Product Description
Written in startlingly beautiful prose, Harmless Like You is set across New York, Berlin, and Connecticut, following Yuki Oyama, a Japanese girl fighting to make it as an artist, and Yuki's son Jay who, as an adult in the present day, is forced to confront the mother who abandoned him when he was only two years old.
The novel opens when Yuki is sixteen and her father is posted back to Japan. Though she and her family have been living as outsiders in New York City, Yuki opts to stay, intoxicated by her friendship with the beautiful aspiring model Odile, the energy of the city, and her desire to become an artist. But when she becomes involved with an older man and the relationship turns destructive, Yuki's life is unmoored.
Harmless Like You is a suspenseful novel about the complexities of identity, art, adolescent friendships, and familial bonds, which asks―and ultimately answers―how does a mother desert her son?
The novel opens when Yuki is sixteen and her father is posted back to Japan. Though she and her family have been living as outsiders in New York City, Yuki opts to stay, intoxicated by her friendship with the beautiful aspiring model Odile, the energy of the city, and her desire to become an artist. But when she becomes involved with an older man and the relationship turns destructive, Yuki's life is unmoored.
Harmless Like You is a suspenseful novel about the complexities of identity, art, adolescent friendships, and familial bonds, which asks―and ultimately answers―how does a mother desert her son?
Reviews/Praise
"Emily Woo Zeller and P.J. Ochlan provide clear, well-paced readings of both Yuki's and Jay's sections of the tale." —Library Journal Audio Review
"Lyrical and evocative . . . Buchanan reminds us, the ethereal dreams of the 1960s shaped the all-too-solid contours of the world we inhabit today." —New York Times
“This elegant and moving novel burns slowly, building in intensity as it develops to explore the subjects of identity, alienation and desire.” —The Daily Mail
“It’s the subtle brilliance of Buchanan’s back-to-front tale that really left me reeling.” —Stylist Magazine
“It’s pretty rare that a book takes my breath away. But I guarantee Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s beautiful debut, Harmless Like You, will do just that . . . Buchanan nails decades-long loneliness in a way that will leave your heart hurting.” —The Pool