title: Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by: Yagisawa, Satoshi published: 2023-07-04 read: 2024-09-08 preview

Takako has a boyfriend. But,

One day, Hideaki, the boyfriend I’d been going out with for a year, suddenly blurted out, “I’m getting married.” When I first heard him, my mind was filled with questions. Now, if he’d said, “Let’s get married,” I would’ve understood. Or if he’d said, “I want to get married,” I still would’ve understood. But “I’m getting married” was just weird. Marriage, after all, is a covenant based on mutual agreement, so grammatically the sentence was completely wrong.

But it wasn’t: he has two girlfriends, and at a certain point engages with the other.

I sat there in a daze listening to the words coming out of his mouth. Then, I muttered, “Oh, that’s good.” Even I was surprised by what I’d said. “Oh, thanks, but you know we can still see each other sometimes,” he said with a big smile. It was his usual smile—how sporting of him. He didn’t have a care in the world.

Takako is shocked, flees to her uncle Satoru’s bookstore after he offers her free room and board. She spends the first days or weeks sleeping, then opens her eyes to the world and starts reading. But it isn’t long when she decides to get back to her life, find a new job, leaving her uncle alone. He had been left by his wife Momoko years ago.

And while Takako restarts her life, and tries to find a boyfriend, Momoko returns to the bookstore. Reason enough for the two to go on a hiking trip, and Momoko to tell her life story to Takako.

Well, things develop, and in the end everyone finds or rediscovers their relationships. Momoko and Satoru; Takako with her new love Wada: “You just fit in so well in the store that I wanted to let you be. It was almost like that moment when you’re watching a butterfly coming out of its chrysalis, and you’re holding your breath, and you want to keep on watching . . . I guess you left a big impression on me.

A bestseller, for its sentimentalism, its slow pace as I know and like it in many a Japanese novel, and its subdued euphoria. I liked the book, and may one day perhaps get the sequel. Or not.