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| | Ash review (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14) |
 | | This drama leads to some of the most affecting passages in the novel, especially when Caitlin is reunited in Kyoto with her "number-two family," the family of her best friend from childhood. |
 | | The novel is less effective, though, when the narrator, like Caitlin, withholds for many pages a clear explanation of what happened in the past. |
 | | Though the novel, at times, veers toward melodrama, and more could be said about the biracial's teens problems, instead of having her resolution subsumed by Caitlin's drama, "Ash" successfully shows a Japan through Western eyes that isn't the exotic locale of samurai and geisha but a place where an American can have powerful, emotional connections. |
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