BOOK REVIEW: THE CAT WHO SAVED BOOKS by SOSUKE NATSUKAWA

BOOK REVIEW: THE CAT WHO SAVED BOOKS by SOSUKE NATSUKAWA

Picador
September 2021
Paperback, $19.99
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar

Magical Realism, Fiction

80%

Sosuke Natsukawa, a Japanese physician, welcomes you into the lonely world of Rintaro Natsuki, with the help of translator Louise Heal Kawai.

Rintaro is what the Japanese refer to as hikikomari – what we Westerners might call a withdrawn misfit teen – whose life is upturned when his guardian and Grandfather pass away suddenly. Left to tend the secondhand bookshop where he and Gramps lived, Rintaro starts missing school and withdrawing even further from his peers, and is not looking forward to being forced to move to live with an aunt he barely knows.

Until a mysterious, talking feline named Tiger appears, and takes him on a journey to another reality to help save some books which are being mistreated.

Rintaro must call on a spirit stronger and wiser than he realised he possessed to help his new, rather rude, pussycat friend, and afterwards is left wondering if the adventure was just a dream.

Enter Sayo Yuzuki, Rintaro’s neighbour and classmate and – unbeknownst to either of them yet – excited co-adventurer and possible first love.

The Cat Who Saved Books is a charmingly simple, whimsical and somewhat philosophical novel about how much books mean in our lives, and also how real human magic can be right in front of us if we just open our eyes to it.

 

Category: Book Reviews