I didn't like this at all. Mild spoilers.

First: there was a lot of promise. I wanted a deep exploration of Japan during and after WWII, and I wanted a deep exploration of the main character's mixed race identity, especially with her father being Black. I wanted a deep exploration of how two beat up kids grew up together and strengthened each other. I wanted to see the main character grow, embrace her identity, connect with and hopefully celebrate her Blackness, realize she has potential and empower herself. I love stories about families, stories of identity, and the setting was fascinating! And I wanted to hype up this Black female author on her first book.

It's a really great premise!

But the execution sucked.
- another reviewer called it "tragedy porn" and that's exactly what it is
- despite how it's everything terrible all the time, the writing reads extremely melodramatic. The MC is often literally falling to her knees bc of bad news (for example, when her brother wanted to go on a trip, see more on that below), biting her lip till it bleeds, or vomiting in distress. But she doesn't really "deal" with her trauma, she lives her whole life as a victim and martyr
- I picked this up because it sounded like a story of a pair of siblings meeting later and growing up together, but it ended up with Nori having a deep romantic obsession with her half brother where he was often condescending, controlling, and cruel to her, almost abusive
- poor capture of Japanese culture. I'm not an expert, but siblings, other family, or friends don't really hug, and it'd be absolutely bizarre for a brother and sister to be grabbing onto each other and kissing on the cheeks, etc (pretty weird here in the states too). Very unusual to have a crucifix or Christian god, which is not a common religion, especially for an extremely traditional family that seems to hate Westeners (I think they call her father a dirty American). Not impossible, but it could have been acknowledged and explained. Similarly with some of the descriptions of the home and furniture, just sounded out of place for a very traditional family obsessed with continuing on their name. Yukata aren't made of silk.
- glossed over a lot of weird things like Nori becoming fluent in English in just a few weeks, despite no formal education
- Japanese language was pretty good but sometimes awkward
- boring characters. They all sound the same as the author when narrating. I don't like perspective shifts, I think it's overdone. Not a lot of growth, just sudden decisions. Really key decisions like Nori trying to find her Mom after 20 years are not explained and there's no build up
- uninteresting writing with lots of non- sentences for emphasis.
Such as this.
And this.
- lots of classist undertones; no matter how abusive or dysfunctional their family is they never consider leaving or starting a new life without them. (They say "her spies are everywhere!") They instead continue to fight with their extremely abusive grandparents in order to make sure they maintain their status and wealth. (Enough money to "buy several islands", but those girls in the brothel will just have to figure out some other way to make ends meet once it's shut down). Lots of "oh let the servents handle that!"
- the ending was indeed stupid, as others mentioned
- again as others mentioned we only got a few words for rain. The title I think is supposed to allude to 50 ways for MC's life to get fucked

I really don't like historical fiction. I like history. I like fiction. But this genre always ends up depressing with poor writing imo.