Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao: review

3/5 stars on Goodreads

Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao

Water Moon falls between fantasy and magical realism. It’s partially set in modern Tokyo, but it could happen anywhere, as Japanese mythology doesn’t really play a part in the story. Hana and her father run a pawn shop that exists in a world separate from ours. Only a door to a ramen restaurant in Tokyo connects the two worlds. When a person really needs the pawn shop, they’ll end up there instead of the restaurant.

They pawn regrets, and no one ever returns to claim theirs back. Instead, the regrets have an important purpose in Hana’s world (it plays a great role in the story, so I won’t reveal what it is.) The regrets can never be let go. But Hana’s mother had stolen one when Hana was a baby, and has been sentenced to death for it, a trauma Hana and her father have never recovered from.

Now it has come time for Hana to inherit the shop. But on her first morning as the caretaker, she finds the place ransacked and her father missing along with the last regret he’d pawned before retirement. She doesn’t want her mother’s fate for either of them, so she sets out to find her father and the regret.

She has unexpected company. A man walks in the pawn shop, but not to pawn anything. He doesn’t really have any regrets to pawn. Instead, he wants to help. Keishin is a scientist with an interesting story of his own, which is revealed in small snippets. He’s stunned to discover a different world, but he keeps an open mind, eager to learn everything.

It’s quite an adventure through Hana’s world. It seems rather random at first, but bit by bit, they follow the footsteps Hana’s father has taken. But when they reach their goal and learn what has happened, the truth is something neither of them had expected.

This was an interesting, lovely and wistful story of grief, trauma, and self-discovery. Hana is a person with a purpose she can’t deviate from, literally tattooed in her skin. Keishin has an imaginative, flexible mind, and a big heart. Both were likeable, but while I expected a romance between the two, I wasn’t entirely convinced by it.

The narrative was interesting. Chapters were short, sometimes only a page long, and they only told exactly what the reader needed to know. The narrative jumped between past and present. I liked it at first, as the story advanced fast. But eventually I found it unsatisfying. Interesting concepts and imaginative ideas were briefly introduced in every chapter, only to be left behind and never properly explored. Action began and ended, without any aftermath, jumping to the next thing on the list.

Characters suffered from this most. There was no time for their emotions, the romance included, and no insight into how they felt at any given moment. There was no room for foreshadowing either. This really backfired with the revelations at the end, as they were pulled out like rabbits from a hat: they were interesting but with no emotional impact. The ending fell completely flat.

All in all, this was a four-star book at the beginning, but as I grew dissatisfied with it, I had to lower my rating. Still, it’s well-written and imaginative, so if you read for ideas, not emotions, give it a try.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.