“I scooped the cat up and snuggled him against my chest for comfort. He was warm and soft, a smooth fluffy ball of fur in my arms. I’d cuddled up with the little guy countless times over the years without thinking much about it, but now, for the first time ever, it occurred to me that maybe this little act of comfort was what life was all about.” – 4.5/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: chocolate, talking cats, hawaiian clothes, clocks, soft fur, photo albums, choices, walks and the devil.

The international phenomenon that has sold over a million copies in Japan, If Cats Disappeared from the World is a funny, heartwarming, and profound meditation on the meaning of life.

The postman’s days are numbered. Estranged from his family, living alone with only his cat Cabbage to keep him company, he was unprepared for the doctor’s diagnosis that he has only months to live. But before he can tackle his bucket list, the Devil appears to make him an offer: In exchange for making one thing in the world disappear, our narrator will get one extra day of life. And so begins a very bizarre week…

With each object that disappears the postman reflects on the life he’s lived, his joys and regrets, and the people he’s loved and lost.

Genki Kawamura’s timeless tale is a moving story of loss and reconciliation, of one man’s journey to discover what really matters most in life.

This was my first time ever reading a book by a Japanese author (besides manga), and I absolutely loved it. This was exactly what I needed right now, a breath of fresh air.

If you don’t know what the book is about, it is a story about a man who just found out he has a tumor and has only a few months to live. Out of nowhere and dressed with vacation clothes, the Devil appears and tells the man that he can make him live a day longer for each thing he agrees to take from the world. Sounds interesting? I thought so too.

And yes, the title and premise may seem sad, but have no fear! What’s so great about this book is that it’s perfectly balanced: there are moments of deep reflection and heartbreak, but there is also a great dose of humour and lightness. Not only did I shed some tears, but I also laughed out loud in some of the chapters.

“If Cats Disappeared From the World” is about all the things we take for granted in our daily lives and what makes us human. Have you ever thought about how the concept of time (created by us humans) impacted our lives? What about cell phones? What if these things suddenly disappeared? But the thing is that not only big things like this impact our lives. What about a world without the taste of chocolate or the comfort we get from petting a cat?

The main character soon realizes what really makes life worth living and what connects us as humans. Life is too short! I loved this book and I highly recommend it. It’s a fairly short book, it’s wholesome and I’m sure it will leave an impact on you.

Side note: It was so funny how the first thing the devil wanted to take away from the world was chocolate, but then he tasted it and changed his mind. Can you blame him, honestly?

xoxo,

“That’s the thing about fairy-tale endings. They don’t exist. But the ones you have to share, with everyone you love around you and good food spread over the counters and the city you love spread out before the open window with all it’s glimmering magic and promise?
Those I could live with.” – 2/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: gang rivalry, comfort food, diversity, love advice, grandmothers, ghosts, butter, cooking competitions, pastries and superheroes.

A stunning collection of short stories about the intersection of family, culture, and food in the lives in teens, from bestselling and critically acclaimed authors, including Sandhya Menon, Anna-Marie McLemore, and Rin Chupeco.

A shy teenager attempts to express how she really feels through the pastries she makes at her family’s pasteleria. A tourist from Montenegro desperately seeks a magic soup dumpling that can cure his fear of death. An aspiring chef realizes that butter and soul are the key ingredients to win a cooking competition that could win him the money to save his mother’s life.

Welcome to Hungry Hearts Row, where the answers to most of life’s hard questions are kneaded, rolled, baked. Where a typical greeting is, “Have you had anything to eat?” Where magic and food and love are sometimes one in the same.

Told in interconnected short stories, Hungry Hearts explores the many meanings food can take on beyond mere nourishment. It can symbolize love and despair, family and culture, belonging and home.

I’m finally done with this book – I thought about DNFing it at least six times, but I kept going because I thought it would get better and I would eventually find a great story. That didn’t happen.

Don’t be fooled by the cover. If you’re like me, you probably looked at the cover and thought this book would be about cute and heartwarming food themed stories.The food aspect is there like expected, but the execution was not great.

I think the main problem I had with this book is that there are so many different genres in it –  romance, paranormal, action, gang, you name it, it’s there – that it gets too confusing and random. I get that this is an anthology, but other than the city and a few characters that appear in several stories, there’s nothing connecting these stories. For example, at some point you will be reading a violent gang story, and right after that, a cutesy romance story begins. The stories as a set are too different from each other, so they don’t fit together in this book.

On a positive note, the food descriptions made me very hungry. All the authors did an amazing job writing all about comfort food. I can tell every writer was a foodie!

I also liked how diverse the book was. There are so many nationalities represented here, and it was nice to learn about foreign cuisines and traditions. These were probably the things I liked the most about this book.

Overall I wouldn’t recommend this anthology. I strongly believe you’ll get better use of your time with another book, because this wasn’t entertaining nor memorable.

xoxo,

“No one can be independent of other people completely, so why not give up the attempt, she thought, go running in the other direction, depend on people for everything, allow them to depend on you, why not.” – 2/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: abusive boyfriends, intelligence, shame, car rides, shared beds, college classes, scholarships and classical books.

Connell and Marianne grow up in the same small town in rural Ireland. The similarities end there; they are from very different worlds. When they both earn places at Trinity College in Dublin, a connection that has grown between them lasts long into the following years.

This is an exquisite love story about how a person can change another person’s life – a simple yet profound realisation that unfolds beautifully over the course of the novel. It tells us how difficult it is to talk about how we feel and it tells us – blazingly – about cycles of domination, legitimacy and privilege. Alternating menace with overwhelming tenderness, Sally Rooney’s second novel breathes fiction with new life.

I can’t believe I’m finally done with this book. I thought about DNFing it several times, but I ended up finishing it since it wasn’t that big of a book.
Let’s start with the obvious: I strongly disliked the romance. I understand the entire point of this book is that this is not a conventional nor a cliché romance story, but I just couldn’t understand it.
When the book first starts, you get to follow the main characters when they were in high school and you witness how they fell in love. As usual, with young love, it’s normal to make mistakes and do stupid things – Connell really thought it was a good idea to hide this girlfriend because he was worried about what his friends would think. Of course this is terrible, but since they were young I tried to not think too much about it, because they would grow out of this weird phase eventually. And here is the problem I have with this book: these people never grow up. They do have a strong connection between them, but they are incredibly childish and immature with their relationship. The characters were extremely annoying, privileged and futile with their first world problems. Not only that but the plot is non-existent. The entire book is divided in chapters that start and end the same way: they meet after x months, they talk (and maybe sleep together), and by the end of the chapter they part ways. And the cycle repeats until the end of the book.
And that ending… wow, that really was the cherry on top. Very disappointing.
A few months ago I added Conversations With Friends to my TBR list, but I have no desire to pick it up anymore. In conclusion: I genuinely don’t understand the hype around this book, but I’m glad some people liked it I guess.

xoxo,

“Everyone wants the stars. Everyone wishes to grasp that which exists out of reach. To hold the extraordinary in their hands and keep the remarkable in their pockets.” – 2/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: pirates, bees, cut out tongues, realistic doors, dice, old books, fortune-tellers, bookshelves, swords, painters, parties, bunnies, doors, honey,  ginger cats and owl kings.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues—a bee, a key, and a sword—that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians—it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also of those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose—in both the mysterious book and in his own life.

I’m surprised with myself, I can’t believe I was able to finish this book because of the amount of times I considered DNFing this. It took me more than 4 months to read it, but I finally did it. I was really bored and unmotivated the entire time, but I kept going because I was hoping it would get better.

Let me start by saying this: the highlight of this book is the writing, because it’s absolutely stunning. It’s probably one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read… so why the low rating?

There’s a lot of things I didn’t enjoy about this book. Even though the writing is beautiful, there is so much going on that it was difficult to keep up with everything. The plot is very confusing (and I honestly couldn’t even identify one), and there are so many mini stories in different chapters that it’s difficult to fully understand the whole picture of the book. I felt lost most of the time.

The characters were okay but I didn’t feel any connection to any of them. I really tried, but I couldn’t care less about them! And not only that, but I was also confused about some of the revelations about family relationships and such.

There’s also an attempt at a romance, I guess? I honestly felt like it came out of nowhere and it had no substance to it. The guys talked a while and then they had a connection? There was no hint of a romance for most of the book, so when it was mentioned I was even more confused.

Another thing that confused me were the changes in timeline. It’s not as evident in the beginning, but in the last third of the book there’s so much going on that I couldn’t fully understand what was happening. The scenes kept changing each chapter with the same characters, and (again, I know) I was really confused.

I will say I really like the symbolism of this book (with the bees and doors), but at some point it gets very repetitive and it feels more of the same.So, long story short: I was confused and bored. Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand the value of this book and I get why some people would consider this an amazing work of art. Unfortunately for me, it was way over my head. I still have no idea what I’ve just read and I still don’t know what the book was about. I originally had The Night Circus by the same author on my TBR, but I’m definitely skipping that one. This author is not for me!

xoxo,