Rating: 5 out of 5
Not only was Hiro Arikawa’s work a wonderful investigation of human emotion, I found she also perfectly captured the why of a cat’s movements. Most readers are probably able to realize quite soon where this is going—though not the why—so as in so many other Japanese books, the end of the book is known for a long while before it becomes a reality.
The main character—the cat Nana—is given a wonderful whirl of Japan before that ending comes true. It is so amazing to see the world through the cat’s eyes, with my particular favourite being the way Nana saw the sea. The main human character, Satoru, is also person the reader can feel for—especially the way Satoru manages to remember so much of what he got up to with his old friends in the days gone by.
I don’t think this is for everyone, and many would dislike some of the emotions that this book can bring up, but it is a lovely story.
