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Forgiveness
Forgiveness: A Gift from My Grandparents | Mark Sakamoto
29 posts | 20 read | 9 to read
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER When the Second World War broke out, Ralph MacLean chose to escape his troubled life on the Magdalen Islands in eastern Canada and volunteer to serve his country overseas. Meanwhile, in Vancouver, Mitsue Sakamoto saw her family and her stable community torn apart after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Like many young Canadian soldiers, Ralph was captured by the Japanese army. He would spend the war in prison camps, enduring pestilence, beatings and starvation, as well as a journey by hell ship to Japan to perform slave labour, while around him his friends and countrymen perished. Back in Canada, Mitsue and her family were expelled from their home by the government and forced to spend years eking out an existence in rural Alberta, working other people's land for a dollar a day. By the end of the war, Ralph emerged broken but a survivor. Mitsue, worn down by years of back-breaking labour, had to start all over again in Medicine Hat, Alberta. A generation later, at a high school dance, Ralph's daughter and Mitsue's son fell in love. Although the war toyed with Ralph's and Mitsue's lives and threatened to erase their humanity, these two brave individuals somehow surmounted enormous transgressions and learned to forgive. Without this forgiveness, their grandson Mark Sakamoto would never have come to be.
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Berryfan
Pickpick

Really really good. At one level it tells the story of his grandparents. On one side of the family they were Canadians of Japanese descent who were interned in Alberta in WWII. On the other side his grandfather was a soldier captured in Hong Kong who spent 4 years in a Japanese pow camp. At another level it‘s about forgiving ourselves.
“Forgiveness has nothing to do with the past”.

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LibraryCin
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Pickpick

The summaries of this book make it sound like it‘s all WWII, but it‘s not. I found the book to be an entire biography of his grandparents, then his own – with a focus on his relationship with his mom. I really liked this. A little “bonus” for me was that Mark‘s wife is from Assiniboia, Sask, a small town about 45 minutes from the town I grew up in.

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Kshakal
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Kshakal
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OriginalCyn620 🙌🏻❤️😊 5y
22 likes1 comment
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Krystle13
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Pickpick

AMAZING. BRILLIANT. HEARTBREAKING. What an incredible journey these people faced. Just reading it, left me angry at times, heartbroken and then happy. A must read! 🇨🇦 2018 Winner CANADA READS

31 likes2 stack adds
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Krystle13
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The city I was born! What a heart renching book this is turning out to be!!!!😢

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Krystle13
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Started this book yesterday while doing a 12hr shift... hopefully have some quiet here in the ER department so I can read more today!!!! Day 7 of a 12 day stretch...😐

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thereadingowlvina
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#qotd 🙂

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thereadingowlvina
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Pickpick

"Every story has two sides. My life depended on my sides coming together." - Mark Sakamoto

Forgiveness is a heart-rending and bittersweet family memoir that spans over three generations.

Rating: 4.5?

For my full review please visit https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2780846698

#cbccanadareads2018winner

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Krystle13
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Just waiting for The Wife Between Us to show up!! I love buying books!😍🤗 ( and a new umbrella, whenever spring decides to show up...Northern Alberta lIving...🤔)

CouronneDhiver I loved that Liz Nugent one... sooooo good! 6y
Bookladylinda Currently listening to Watching You! It‘s so good. 6y
Krystle13 The sounded great! I hope they are. LOL 6y
22 likes3 comments
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Naomis-shelf
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Pickpick

So amazing!!! Everyone should read this book! Side note: this is the 100th book I have read this year! I am very proud I reached my goal!

wanderinglynn Congrats! 100 books in 6 mos is awesome! 🎉🙌🏻 6y
Lq77 Yes this was a great read! And being Canadian it was interesting to hear about this moment in history. 6y
3 likes1 stack add2 comments
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xicanti
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Bailedbailed

I feel terrible about this, but I can't finish FORGIVENESS. Sakamoto covers important ground--his grandpa's years as a POW, his grandma's time in an internment camp, and his own experiences with an alcoholic mother--but...

I'm just gonna say it, okay? His prose reads like bad journalism. The first 75 pages are a stream of recollections and tangential facts with many of the connectors missing and some awkward dialogue mixed in. I've gotta bail.

xicanti I should add that this is why I always used to avoid memoirs. It feels awful when you've gotta criticize someone's deeply personal story. 6y
35 likes1 comment
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xicanti
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They're renovating my usual library branch, so today I wandered on over to the one I used when I was a teenager. It's all fancy in there now, and I had a good time learning where everything is.

And I got books! FORGIVENESS off the Express Bestsellers cart, more Green Arrow from the comics shelf, and this year's Pride guide from the pamphlets.

TricksyTails Forgiveness looks interesting. I‘ll be looking forward to your thoughts! 7y
xicanti @TricksyTails alas, as of 40 pages in my thoughts are, "Damn; this guy's prose style is DULL." I'm gonna give it at least another chapter or two because it's an important story, but I don't think I'll be reccing this year's Canada Reads winner. 6y
TricksyTails Welp, that‘s disappointing! 6y
43 likes3 comments
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dixi_e
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Finally getting around to reading the #CanadaReads winner. It‘s going to have to be flawless to change my mind about the fact that it was NOT the right winner.

TheKidUpstairs Which one were you pulling for? 7y
BookishTrish Have you got a package from me recently? 6y
dixi_e @BookishTrish yes! Just posted it. Looks amazing. 6y
dixi_e @TheKidUpstairs The Boat People or Marrow Thieves. I‘ve come to a standstill in my reading of Forgiveness because I utterly fail to see how this could be considered better than either of those. 6y
12 likes4 comments
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Brenda
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My TBR pile just got taller. #canadareads 🇨🇦📚

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RachLovesTV
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Pickpick

The last book I read in March ended up being the winner of #CanadaReads!

The backbone of this memoir is the alternating stories of Sakamoto's grandparents. Frank, a soldier, survived years in prisoner camps in Japan. Mitsue was forced to moved to rural Alberta to work as a farm laborer. But the heart of this story is how instead of holding on to bitterness and anger, each chose hope and forgiveness, moving on instead of living in the past.

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EricaReads
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I haven‘t been following Canada Reads and this is the first I‘ve heard of the winner, but it sounds fascinating!
http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/jeanne-beker-championing-forgiveness-wins-ca...

#Canadareads2018

16 likes1 stack add
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NerdyRev
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I wanted to wait a few hours, but congratulations to Mark Sakamoto for winning this year‘s Canada Reads. I read the other 4 books and kept putting this one aside. Just goes to show you. I said on day 2, I don‘t think the US will ever have a show where people cry defending a book. One celeb donated 50 copies each of two of the other books to his local school system. Time to read this one. I had American War or Marrow Thieves as my picks.

LeahBergen I really enjoyed the panel this year and how passionately they defended each book. ❤️ 7y
LauraJ Canada sounds like a wonderful place. 7y
NerdyRev @LeahBergen I did too. I didn‘t enjoy Day 2 when they were yelling over each other, but overall I liked the panel‘s passion this year. 7y
NerdyRev @lauraj I am not there either, but would love to be. It is where my wife and I go on vacation often. 7y
24 likes4 comments
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Shay
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One more book to read before #CanadaReads starts on Monday!

4 likes1 stack add
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Blueberry
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58 likes1 stack add
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Blueberry
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My fourth #Canadareads book. I had to order this one from the San Francisco library.
And a Starbucks hot chocolate which I sooo needed today.

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Book_devourer
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“I am here on behalf of 6 million Jews who were slaughtered for no reason other than being Jews. The ghost of Hitler still works in Canada.” Page 156. I am appaled to learn that in Canada -Japanese Canadians (even those born in Canada) were hated, driven out and persecuted in 1945.

RaimeyGallant Oh yes. Canada AND the U.S. both had internment camps. Famous environmentalist and Canadian David Suzuki spent the first years of his life in one in British Columbia. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vWE184dyirs 7y
mommamatch Canada also turned away Jewish refugees fleeing from Hitler...a sad but true part of our history. 7y
4 likes1 stack add2 comments
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Sassy_Steph
Pickpick

What an amazing story! I never knew anything about this time in our history, I do now and I now know how strong these people were and how they suffered! I feel incredibly lucky that this was so eye opening and shocking to me! That is all because of the sacrifices people made for me to be able to live with the freedom I do! Read this beautiful, remarkable story!!

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Sassy_Steph

This book is so incredible! So much struggle, I love that there are pictures of the family throughout so you see these are actual people, this isn‘t just a story! These atrocities actually happened to these people! Hoping to finish this today!!

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JacqMac
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Pickpick

Finished book 4 #CanadaReads “Breaking down is the easy part. Anyone, at anytime, can break down. The act of coming together again is what makes a hero.” This one had me ugly crying.

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Sassy_Steph
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Love this!!!!

AmyG Ha! That‘s me with A Little Life. 7y
tammysue Yes!! 7y
Jess7 Haha 7y
24 likes3 comments
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JacqMac
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I had to get up at 5am to drive the hubby to the bus station. He has a meeting in another city today and the bus is safer than driving in the winter. I treated myself to a large steeped tea and some reading before the kids woke up.

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Sassy_Steph
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Jess7 💙💙 7y
15 likes1 comment
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Sassy_Steph
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