If you want a story with a magical, whimsical, yet deadly world, then you should add Water Moon to your TBR. For me, some things were a bit too magical, but I enjoyed the latter half the most. Keep reading this book review of Water Moon for my full thoughts.
Summary
On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.
Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.
Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds.
But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
Water Moon explores choices. Right from the get go, this is a story about the choices we make and the ones we wish we had forgotten. In Water Moon you have to be willing to jump into the unknown and believe in the unbelievable. You know those worlds where basically everything is magic? That’s Water Moon. For me, this only worked about 50% of the time. Maybe it’s just my desire to figure out the world building rules, but I found that sometimes things could just be solved with yet another magical thing. I wasn’t sure where the end to their usefulness might be.
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But setting aside the world for a moment, Water Moon examines the weight of our choices. With flashbacks and shifts in perspective, we are able to see the consequences, the contexts, to these choices. Can we fight the choices we don’t seem to have? It’s a slow crescendo of a theme that really finds its stride in the last third of the novel. There were some profound quotes about loss and regret, death and punishment. But I found myself getting a bit lost in places either by a frustration with the world or the sudden uptick of action.
That being said, if you love the theme and enjoy a deeply magical world, this is probably for you. Find Water Moon on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, Blackwells, & Libro. fm.