A review by caughtbetweenpages
Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao

adventurous hopeful reflective fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Watermoon is one of those stories that’s told to you in a whisper but echoes loudly in your mind whenever you have a quiet moment to think about it. The prose is beautiful from jump, absolutely alluring. It feels like getting swept up by a very calm river, where you think you can emerge whenever you want, but the current runs deep and won’t let you go until it says so. 

I appreciated that the story was quick to act on its premise. Our protagonist Hana only gets a few pages of explaining the status quo of her world before her father’s disappearance turns it all on its head. She’s an insider to the world of her pawnshop; she knows how things work, and coupling her with the eternal outsider Kei allows her to show off the whimsicality and darkness of it in turn. As a reader, I was given an immediate example of how the pawned regrets look mundane to untrained eyes, but when seen by someone in the know are breathtaking and magical and precious. The reveals of
Hana and Kei’s identities as products of those regrets, of choices made or not made,
were made more poignant by this fact; Hana knew what Kei was from the moment she saw him, but couldn’t recognize the truth of herself until it was pointed out to her. 

I enjoyed both Hana and Kei’s perspectives as the story shifted between them both, and not only for the way their respective insider/outsider dynamics shaped the framing of, for example, traveling though puddles or floating on clouds of paper cranes. Each of them offered a very pragmatic yet hopeful perspective on the world and their central goals were always clear and the primary drivers of the plot. Though the search for Hana’s father (and for her mother’s fate) was what made the protagonists move through the story, what I found most appealing was the growth they did individually. While messy, it was satisfying to watch their mirrored  emotional arcs of 1. Mommy issues and 2. Feeling at the whim of or abandoned by fate resolve into a complicated equilibrium of “I don’t know if making choices is easy but I still want to try”. Though I didn’t buy their romance at first, by the end of the story I was very much rooting for Hana and Kei’s ability to be happy together. 

I am a little miffed we didn’t get more clarity on what Hana did in the
five years that separated her and Kei, I understand why it was left out. Rebuilding a society after its core tenets are shaken up is fodder for a whole different book, one the author wasn’t telling in this story.


The parts of Watermoon that will stay with me most strongly are the feelings it left me with. I felt sad for the clients of the pawnshop who never get to come back for what they pawned, not only that they can’t see the true value of their regret but that they forget they could come back even for something they consider worthless. I spent quite some time (before
learning that a regret was a piece of a soul)
thinking about what if anything I would pawn, what burdens I have that are too heavy, and I’ve decided I don’t have any. Heavy as they are they’re mine. Having that instinct rewarded by the narrative was satisfying, as was seeing those choices become something magical and special on their own. 

 I recommend Watermoon to fans of shows like Midnight Diner, where character internalize takes center stage, lovers of stories they have to work for, that appear quiet until you look at them more closely. It’s a novel made for people who like to feel as though they’ve discovered something special and hold it close to their hearts.
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