Thoroughly loved this book. Like, I want to hug it. Ozeki is a wonderful storyteller, and by the end rises to masterful. Ozeki manages to combine so many themes seamlessly between her characters; she writes them with the fullest humanity that made me feel like I knew them intimately by the end. There was so much I was reflecting about in my own life as I read, partly because Ozeki uses universal themes and actual global events that many people have memories tied to.

Ruth is a writer in Canada who finds a package washed up on the beach that contains the journal of a teenage girl named Nao from Tokyo, along with some other memorabilia. While Ruth reads the journal she tries to ascertain how the package might have arrived to her and where the girl is now. I'm someone that loves hearing about the steps one takes to get to the resolution of a mystery; and I was delighted at how bizarre some of them are in this book. Nao's story revolving around growing up in California and moving to Tokyo and bullying and her grandmother Jiko and buddhism and her parents is both heart wrenching and lovely. At times the book delves into Murakami-like territory, but to better effect than any of his latest works. The book is magical. (Yet some might say that the magic is rooted in science...)

The audiobook is narrated by the author herself and she does a fantastic job of inhabiting her characters and providing the mood and tone she intended. Upon ending, though, she mentions that the physical copy of the book comes with footnotes, images, appendices that could not be translated to audiobook. I think in the future I'll seek out these characters again on paper, and get to enjoy their story all over again with even more information.