✦ SYNOPSIS ✦
Katsuyamas never quit – but seventeen-year-old CJ doesn’t even know where to start. She’s never lived up to her mom’s type A ambition, and she’s perfectly happy just helping her aunt, Hannah, at their family’s flower shop.
She doesn’t buy into Hannah’s romantic ideas about flowers and their hidden meanings, but when it comes to arranging the perfect bouquet, CJ discovers a knack she never knew she had. A skill she might even be proud of.
Then her mom decides to sell the shop -to the family who swindled CJ’s grandparents when thousands of Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps during WWII. Soon a rift threatens to splinter CJ’s family, friends, and their entire Northern California community; and for the first time, CJ has found something she wants to fight for.

✦ ROOTS ARE IMPORTANT ✦
The book This Time Will be Different is all about family and the importance of its roots. Hannah is the one who tells CJ that she should never forget who she is. She tells CJ about their family history and how they never forgave what McAllister did to them. However, CJ’s mom has something little different to say.
She tells CJ that it is important they forget about their past and just move on because owning the flower shop doesn’t bring them any money. Hannah goes mad everytimes CJ’s mom mentions this fact, but they avoid fighting in front of CJ. Also, the fact that CJ’s mom doesn’t tell CJ anything about her father shows that she simply doesn’t care about family roots.

✦ THE IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSITY IN STORIES ✦
I can’t stress how important it is to have some kind of diversity in books. You can hate the book, but reading about various topic will make it better. The same goes for this book. I personally didn’t enjoy this book because it was just too much. It takes a lot of time to get into the story and I found CJ boring but what I really liked is that there are various interesting topics such as lesbian and gay issues, racism, and Japanese culture in America. It was refreshing to read about it and especially I liked reading about Japanese culture. It is so interesting and I rarely find something like this.

✦CARING ABOUT YOUR FUTURE ✦
This is the topic I’m really excited to write about. While I was reading this book, I noticed that CJ’s mom is always looking for new jobs for her daughter. She tells CJ how important is to educate yourself and I really loved it. It is important to take every chance you get, in order to have a bright future ahead. Unfortunately, CJ simply doesn’t care about it, and she’s not interested in such things, which is bad because she is only 17.

✦ OVERALL ✦
I was so excited to read this book because its story sounded intriguing, but I ended up being slightly disappointed. It takes a lot of time to get into the plot, and some parts of it are just confusing. However, I enjoyed reading about various topics and putting some romance into it is just one big plus.

My rating: 3/5⭐