A novelist on a remote island in the Pacific is linked to a bullied and depressed Tokyo teenager after discovering a Hello Kitty lunchbox that washed ashore.

NUBClub eventually discovered a trend in many of the books we read -- a strong beginning that lead to a completely disappointing end. A Tale of the Time Being was probably the first book that showed us this. Ozeki's core story about Nao's journey from her alienation from her surrounding and her family is convincing and moving. Nao is a terrific protagonist, and it was easy for us to identify with her struggles. We felt a lot of connection with Nao's depression and recovery through her connection with her grandmother's diary, and Ozeki creates a very believable journey in her recovery. If the book remained a story about a young woman finding a way out of her diasporic life and problems with her father in a connection with her past, it would have been a well-written and moving tale. But Ozeki ties it together with a time travel now that's oddly self-referential, tying together multiple characters in an explanation of Nao's grandmother that feels not only tacked on, but actually undermining of the emotional journey Ozeki spend the rest of the book building. We all agreed that the novel would have been much stronger if Ozeki didn't feel the need to tie all the elements together so tightly and just left the connections unexplained. A Tale for a Time Being is a good novel, but the end simply doesn't live up the poignant journey that Ozeki sets up through the rest of the work.