Within These Lines

by Stephanie Morrill

[readingwithwrin]

4.5 stars
Publisher/ Fantastic Flying Book Club
Within These Lines is a fictional story of a very real dark time in American History. After Pearl Harbor Japanese American’s who lived on the coast were sent to camps. Propaganda was put out that made it seem like these camps were nice when in all actuality they weren’t well constructed and never had enough supplies. The government truly was not prepared for the number of people that were put in the camps nor did it seem like they cared.
Within These Lines follows two characters (Evalina and Taichi) and we see the story unfold from both of their pov’s. Taichi is a Japanese-American whose family is respectable farmers, and Evalina is an Italian American whose family owns a restaurant. The two have fallen for each other in a time when interracial relationships were not well thought of an illegal in most states. With Taichi being sent away and Evalina being left on her own to deal with the racial tension at home what happens next will change their lives forever.
Overall I really loved Within These Lines. Evalina was such a fearless character that was also scared and realistic and followed as many rules as possible. I want more characters like Evalina who are real and have flaws and ambitions and stand up for what they believe in. Besides her relationship with Taichi and how it made her be an activist for the Japanese community in a way, she also fought for a place at her university to work in law. We see her deal with the prejudice that came with that and how she had to learn to curb her opinions on things in papers.
Taichi is forced to live in the camps with his family and is dealing with the problems of camp life. Within These Lines really touches on some of the less talked about parts with the Japanese-Americans turning against each other in the camp and feeling like the others were spying on them. This is something I haven’t seen talked about before in a book that focuses on the Japanese camps. I also really liked how it showed an interracial relationship and the repercussions that came with that.
Together Taichi and Evalina were such a nice couple, they truly cared for one another and the relationship was fairly realistic for the time period in my opinion when it came to them dealing with being out in public and how their parents dealt with it.

I also liked how they each had different side characters and these were very detailed relationships and weren’t just fillers. You could tell they really cared for each of their friends and wanted them to be a part of their lives even if they didn’t always agree with them.

You can tell Morril really did her research when it came to this book and she was very honest in her authors note in how she did change a few details in order to better share Taichi and Evalina’s story.

I really want to go and read Morrill’s book from last year Lost Girl of Astor Street even more now after having read this one.