This story could've been amazing had it been trimmed down in length. The beginning was really good with them fleeing her father under mysterious circumstances, and then running into her uncle and fleeing again. Lots of good characterization and plot to keep me interested.
And then they went to Japan. Which, by the way, was a really odd choice when they're trying to hide. She stressed the point that they need to blend in, and they move arbitrarily to a country where they don't speak the language and they stand out in any crowd? I found that pretty bizarre. I haven't been to Japan, but I've been to non-tourist areas of China, and it would be a terrible place for me to try to hide (I'm Norwegian and German by blood). I was there with a Chinese co-worker, and if we got separated, all he had to do to find me was ask random strangers "Did you see a foreigner pass by?" and they could point him in the right direction. I'm not sure how international Japan was at the time of this story, but by details in the narration it sounded like a REALLY bad place to hide. Especially since they apparently had no reason to hide there, they just kind of said "Japan sounds cool" without considering the strengths of different locations.
Anyway, I was very interested throughout the beginning, and I was interested in the glass shard and what it could do. When she saw her uncle's past through it, I said "Oh, she can see the past through the shard". And then the shard disappears for like 20 minutes, only reapparing at about 45 minutes when she "discovers" that she can see the past through it. Didn't we already know that? At that point I realized that nothing substantive had happened for the last 20 minutes and I stopped.
