Hardcover, 220 Pages
Fiction/ Japanese/ Magical Realism
By: Sลsuke Natsukawa, Louise Heal Kawai (Translator)
Rating: ๐๐๐ 3/4
I am very grateful for Jon for sending me a hardcover copy of this book for my birthday. The cover is shiny and has a cat so it can’t get much better than that. To be honest, I hadn’t heard of this book before I got my copy despite it being an international best selling book and after I got my copy I started seeing it everywhere.
The book is a magic realism book which is a genre that I try to avoid as much as possible since it doesn’t work for me but it is a book about books and it has a cat so it was tempting. The book at this moment has an average rating of 3.74 stars and I am going with 3.75 stars so I agree with the general rating of the book.
The story follows a young boy inheriting a bookshop that belonged to his grandpa and we see him going into magical adventures all related to books and all have exhortations regarding books so I think this book will be enjoyed by bookworms who read all genres. I think the more books the reader read before and the more they know aboutย the book community the more they will enjoy the story. Some of the lessons included are enjoying books without seeing them as physical trophies to collect. Taking our time to enjoy what we want because it is not a competition about numbers and trying to discover all kind of books and not only those trending ones.
The writing is good, I think some of the things get lost in translation but for the majority of the book, I enjoyed the writing and it was easy to go through. I think the ending is a bit weird because it can be left to individual interpretation of what happens but not in a very complex way.
Summary: I got introduced to this book by chance and I enjoyed it pretty much. The story is essential for all readers because it contains a few basic lessons that I see readers forget all the time. Magical reason rarely works for me but I think this cute novel made it work. Thanks again to Jon for the birthday gift
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The book prescription 
I’ve seen a few reviews for this recently so it’s obviously popular. Like you, I tend to avoid magic realism so I’m not sure if it’s a book for me or not. I think it’s one that I would pick up if I see it in the library but can’t see me buying it. Thanks for the review.
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In earlier times most bookshops and libraries had a cat. The reason? The chase the mice who were nibbling at the books. You can indeed say write that cats have saved many books.
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My pleasure ๐
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