A Tale for the Time Being

I read the first page and was hooked. A Japanese teenager is sitting in a French maid cafe, writing to an unknown 'you.' Already there was so much I wanted to know.
Nao is the teenager and she wants to die. But first she wants to tell the story of Jiko, her 104-year old great-grandmother, an early feminist and rebel and now a Buddhist nun (and who I would like to be when I grow up.) Nao's voice seems absolutely authentic--she's vulnerable, tough, witty, kind, ruthless, ...