Behold, the second of two short “ack wait I’m not at my goal” books I read in the past three weeks to try to get to my 52 books a year goal. Am I going to make it? No. But I’ve made peace with it. But onward to the book!
Coming in at a mere 150 pages, I came upon this teeny book at a bookstore in Los Angeles (I swear, I just went in to look! I wasn’t going to buy anything! And other lies readers tell themselves…) and somehow found myself buying it (and another book. And a bookmark. I’M ONLY HUMAN). I settled in with a cup of coffee at a cafe and eagerly fell into this charming and uplifting story.
Our protagonist, Takako, has fallen into a bout of depression after the thunderous end of a romantic relationship. When contacted by her estranged uncle to help out at the family bookshop, she reluctantly travels to Jimbocho, a village with 200 bookstores, and takes up residence on the top floor of her uncle’s bookshop. She isn’t much of a reader and prefers to spend her days in bed, plagued with indecision and mistakes. But slowly, this stop she sees as a detour is going to change her life.
Let me just stop for a moment and make a very important announcement JIMBOCHO IS A REAL PLACE IN JAPAN. At present today, it has over 150 bookstores.
I KNOW. I FRIGGIN KNOW. I hope you were sitting down for that revelation (adds to bucket list). Even if a lot of the books are in Japanese, to wander a town of that many bookstores? What a dream!
Back to the book. This is a story of family and community, of writing past wrongs, and trying to be better one day at a time. The writing was a bit simplistic, but I chalk that up to the perils of being a translated work.
This was a completed story, so I don’t know what the sequel covers, but I’m going to pick it up as I found the first installment charming to be such a delight.