Riri

Unfortunately, this book just didn't do it for me. The concept is great. It sounds exactly like something I would love. Our main character, Kaori, is a human who grew up in the spirit world. Her home is a rental bookstore, and she's surrounded by loving friends and adoptive parents. At the beginning of the book, a human exorcist named Suimei starts living in her house. Each chapter is a short story involving different spirits. It's the perfect setup for a heartwarming paranormal slice of life, right?

Yeah, no.

It would've worked if only the book focuses more on the story, be it the overarching plot of Suimei's search for his Inugami partner or even the smaller subplots in each chapter. Instead, we get like pages and pages of all these characters glorifying Kaori and sharing her tales growing up. This causes the interactions to be incredibly superficial instead of heartwarming, and all the things that should've mattered more were taken care of swiftly through a LOT of telling instead of showing. Including the spirits, which should've been featured more prominently. It worked for about two chapters before it got old. There's also a looot of blushing scenes between Kaori and Suimei, which would've been fine if only they have some kind of chemistry. Sadly, so far they haven't shown much so the “romance” feels forced.

Overall, the story feels too flat to invoke any emotions for me. It might work if you like Kaori since she clearly drives the story, but I don't find her particularly interesting so I'm not sure if I'll continue with this series. Also, despite the title, don't expect much from the bookstore part either since the books barely got mentioned and the only role they play is getting delivered by Kaori.

How many women throughout history were blamed for the weaknesses of men? We made such convenient scapegoats. We were raised to be small, to be silent, to take whatever we were given and no more.

I did not love this and it makes me sad, since I loved all of Ann Liang's YA books. Maybe it would've been a more riveting tale if you've never heard of Xishi's tale before, but if you do, then you've pretty much already read this book. It's the exact same story as the legend, just with some romance thrown in and it's not even that good.

If you want a good romance, this is probably not for you. The instalove is strong, and I simply cannot understand why Ann Liang would make it like this when she's written much better romance before. Xishi and Fanli spent only ten weeks together for her training, most of which is done off-page by the way, and she proceeds to yearn for him for the rest of the book. The problem is that he leaves not even halfway through the story, so not only there's barely any development in their relationship, but we don't even see OR learn much about him. Fanli being hot is not enough reason for me to grow as attached to him as Xishi was, so their tragic love story didn't make me feel anything either.

As for Xishi herself, she has so many issues. Her perspective is just so... flat and detached from beginning to end. She also lacks the ability to think ahead, which makes her a terrible spy who managed to accomplish her mission simply because she's the main character. The portrayal of her life as a concubine and the way she seduced Fuchai is just impossible to believe. Both Xishi and Zhengdan don't act like how women were supposed to behave in ancient China either, but were never called out on it. There's just something that feels weirdly modern from the tone of this book, and the mismatch with the settings can be pretty distracting at times.

Not going to comment much on Fuchai. He may not be the best, but he deserves better. The moment of his downfall is probably the only time I felt some semblance of emotion in the entire book, and that was mostly pity.

There are so many plot points that either felt like they were just slapped on to drive the story along, or never went anywhere. Like Susu. Or Xishi's heart condition. Or how Fuchai's perceptive and cautious advisor was reduced to a simple bully before he got discarded. I understand there were limitations, seeing that the book is only 336 pages long, but it's still a shame.

Beautiful ending though. Love the tragedy.

This was short and cute. Now where's my magical girl awakening?

3.5⭐

A comfortable and cozy read, with very light mystery elements to it. The Kamogawa Detective Agency specializes in finding and re-creating a customized dish people have had once in their lives, drawing out all the nostalgic memories linked to the food. Each chapter features a different customer and their requested dish, with plenty of focus on not just the food but also the Japanese tableware they're served on. The overall pace is rather relaxed and formulaic, with each chapter following the exact same progression pattern.

The most glaring issue with this book is that it offers little to no description of the food served. It just throws a lot of names of regional ingredients and cooking styles, and then never explain any of those so you have to look them up yourself if you don't know. It also casually drops location names in Kyoto all the time and not describe what the place is like, so if you've never been to Kyoto and tasted the food there, good luck trying to picture these things in your mind. Might be more enjoyable to read this while Googling the images though, for better visualization. If you are knowledgeable in this topic, however, the dishes served in this book really do whet the appetite.

All in all, this has the exact same problem as Before the Coffee Gets Cold for me. The chapters are too short for me to care about any of the characters aside from Nagare and Koishi, who we don't really learn much about since the chapters are mostly about the customers. It can be quite emotional though, just a little bit lacking for me personally.

First, chocolate is toxic to dogs so you should never feed them chocolate cake. Second, the misogynistic remarks and toxic masculinity are really hard to overlook. The romance is not bad, but due to these reasons I had to lower the rating.