In the Heart of the Valley of Love Author:Cynthia Kadohata Cynthia Kadohata explores human relationships in a Los Angeles of the future, where rich and poor are deeply polarized and where water, food, and gas, not to mention education, cannot be taken for granted. There is an intimate, understated, even gentle quality to Kadohata's writingthis is not an apocalyptic dystopiathat makes it difficult... more » to shrug off the version of the future embodied in her book.« less