Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

One of the few non-SFF stories I've read, mainly due to the premise that it revolves around a bookshop. It is an interesting book, told from the first-person perspective of the young niece of the bookshop's owner, and mainly involves the relationship between the niece and her uncle, but with a few books thrown in.

At the start of the book, the niece breaks off her relationship with a co-worker, and moves to live at the bookshop at the invitation of her uncle to recover emotionally. At first, all she does is take care of the shop and sleep. But she gradually opens up after reading books from the shop, and starts to go out into the surroundings, which is famous in Japan as a second-hand bookshop area. She meets and interacts with various residents, getting to know them.

But she has not fully recovered from the break-up, and needs a push from her uncle to do so. She also discovers that her uncle also has secrets from his past, especially over the uncle's wife (the niece's aunt), which disappeared years ago, but suddenly reappears into the uncle's life. It would need a trip with the aunt to discover what happened in the past and the estrangement that occurred between the uncle and aunt. And now, it would be her turn to return to favour and push the uncle and aunt to reconcile.

In short, an enjoyable read about people who bond over books, with some interesting characters and relationships that revolve around books and the people who write and read them.

A disappointing read.

Author does not seem to have heard of 'show, not tell'.

Feelings are not felt - we are merely told that the characters have felt them. The descriptions, invariably of unimportant things, try to be cutely peculiar but come off as just strange.

It was impossible for him not to recognise that voice - as impossible as squeezing a hundred people into the Morisaki bookshop.

This is supposed to be an emotionally charged moment, and this is what you go with? Really?

The protagonist, Takako, who is supposed to be feeling some pretty strong things at some times, has her inner monologue written in such a flat way I have to actively try to empathize with her. This might be a problem with the writing style or with the translation, but it is a problem nonetheless.

Speaking of the protagonist, she is particularly annoying. When her ever-cheery aunt suddenly talks to her in a cold tone, she does not for a moment wonder why. Indeed, she does not ever seem to have a thought outside of the scenes written in the book.

<spoiler>The four romances in this book - protagonist and Hideaki, Takano and Tomo, uncle and aunt, and protagonist and Wada - are mostly below par.

Takano and Tomo have the most realistic and best developed romance in the book, and they disappear after the first part. The aunt and uncle have a believable relationship, even though the aunt often acts rather extremely.

Takako's relationship with Hideaki is so flat, and the events thereafter so cliche, I feel as if the book might have been better off without the whole thing. Her sadness about the whole thing, as written, seems perfunctory and appears only once or twice.

Takako's second relationship, with Akira Wada, is only a bit less flat. He is introduced halfway through the book, interacts with Takako only a few times, and once they do get in a relationship - offscreen - he is promptly forgotten about.</spoiler>

There are time skips which are poorly indicated and which do not have much effect on the story. <spoiler>Entire years pass between significant events, with no discernible change in the characters.</spoiler> The whole plot could have occured in an year or two and been no different.

The only thing I can call good in this book is a single quote near the beginning, and even that is quoting someone else. Most of the time, books are mentioned clumsily to try and show that Takako is a reader now - some more time showing that would have been better.