The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa
Such a good book. Such a good book that I think is really valuable to the modern day reader and the pitfalls we can fall into, in parts of how social media can affect us. And social media wasn't mentioned at all!!! I would highly recommend.
The main character, Rintaro Natsuki, basically gets forced into adventures (after his grandfather dies) by Tiger, a magical cat, who leads him through different labyrinths. Each labyrinth is made up of falsehoods with bits of truth, and Rintaro basically has to logic his way out, and convince people that how they consume books is... disingenuous to someone who actually loves books. These people, these adults, have a deep love of books, and each labyrinth looks to how that can get tilted.
Someone who never rereads books, because there are simply so many, and is just trying to read as many as possible. Someone who tries to shorten and summarize books to make it as accessible as possible. Someone who is only trying to print the best books, and lets other books fall through the cracks. And a final, surprise person, who... well... I don't want to reveal their point of view.
But just as equally important are the supporting characters, especially Sayo Yuzuki, who comes to check in on him, and goes with him on several adventures. She can see the magic cat, which is something special. I love her want for adventure. I love how she cares for Rintaro.
On a lower tier of appearance, but not less important, is Rintaro's aunt, who is almost an antagonist force, and Ryota Akiba, who I honestly thought was going to appear more, his classmate that encourages Rintaro, without necessarily trying to be his friend... if that makes any sense. His aunt is going to take Rintaro away from the bookshop for most of the story, putting pressure on how much time he has there. Ryota is dear to me, in the idea of what a positive influence we can have on people, and the depth of a person.
Books are important for fostering empathy, is one of the final takeaways, out of many good takeaways.
Although, I felt a little ashamed in myself when they talk about how reading hard books is good for you and I just returned a book to the library because I could not get far into it at all. Maybe one day I'll return, City and its Uncertain Walls. But perhaps not. Time will tell.
