Synopsis: Katsuyamas never quit—but seventeen-year-old CJ doesn’t even know where to start. She’s never lived up to her mom’s type A ambition, and she’s perfectly happy just helping her aunt, Hannah, at their family’s flower shop.
She doesn’t buy into Hannah’s romantic ideas about flowers and their hidden meanings, but when it comes to arranging the perfect bouquet, CJ discovers a knack she never knew she had. A skill she might even be proud of.
Then her mom decides to sell the shop—to the family who swindled CJ’s grandparents when thousands of Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps during WWII. Soon a rift threatens to splinter CJ’s family, friends, and their entire Northern California community; and for the first time, CJ has found something she wants to fight for.
Review: This Time Will Be Different was an amazing book. CJ is our main character, and she’s having to come to terms with constantly letting down her mother, as well as the complexities of the family flower shop possibly getting sold. I liked CJ as a main character. She isn’t perfect, and she didn’t always think her actions through, but she is passionate about her family. One thing I appreciate is how CJ is quick to call out the flaws of others, but side characters turn that around and shed light on CJ’s mixed motivations. I will say the only thing I didn’t really like was a part of CJ’s past that is briefly brought up in the story. There are small segments between chapters that shed light on different things. We get a look at the Katsuyama family history, as well as some elements of CJ’s past, but the parts that focused on CJ didn’t have a larger impact on the overall story. It was more of a, “CJ went through this thing so we can make another character point out that she made mistakes in her past.”
I thought the conflict of the flower shop possibly getting sold was handled brilliantly. CJ loves working at this shop with her aunt, but they also know that the shop has hit some significant financial trouble. There is someone willing to buy the flower shop for a significant amount of money. The problem is that it’s a very rich family who have treated the Katsuyama family poorly in the past. This book does a great job of bringing up a lot of different things. There’s the struggle of being a person of color and still having ties to a family with a racist history. There is a white classmate who centers herself in the conflict, and that allows CJ to address how wrong that is. More recently, the world has seen movements to take down monuments, or change the names of buildings, because these things highlight darker aspects of America’s history. The only thing I would have added would be a discussion section at the end of the book, just so kids have something specific to make them reflect on different things brought up in This Time Will Be Different, especially the financial ramifications of changing the name of something versus the emotional damage that can be caused from monuments/buildings that feature racist figures from America’s history.
This Time Will Be Different is a thoughtful book that offers a lot for discussion about history, racism, ownership, and a slew of other things.
4.5 howls
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