A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki

Read in hard back, the fifth book from the Man Booker Short list that I had for my birthday.  I had decided to tackle the books in length order, and this one has over 400 pages.

Whilst walking on the beach on a remote Canadian island, Ruth, herself of Japanese descent, finds the diary of a Japanese school girl washed up inside layers of freezer bags and a Hello Kitty lunchbox.  Ruth is a writer herself, although she has become stuck in the writing of a memoir of her time caring for her mother as she succumbs to dementia.  Ruth resolves to read the diary at the same pace as it was written, not steaming through to the end. Thus the chapters alternate between Ruth's story, and Nao's story.

I found Nao's story gripping, and its vignettes of Japanese culture fascinating.  I also understood the need to intersperse Ruth's story and to introduce the element of mystery - what has happened to Nao, and how did her diary end up in Canada, has she been the victim of the tsunami? However, the ending becomes unnecessarily complicated with theories of quantum mechanics, which meant I did rush to the end.