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A review by tinymatriarch
The Cat Who Saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
0.5
This might be the worst book I’ve read in a long time… It’s supposed to be a book for book lovers but all it does is come off as pretentious! I’m still giving it a 0.5 star cause of the cat and the cover art. That’s it.
Note to self (and to everyone else) : never buy a book without reading the reviews before hand.
I bought this book cause of the cover and the concept seemed nice but damn was I wrong… Imma go on a rant about it though because this book made me so mad!
This book does have a nice concept but at the same time it brings forward the old narrative that “people don’t read books anymore [insert boomer tears here]” and goes on justifying it by saying people don’t read stuff like Proust or the complete works of Shakespeare anymore?? like ok yeah my dude, cause maybe people just read other things??? It’s not cause people don’t wanna read some dusty books about philosophy that suddenly books are dying?? Every classics reference made me so enraged to the point I wanted to drop it and never pick it up again. I truly finished this book out of spite….
It also briefly mentions that maybe people don’t read anymore cause of capitalism… but then goes on blaming it on people instead of taking that opportunity to criticize the actual system.
Towards the end, it also says something like “we should appreciate books that are difficult to read because they teach us something new” and that made me wanna chuck it across the room. A book isn’t good cause it’s hard to read! And it’s okay to want to read easy stuff! Reading is supposed to be exciting and fun, not a horrendous task you put yourself through to learn new things.
It does have this nice happy ending saying that books are all about learning to care for each other but uuuugh this doesn’t cover for the pretentious attitude.
And don’t even get me started on the main character! Who still loves self proclaimed antisocial boys who make no effort to communicate and care about people around them and need to go on special adventures to learn empathy??? This isn’t 2010 anymore and antisocial tumblr boys aren’t main character material. As for the women characters, it’s like the author didn’t even try: they just seem weak, deprived of personality (being “tactless” isn’t a personality trait) and just overall badly written.
I think the translation of this book wasn’t great and probably made things worse. The sentences were choppy and didn’t flow, but I understand that Japanese is a difficile language to translate so I’ll be lenient on that.
Moral of the story:
- stop pretending people don’t read anymore, saying books are dying or whatever makes you sound entitled.
- if you unironically quote Nietzsche and call yourself antisocial, I need you to know you sound like an incel and I will punch you.
Note to self (and to everyone else) : never buy a book without reading the reviews before hand.
I bought this book cause of the cover and the concept seemed nice but damn was I wrong… Imma go on a rant about it though because this book made me so mad!
This book does have a nice concept but at the same time it brings forward the old narrative that “people don’t read books anymore [insert boomer tears here]” and goes on justifying it by saying people don’t read stuff like Proust or the complete works of Shakespeare anymore?? like ok yeah my dude, cause maybe people just read other things??? It’s not cause people don’t wanna read some dusty books about philosophy that suddenly books are dying?? Every classics reference made me so enraged to the point I wanted to drop it and never pick it up again. I truly finished this book out of spite….
It also briefly mentions that maybe people don’t read anymore cause of capitalism… but then goes on blaming it on people instead of taking that opportunity to criticize the actual system.
Towards the end, it also says something like “we should appreciate books that are difficult to read because they teach us something new” and that made me wanna chuck it across the room. A book isn’t good cause it’s hard to read! And it’s okay to want to read easy stuff! Reading is supposed to be exciting and fun, not a horrendous task you put yourself through to learn new things.
It does have this nice happy ending saying that books are all about learning to care for each other but uuuugh this doesn’t cover for the pretentious attitude.
And don’t even get me started on the main character! Who still loves self proclaimed antisocial boys who make no effort to communicate and care about people around them and need to go on special adventures to learn empathy??? This isn’t 2010 anymore and antisocial tumblr boys aren’t main character material. As for the women characters, it’s like the author didn’t even try: they just seem weak, deprived of personality (being “tactless” isn’t a personality trait) and just overall badly written.
I think the translation of this book wasn’t great and probably made things worse. The sentences were choppy and didn’t flow, but I understand that Japanese is a difficile language to translate so I’ll be lenient on that.
Moral of the story:
- stop pretending people don’t read anymore, saying books are dying or whatever makes you sound entitled.
- if you unironically quote Nietzsche and call yourself antisocial, I need you to know you sound like an incel and I will punch you.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Death of parent
Moderate: Kidnapping