Double Review: We Are Not Free by Traci Chee and The Awakening Storm by Jaimal Yogis & Vivian Truong | A Heartfelt Story of WW2 and an Entertaining MG Fantasy

Hey, everyone! It’s the first review of 2022! I haven’t done a book review in little while; I noticed that I’ve started doing fewer reviews because I’ve discovered so many other book-related posts in the year I’ve been blogging. But book reviews are still pretty much the core of my blog.

Today, I’ll be reviewing two books: We Are Not Free by Traci Chee and The Awakening Storm by Jaimal Yogis and Vivian Truong. The books are very different from each other, with the first being a historical fiction about the Japanese incarceration camps, while the latter is a fantasy involving dragons and unpredictable villains. I’m reviewing We Are Not Free first, so here we go!

Title: We Are Not Free
Author: Traci Chee
Genre: Historical Fiction, Young Adult
Series: None
Page Count: 384 (Hardcover)

“All around me, my friends are talking, joking, laughing. Outside is the camp, the barbed wire, the guard towers, the city, the country that hates us.

We are not free.
But we are not alone.” 

We Are Not Free, is the collective account of a tight-knit group of young Nisei, second-generation Japanese American citizens, whose lives are irrevocably changed by the mass U.S. incarcerations of World War II.

Fourteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco.
Fourteen teens who form a community and a family, as interconnected as they are conflicted.
Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps.
In a world that seems determined to hate them, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart.

Content Warnings

racism (slurs, hate crimes) – death – bloodshed – war themes

There are no spoilers in this review.

We Are Not Free was my last read of 2021 and boy, was it a good one. Glad I was able to finish out the year with a good book. I learn a lot from historical fiction books and this one was no exception. It also made me fall in love with the found family trope even more.

While I was writing this review, I realized that I read two books about WW2 in December: We Are Not Free and The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. They were each their own book, focusing on a different part of the war. We Are Not Free focuses on the Japanese Americans who got forced into camps, while The Nightingale centers around two sisters on the other side of the world in Paris, France. It made me think about how there are so many aspects to war. There are thousands of different perspectives on WW2 alone; I just read two of them.

We Are Not Free is set in the United States during World War II, around the early 1940s. The Pearl Harbor bombing by the Japanese military has just occured and anyone of Japanese ancestry is hated and discriminated against. They are labeled as dangerous and a threat to America; in 1942, the government forced all Japanese, even those with U.S. citizenship, into incarceration camps.

“The earth trembles under our weight, the weight of all of us, more than two hundred Japs, moving and immovable. But it doesn’t break. And neither do I.”

Novels are hard to write. Multi-perspective novels are like a whole nother level. You don’t have to know just one character really well, you have to know a bunch of characters really well, including their thought processes and how they view the world. Traci Chee wrote this book with fourteen different perspectives! If that’s not impressive, I don’t know what is.

I was a little skeptical when I first discovered the number of narrators; I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to keep track of all the names or remember who everyone was. But once I started reading it, I discovered that I didn’t need to worry about keeping track. We get narrations from fourteen different young, Nisei Japanese-Americans. They span the teenage years, some even at young adulthood. I really admire Traci Chee for her ability to create and write such distinct character voices. Each chapter was from a different perspective and I had no trouble differentiating who was who. They all had their own personality, with strengths and flaws, and unique outlooks on the world around them.

Each character experienced their struggles individually, but those struggles are also what brought them together. Having 14 POVs made it easier to connect with all the characters and understand what they experienced. I also think this is part of what makes We Are Not Free stand out from other historical fiction novels. The fact that we get so many POVs isn’t something I normally see in this genre. 

The family they formed with each other was so precious, having each other to lean on for support or lend someone else their own support. I lived for those moments in the book.

Traci Chee does not back away from the brutal history of the Japanese incarceration camps. I felt so much for these characters whenever they experienced an unjust act of violence towards them. In her author’s note, Chee said that she weaved some of her own relative’s experiences into the story, which I think, in part, made this story so emotionally raw and real.

“Gaman. The ability to hold your pain and bitterness inside you and not let them destroy you. To make something beautiful through your anger, or with your anger, and neither erase it nor let it define you. To suffer. And to rage. And to persevere.”

We Are Not Free is a poignant story of change, loss, and staying positive even in the toughest of times. It’s a story of finding hope and family–of supporting one another. I will recommend this book forever.

My Rating: 5/5 dragons

Title: The Awakening Storm
Author: Jaimal Yogis and Vivian Troung (Illustrator)
Genre: Fantasy, Middle Grade
Series: City of Dragons #1
Page Count: 233 (Paperback)

Grace and her friends must protect a newly hatched dragon from mysterious evildoers.

When Grace moves to Hong Kong with her mom and new stepdad, her biggest concern is making friends at her fancy new boarding school. But when a mysterious old woman gifts her a dragon egg during a field trip, Grace discovers that the wonderful stories of dragons she heard when she was a young girl might actually be real–especially when the egg hatches overnight.

The dragon has immense powers that Grace has yet to understand. And that puts them both in danger from mysterious forces intent on abusing the dragon’s power. And now it’s up to Grace and her school friends to uncover the sinister plot threatening the entire city!

Content Warnings

parent death (from cancer) – bullying – racism

There are no spoilers in this review.

I do not remember the last time I read a graphic novel. It must’ve been a few years ago, since I haven’t come across one that I thought looked interesting in a while. This was a fun and quick, adventurous read with enjoyable characters and woven-in Chinese mythology.

We start off with Grace as a young girl. After getting bullied by some other kids because of her race, her father tells her the story of the Yellow Emperor. Fast forward three years, Grace is moving to Hong Kong with her mom and new stepfather. She’s nervous about making new friends at school, but that’s soon the least of her worries when a mysterious woman hands her a dragon egg during a field trip. Then the egg hatches overnight and Grace discovers that the stories she heard as a young girl might not be entirely fiction.

You can’t have a review for a graphic novel without talking about the artwork. I love all the colors that Vivian Truong used in her drawings; colorful and vibrant, they fit the mood of the story perfectly. I especially loved the dragons, of course; they were powerful and majestic.

“It’s the hand you’ve been dealt, Grace. Wake the kings.”

The adventure that Grace and her friends go on was enjoyable and entertaining. Dragons are one of my favorite mythical creatures, so I couldn’t pass up a chance to read about them. The plot ended on a cliffhanger and I’m interested to see where the story goes in the next books. Grace is a sweet and fun character. You can immediately see that she’s fierce and not afraid to stand up for herself. The characterization in this story was done really well. Even in the short amount of time that Grace’s father is present, you can really see the relationship that him and Grace share.

The other characters were great additions to the story as well. Ramesh was probably my favorite; he was so humorous and had a very inventive mind. I’d love to hang out him in real life, he’d be so interesting to talk to!

Overall, The Awakening Storm is an intriguing story, with characters you want to root for, beautiful artwork, and of course, dragons. I highly recommend this if you’re looking for a quick, enjoyable fantasy graphic novel.

My Rating: 4/5 dragons

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Have you read We Are Not Free or The Awakening Storm? Are they are on your TBR?
What are some historical fiction and fantasy books you recommend?