Water Moon

Imagine walking through the door of a cozy Tokyo ramen restaurant only to find yourself in a strange little pawn shop where the owner offers you tea and asks if you’d like to sell him your deepest regret in life. Welcome to the Pawnshop of Almosts and Ifs.

Toshio Ishikawa has spent a lifetime collecting these life choices so their owners no longer have to carry them. As things go, there are other powerful beings who come to collect them for their own purposes, and the consequences of any of them going missing is dire - something Toshio has painfully experienced when his wife stole a choice years ago.

On his first day of retirement, when daughter Hana is set to take over the shop, she finds it ransacked and Toshio missing, along with a highly valuable pawned choice. At that moment,  young physicist Keishin walks through the door expecting ramen and finds himself in the middle of chaos. Instead of offering Hana a regret, he offers her his help and from here the story takes flight.

These characters took me on one of the most magical, creative, dream-like adventures I’ve experienced in the pages of a book! I was immersed into a fantastical world of beauty and darkness where, as the book often reminds us, “nothing is as it seems”. Hana and Keishin come from two different worlds … literally, but watching Hana’s ethereal world mix with Keishin’s scientific one was fascinating.

I used to watch a lot of anime with my daughter when she was younger and fell in love with stories set in and about Japan, and also with the style of storytelling. There’s an emotional depth and imagination that it taps into that feels unmatched sometimes. I can see why other readers have made comparisons to Studio Ghibli or anime in general, because the highly visual details and emotional storyline would lend itself beautifully to the screen. I can only hope an adaptation is made!

I could quote this book all day. For all the visual and emotional beauty, there’s a deeply philosophical quality to it that examines the choices we make, the beliefs and regrets we hold onto and the power of changing our perspective on the past. That aspect reminded me a bit of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library. The story isn’t perfect and gets a little confusing at the end, but its good qualities far outweighed any minor complaints. I would let Samantha Sotto Yambao’s imagination take me anywhere!

If you like speculative fiction, cozy fantasy, adventure, mystery, magical realism, a touch of sci-fi and romance - it’s got a mix of them all. I listened to the audiobook for maybe two minutes and didn’t care for the narrator’s style, so I don’t personally recommend the audio, but it may work better for others. I highly recommend this!

★★★★ ½  (rounded to 5)

Thanks to Random House Publishing Group / Del Ray, NetGalley and author Samantha Sotto Yambao for this digital ARC to honestly review. It’s out now.

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I’ll leave you with some favorite quotes:

Broken things have a unique kind of beauty, don’t you think?

Happiness has little to do with what you have, and everything to do with what you do not.

Losing your way is oftentimes the only way to find something you did not know you were looking for.

I have learned that most people do not wish to hear the answers they seek.

Books do not find value when they are written. They find value when they are read. Every book here is both worthless and priceless at the same time. It depends on who you ask.

I have learned that there is nothing to be gained from stealing other people’s happiness. No matter how much you have stolen, it is not something that you can ever use for yourself.

There is a river that runs between knowing and understanding.

For the same reason all fools give up good things. We look at our hands and wonder what we could hold if they were empty.

Learning to live with freedom is almost as difficult as learning to live without it.