Days At The Morisaki Bookshop

A disappointing read.

Author does not seem to have heard of ‘show, not tell'.

Feelings are not felt - we are merely told that the characters have felt them. The descriptions, invariably of unimportant things, try to be cutely peculiar but come off as just strange.

It was impossible for him not to recognise that voice - as impossible as squeezing a hundred people into the Morisaki bookshop.

The four romances in this book - protagonist and Hideaki, Takano and Tomo, uncle and aunt, and protagonist and Wada - are mostly below par.

Takano and Tomo have the most realistic and best developed romance in the book, and they disappear after the first part. The aunt and uncle have a believable relationship, even though the aunt often acts rather extremely.

Takako's relationship with Hideaki is so flat, and the events thereafter so cliche, I feel as if the book might have been better off without the whole thing. Her sadness about the whole thing, as written, seems perfunctory and appears only once or twice.

Takako's second relationship, with Akira Wada, is only a bit less flat. He is introduced halfway through the book, interacts with Takako only a few times, and once they do get in a relationship - offscreen - he is promptly forgotten about.

Entire years pass between significant events, with no discernible change in the characters.