If I could use only one word to describe this book, I would use: adorable.
Thankfully, there is no word count limitation in the world of this bookworm, so here’s everything else I have to say about it.
Rintaro Natsuki is a teenager when his grandfather dies. Suddenly, it’s just him and the Natsuki Books bookshop. This second-hand bookshop sounds amazing; completely unassuming but with a unique collection of collector’s items and a proprietor who knows a lot about books.
Without parents and now without his grandfather as well, Rintaro rightfully feels lost and scared. He quits going to school, and stays back to run the shop until his aunt has made the necessary arrangements to sell the business and take him in. Two of his classmates visit him: the popular and smart Akiba, and class representative and music geek Sayo. They both try to convince him to come back to school, and assure him he’s being missed by his classmates. Rintaro isn’t so sure about that and prefers to stay at the bookshop. So, they make it a mission to regularly check in on him.
Someone else to enter the shop, is Tiger the tabby. This cat isn’t just any tabby, it can talk. And it’s telling Rintaro that he needs to go on a mission. A mission to save books from people who mistreat them. Rintaro doesn’t know what else to do, and simply follows the cat through a doorway that hadn’t existed before, only to find himself emerge on the other side inside the big home of a book collector. The man claims to care so much for books that he locks them in cabinets, behind bars. Rintaro has to discover why this is wrong, what the threat is, and how to resolve it.
Sayo happens to be in the shop when Tiger the tabby appears for the second mission. She won’t hear “no” and joins Rintaro and Tiger on the mission.
There is a total of four labyrinths for Rintaro to finish. In between challenges he is back at the shop, faced with the painful reality of life. Although hesitant and scared during the first mission, he’s happy to dive in by the time mission number three is announced.
The only thing in this book I had a bit of trouble with, was the timeline. At one point it’s made clear that everybody is concerned about Rintaro still grieving and not feeling up to joining daily life, because it had been two whole days since his grandfather’s memorial which seemed extreme to me. I’m jotting this down to cultural differences.
This book is a very nicely written modern fairy tale. True to fairy-tale style the moral of the story is loud and unmistakable, but it’s so nicely done that I’m willing to accept that.
If you like to read fairy-tales, fantasy, anything to do with books, reading, or cats, you’ll like this book.
Bookworm in the City 