Review, "The Patriots: A historian follows one Japanese-American family from Depression-era Seattle to the internment camps, to Hiroshima," Amherst Magazine →

"That Sakamoto is able to tell such a long and multifaceted story with readable omnipresence is a remarkable achievement, and is clearly the product of many years of research and interviews. But more than just an engrossing tale of a family riven by war, this book is a valuable document that captures the lived experience of a group of Americans, patriotic despite the treatment they received from their government, who deserve as thorough a chronicle as our historians can offer." 

Review, "The unbelievable true story of a Japanese family that went to war with itself," Japan Times →

"A factual story of disrupted lives during wartime, it raises deep, timeless questions about loyalty to one's country and family....with a novelist's sense of pacing and pulsing, at times lyrical, language, Rotner Sakamoto weaves a seamless mosaic of historical research and personal accounts....Throughout the book, the narrative is impartial yet deeply moving, a genuine empathy marking both the Fukuharas and the author....Most people agree that truth is stranger than fiction. But this astonishing history, a milestone in cultural studies, shows that life can be more complex than common notions of national allegiance."
 

"10 New Non-business Books That Will Change The Way You Think, Feel, and Live," on linkedin.com →

By Andreas von der Heydt

"I realize that there are numerous exceptional books. Business books, fiction books, etc. However, there are only a few books which radiate the power and magic to transform us by the deep meaning of their words. Books which pass the ultimate test of being truly "great books" – books about which we continue thinking for a long time after we have finished them." 
Midnight in Broad Daylight... "an evocative homage to humanity and compassionate dignity."

 

Review, "'Midnight,' a compelling history of a Japanese-American family," USA TODAY →

"This deeply researched and elegantly written history is a rare human drama that spans the Japanese-American experience as few, if any, books have done....From the idyllic world-apart of Washington state to the hell-on-earth that Hiroshima would become, Sakamoto captures the large and small details of the Fukuharas' experience. This is a book that meticulously frames its subjects, as wartime urgencies -- and tragedies -- remake them."

Review | 'Midnight in Broad Daylight': War put brothers on opposite sides of conflict, The Columbus Dispatch →

"Without demonizing either the Americans or the Japanese, Sakamoto makes clear the cost of this war for both sides. Scrupulously sticking to her sources, she maintains a discreet distance from the story. By stepping away from high drama, and refraining from exaggeration, she allows the small shocks and surprises, both good and bad, of these lives to emerge naturally. In doing so, she finds a new angle on a war about which it might have seemed there was little fresh to say."

"The Japanese-American Officer Who Helped Take Down and Then Rebuild Japan," Whatitmeanstobeamerican.org →

Also published simultaneously on zocalopublicsquare.org and the blog for KCRW, Los Angeles's NPR Station. 

http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2016/01/28/the-japanese-american-officer-who-helped-take-down-and-then-rebuild-japan/chronicles/who-we-were/

http://zocalo-on.kcrw.com/2016/01/the-japanese-american-officer-who-helped-take-down-and-then-rebuild-japan/