Book Review: A Tale for the Time Being

Ruth is a writer living in a small coastal town in Canada, where she struggles to work on her new book and overcome her feelings of discomfort in the wilderness since moving from New York. One day while walking the beach she finds a plastic bag containing a lunch box, possibly refuse washed up from Japan following the recent devastating tsunami. Inside the lunch box is a diary, a collection of letters Ruth can't decipher, an old watch - and a mystery that begins to challenge her sense of self and sanity.

A Tale for the Time Being is a fascinating novel that blends Ruth's story with that of Nao, the Japanese teenager who wrote the diary. As Nao describes her chaotic family life, the brutal bullying she endures at school, and the comfort she finds in the guidance of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun, Ruth desperately searches the internet trying to find some corroboration for Nao's story and learn what happened next. Is the girl alive, or did she commit suicide? Was her family killed in the tsunami? Was her great-grandmother's coastal temple spared by the storm? Has any of it happened at all, or has Ruth's reading of the story changed it in some way? Sometimes suspenseful, sometimes mind-bending, A Tale for the Time Being is ultimately a powerful message about how to live your life in the time you have. - Michelle (Sunset)