Ozeki, Ruth L

When Ruth finds a piece of debris washed up on a beach on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest she discovers the diary of sixteen-year-old Nao, living in Tokyo, who decides that death is the only escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying, but before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century.

Single mother Yumi Fuller returns home after a twenty-five-year absense to care for her ailing parents and walks into the middle of a clash between her parents' neighbors who are experimenting with growing genetically altered potatoes, and an environmentalist group, the Seeds of Resistance, who believe the elderly Fullers hold the key to propagating plant life on Earth.

Two women who lead dramatically different lives are thrown together to work on a documentary, and each one learns some shocking truths about life.