A review by tinyegg
The Nakano Thrift Shop by Hiromi Kawakami

lighthearted reflective relaxing slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

wow, this took me a while to read because i honestly found it difficult to get into at times. while i normally love media with slow plots where pretty much nothing happens, i felt this had a little bit *too much* nothing. it is a very character-driven book first and foremost, so a lot of the story is just their daily interactions with one another and the slice-of-life happenings at the thrift shopwhich isn't necessarily bad, BUT. the summary kind of paints this as a romance, which is what i was expecting, so i was pretty disappointed when the romance was more of like, a c-plot, if anything. the book does not have a primary focus on either hitomi or takeo, and seems to share the focus equally with haruo and masayo. the pacing gets thrown off a little when hitomi and takeo make some romantic progress followed up by (i am exaggerating) 50 pages of something random that haruo is fixated on.

however, despite the book being pretty boring, it is boring in a soft and intimate way and i feel it captures the sort of lackadaiscal life someone would have if majority of their life was showing up to their thrift shop job. there were a lot of conversations between characters i found thoughtful and personal and i liked the dynamic they shared with each other. i'm not sure. i think i was just expecting a little more. this is a book to kind of go through when you want to turn your brain off a little bit /pos