The Commoner - John Burnham Schwartz

I became interested in this book because once again it was listed under reading material under "Japanese reading".  You know the one thing I love about books is the that they still have the ability to surprise me and spur my curiosity about the world around me.

John Burnham Schwartz basis this book loosely on Empress Michiko, current Empress Consort in Japan.  She was the first non-aristocratic woman to marry into the Imperial household. 

Haruko was born into a well to do family (her fathers was nicknamed the Sake King) in the late 40's.  In 1959 she meets the current crown prince in a tennis match and they start spending more and more time together.  Eventually this leads to a marriage proposal...then 3 more.  Finally she accepts and it's her story of adjusting to imperial life.

The whole book is told through Haruko's eyes.  While not used to reading about Japan in the latest centuries I still found the story itself intriguing.  And the fact that John speaks as a woman throughout the whole book, while it threw me a bit in the beginning, it still got the story told.  The first part of the book was interesting enough - Haruko's life and relationship with her parents as an only child.  Her relationship in particular with her father mirrors the same relationship I have with my father and that endeared them to me much more so.  After she marries the crown prince I found the book to almost lose heart like Haruko herself, the life seems to leave the book and it ends abruptly.  Like the last 5-6 chapters jump in time considerably with no concept of telling the story anymore.  Almost as if the author either didn't have the time to finish telling it, or lost interest.  The ending left me feeling like I still wanted to grasp at the story.  Which prompted me to start researching the real Empress Consort and her daughter-in-law. 

I dunno maybe that was the point of the book, to reach out to the reader and say hey, this is an interesting story and delve deeper into what it takes to live as royalty in our modern world.

If you don't pick up the book, at least Google Empress Michiko.  And who knows maybe that will prompt you to read the book to gain a better understanding of what it truly means to have that fairytale romance with royalty...