A review by thomasdm15
The Cat Who Saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa

inspiring lighthearted relaxing fast-paced

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

2.5

Well well well... Lots of mixed feelings about this one.

It wasn't a bad book per se but it definitely did not hit for me. Luckily it was a very short read so I was done quickly with it but any much longer and I would've DNFed it. 

Let's start with the pros:

• The beginning is intriguing and the magical realism aspect of the book flows naturally.
• The messages, although naive, are quite cute and heartwarming. You can tell this was supposed to be a feel good story.
• The translation was really good, which is always a point I appreciate.

Now for the bad parts:

• The characters are really dull and one-dimensional. Obviously this is a short book so we don't need fully fleshed out characters but it would have been nice if they were more likeable.
• It was somewhat boring at times and it had me dozing off/my mind was wandering, which is a prowess in and of itself because this is a really short book.
• It was also repetitive because
  the only surprising things are (1) the girl joining them on the 2nd labyrinth and (2) the 4th adventure not being "about books" (although in the end it ended up kinda being that way so... ye...). Other than that it's always the same thing: cat appears, they go somewhere, evil guy being evil, main guy doesn't know what to do then for no reason finds exactly what to say and the evil guy is like "u know what, u convinced me with ONE speech", like they need 0 convincing. So yeah that was really not enjoyable.
• In the end, I wasn't really eager to pick it back up.

Although I am citing a lot of cons, I wouldn't say this is a BAD book, but you definitely need to come in knowing it's not outstanding and you can be done with it in one sitting.