I LOVED Nao’s sections of this book and they’re the reason this is a five-star rating. So well-written, culturally informative, and engaging. I feel like Ruth’s sections were added in as an afterthought—they didn’t really contribute much to the story. I enjoyed her thoughts as an observer of Nao’s diary. but the interlacing of her life with the story just didn’t really make sense to me.

Overall, really excellent book. It was really hard to put down toward the end, and if there’s a sequel that details Nao’s life post-diary (from her own POV, with nobody else’s), I’ll snatch it up in a minute.