The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop By Takuya Asakura Summary PDF

The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop By Takuya Asakura Summary

The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop by Tayuka Takuya Ashakura and then it was translated by Yuka Mayo and I truly apologize if I am pronouncing those names incorrectly. I did not have any sort of audio book that could help me with uh pronunciation. So I do apologize but this was originally written in Japanese and was translated to English.

Now this is a genre of books that I have really grown quite fond of and sometimes there are cats and sometimes there are um kind of buildings that go I guess um in the fog., I think Dollar Dream Department Store really does also embody a bit of this kind of feeling. And for me, there is a sense of fairy tale within a lot of these books that I pick up. There is a sense of dreamlike qualities as well. So, those are some of the reasons that I do enjoy picking up this genre. It's just now it's I would say it's feel good, but it's not so much feel good as contemplative.

And um let's just read the summary and we'll kind of go from there with my I guess my diving into it a little bit. For fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, What Are You Looking For, What You Are Looking For is in the Library, and Days at the Morasaki Bookshop comes an enchanting novel that will linger with your heart long after the last page is turned.

Now, I have not read those other three, but they do sound quite cozy, and I think that's also another element that I like as well. Uh, as the last petal falls, the final page is turned. Welcome to the Cherry Blossom Bookshop. A haven for book lovers that only appear but during the fleeting cherry blossom season.

Nestled amidst the bloom of delicate petals, you'll find a sanctuary for those burdened by regret and past sorrows. Here, Sakura, the mysterious young owner, and her wise calico cat Kubaku Kubako patiently await the arrival of souls in need of solace and healing. Told over four seasons, each visitor to the bookshop holds a book that bridges their past and their present, guiding them towards understanding and acceptance.

Within the antique charm of the shop and the soothing aroma of freshly brewed coffee, Sakura and Kobako help their guests confront their lingering sadness through the power of stories, enabling them to move forward with renewed hope. It is considered Japanese literature, fiction, books about books, cozy, and it is translated fiction.

It was only gosh, I even think my e-reader was shorter than this. I want to say mine was like 164 165. Uh, but it does say the Kindle edition is 194 pages. It is expected publication August 28th of 2025. I do believe this is the English edition. I am not certain when. it says it was first published May 28th of 2025. So, that's a pretty recent translation.

If it was first released in May of 2025 in the Japanese, then I do hope that is a sign that this type of Japanese literature is finding its way throughout the rest of the world and finding its audience because I am certainly captivated by it. Um, and so again, we do have this feeling of a dreamlike quality with a little bit of regret and sorrow, but a little bit of hopefulness as well.

And so we first start with kind of this little bookshop, it is a book slop shelf/c coffee shop. And both of those elements, my chair is just squeaking its way all around this desk. I am so sorry if you can hear it. Um, so this cherry blossom bookshop is probably my ideal sort of like retirement plan. If I could open a bookshop/c coffee shop, just small, quaint, where people could come and enjoy those sorts of things, then that is my goal.

I don't think I'm going to be independently wealthy enough to be able to do that sort of thing, but we'll see. And um so this book really does draw you in and the very first story we get is this girl who is grieving the loss of her mother.

Now um the character she is um very regretful a little bit because she feels like both her and her brother like up and left their mom after their mom had like separated from their dad. I think their dad um may have ended his own life. And and anyway, as the girl and the brother, they grew up, they kind of just flew the house, flew the nest, and the girl kind of feels a little resentful, like she had to do a lot of parenting while her mom worked.

And so the girl now that her mom has passed and her mom seemed to live a fairly frugal means so like you know very minimalistic she um she's now come to kind of set up the funeral arrangements and she picks up a book a book that was from her childhood and it's called Little Prince.

And I do actually I was going to bring that book I have it on a bookshelf in there as well as another book that's like Little Prince Quotes for Adults and I I do love the magic of The Little Prince and maybe that's why I like this genre of literature is it is it has that same sort of I don't know soothing vibe to it that yes there are some kind of hard topics to approach but they do so in such a caring way that it really feels very heartfelt.

And so I think that's really where I enjoy a lot of this. But she picks up The Little Prince and soon she finds herself near a like near this coffee shop that's called Sakura. And uh it seems to not really have too much going on, but it's it's got a beautiful cherry blossom tree.

And if I remember correctly, um, so this little this little kind of booknook sort of thing, it's called Falling Sakura. And I want to say I found this one at Michaels. It's a craft store. And I think Falling Sakura, I think Sakura is the word for cherry blossom if I remember correctly. So makes sense that there's this huge cherry blossom tree outside the front of this bookshop.

And this sort of moment only happens when she uh or when the girl and the bookshop are um I think cherry blossoms have to be in season and they have to be reading the same book at the same time and there's a couple other stipulations but um so we kind of go from there. But anyway once everybody kind of goes to this bookshop, they get a glimpse into something into maybe so her regret is her mom and you know maybe she didn't spend enough time, maybe she was a bad daughter.

Well, she kind of learns uh some extra information about her mom's life that she previously didn't know. Uh how her father's mom, so her grandmother on her paternal side um did not like the mom and the father was very much like a pushover. He seems to have been a very weak sort of person who very much cowered to his mother.

Well, um the girl's mom, the one who has just recently passed, she um she was more brave. She was a teacher and she was kind of more or less the bread winner. And she finds out that her dad made a bad investment, was a guarantor or guarantee a guarantor, I think, of a loan.

Well, it ended up falling on the mom's shoulders to pay for it, which is why she worked so much because she didn't want to leave her kids picking up the pieces of having to pay that debt. Now, I do think in at least I do think in America, the debt of the parents does not pass to that of the children if I remember correctly.

Uh I could be wrong but I think that's correct but it sounds like in some countries that is not correct and that the debt of the parents does fall to the children. So if that is if that is true for you and where you are I do apologize. Um that is not fair to take on those burdens.

But um anyway we go through the story. So, she does get a better insight into her mom, and that is really what she needed to be able to kind of have a little more peace with her mom's passing.

And we explore, I want to say, a total of three stories. Uh, one which revolves around Peter Pan and two girls who were they're twin sisters. They're twin sisters. And um so I guess when they were growing up, they had both had a kind of a crush on the same boy, but the boy really liked one of them more than the other, but he ended up passing.

And then there was also kind of a competition at school where they were both wanting to be um in the Peter Pan play and one got Tinkerbell and one got Wendy. And I guess there was a little bit of animosity there with regards to who did Peter Pan like the most.

And so that does equate to the little boy who ended up passing, who um seems to kind of have been their in real life Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up because he does pass at a pretty young age and he didn't want to hurt either one of their feelings. So, um, he kind of never really fully admits that he he did like one of them more than the other.

I think he kind of does to one of the twins, but he doesn't fully. Anyway, you'd have to read that part to really understand. But, um, it seems as though we do get a better understanding of each of these characters. And we also get a glimpse into the creation of this bookshop, why it was created, who it was created by and for.

And it's really there's there's so much I guess warmth and care in the way a lot of these memories are presented and the way it carries into the present for these um these characters. I love this kind of book again because we do learn a little something but yet it has a magical quality and somebody said they felt like it was too simplistic.

I think that's the charm of it. I think that's that fairy tale quality um of keeping it simple. I don't think I needed it to be more complex than this. And that for me is very enjoyable. I I read this in maybe two hours. Again, it wasn't it wasn't even 150 pages long.

Uh maybe maybe two and a half because I may have been distracted by like texting or something at the same time, but honestly took me no time at all to read it and I thought it was well worth the read.

I wanted to see if anybody else had any other kind of comments. Um let's see. So, this particular individual, Twinned by Fiction, said the translation was incredibly well done. Uh, and see, and that's something I don't have a lot of insight to, so I'm I'm glad to hear that.

They said, "It's one of the first times I didn't even notice I was reading a translated Japanese book. I especially appreciate the translator's notes with the extracurricular and linguistic context. As someone who's studying Japanese themselves, Twinned by Fiction again, um those little insights were a nice touch."

And see, so I wanted to kind of make note of that particular one because since I I have never once studied Japanese and no, I don't count watching Kill Bill Dill as watching Japanese. Um I know that's terrible. That was a joke. I apologize.

But the magical realism is so incredibly well done. And I do hope this level of cute, cozy, turning a corner, and finding a magical place is something that you kind of hope for in your everyday life. I know I do in mine because I love the idea that magic is just around the corner, that um that the places that we need are within our grasp and perhaps even the answers that we need are not too far away either.

So, I think with all of that being said, since this is a fairly short book, I'm going to go ahead and leave it here. I do have one other Japanese translated book that I am also going to review today. So stay tuned if you are interested in the next couple days because I will release that one as well.

I didn't realize at the time that I got two, but I think they're both different enough that they um they resonate well with me and I want to talk about them. I give this about probably four and a half stars. I do think I will be recommending this highly and I may even need to pick up a copy for my shelf.

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