Above the East China Sea: A Novel

Although this is supposedly Sarah Bird's "most ambitious" novel to date — and it is ambitious — it's not the novel that falls short, it's the marketing. Rather than Bird's ticket to entering the "literary elite," it is the best of young adult fiction.

"Above the East China Sea" emerges as a quality coming of age story, but its not literature. With its upcoming paperback and e-book release, it should finally find its true market as a historical fiction/fantasy meld with authentic teenage characters.

There are some obvious author fingerprints that smudgily point to the themes, while plot developments are sign-posted in a heavy handed way. I did, however, marvel at the two young female protagonists Bird creates — Tamiko and Luz — and found myself enthralled by their stories.

Tamiko is a young island girl caught up in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa. Luz is a teenager stationed with a military mom in Okinawa who is caught in a maelstrom of chaos as she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder triggered when her elder sister is killed in Afghanistan.

For modern teens, Bird's depiction of outsiders wanting and not wanting to fit in will resonate. For readers and Japanophiles who don't know about the infamous student nurses known as "Princess Lily" girls, Bird's novel will give you an insider's peek into the girls' tragic destiny within the class struggles and the inculcated nationalism tragically at play in much of Japan during World War II

Although not without flaws, this book brings two memorable characters — and worlds — to life, and illuminates both the history and present realities of Okinawa in a way that ultimately becomes admirable.