The Japanese word gaijin means “unwelcome foreigner.” It’s not profanity, but is sometimes a slur directed at non-Japanese people in Japan. My novel is called Gaijin…

Lucy is a budding journalist at Northwestern University and she’s obsessed with an exotic new student, Owen Ota, who becomes her lover and her sensei. When he disappears without explanation, she’s devastated and sets out to find him. On her three-month quest across Japan she finds only snippets of the elegant culture Owen had described. Instead she faces anti-U.S. protests, menacing street thugs and sexist treatment, and she winds up at the base of Mt. Fuji, in the terrifying Suicide Forest. Will she ever find Owen? Will she be driven back to the U.S.? Gaijin is a coming-of-age story about a woman who solves a heartbreaking mystery that alters the trajectory of her life.

Thank you so much to Running Wild Press for the copy of this lyrical debut from ex-journalist Sarah Sleeper! The plot, when looked at for the first time, seems like a fantastical journey that would take a lot of effort to relate to. However, even though the novel is mostly set in Japan and is rife with other customs and lifestyles that readers may not be familiar with, it is, at its core, a story about finding your way in this thing we call life. Who among us can’t relate to that struggle of thinking you’ve found your path, only to end up drowning on dry land? Sarah’s protagonist, Lucy, shows us, in an incredibly creative way, how it is a human trait we all share.

Lucy decides to search for Owen, a man of Japanese descent that she had been teaching who disappeared from her life. She uproots everything to move to Okinawa, which is in the middle of a crisis. Between this stress and find out some possibly horrific news about Owen himself, Lucy is crushed. Nothing is turning out as she planned, and it’s up to her to figure out what she’s really doing in Japan. Is she only trying to solve the mystery that is this man she thinks she loves, or is she on a greater quest to understanding that perhaps other cultures are not as mystifying or different as some would have us believe. She ends up learning that maybe we’re all gaijin in a way; muddling our way through life and never truly connecting with others, just passing like ships in the night.

This book was beautifully written, and you could clearly tell that Sarah has been practicing her craft for most of her life. It flows incredibly well and makes this story a very quick read, and an insightful one. It shows the strength and intensity of first love. It explores the pain and the beauty of growth and change. It holds the term ‘outsider’ close and turns it into something to be celebrated. It reminds you to keep going and to follow your heart, even when all seems lost. This novel is a sad but uplifting tale, and it was very fun to see a side of the world that I may never experience first hand. See below for an excerpt!

5/5 stars