risky_oak 's review for:

The Restaurant of Love Regained by Ito Ogawa

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Δείτε και την κριτική στα Ελληνικά στις βιβλιοαλχημείες.

Returning home from work (Turkish Restaurant), Rinko finds her apartment totally empty, no furniture, no appliances, no nothing.
Her only other choice is to go back to her village and her mum, who she hasn't seen in 10 years.
There she will decide to open a special restaurant that serves only one table per day. The customers are persons who want to reconciliate, persons in love who want someone else to bring them together, and more.
And so the restaurant of love regained is established having the name "The Snail". Probably for its slow and dedicated pace in preparing foods. 

The blurb in the back says it is for fans of [b:Like Water for Chocolate|6327687|Like Water for Chocolate|Laura Esquivel|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328308349l/6327687._SX50_.jpg|1172473] by Mexican author Laura Esquivel, which I read two months before this one. And this was the 2nd reason I bought this book at a book bazaar.
The first is well-known. My reading the world project. So when I saw Japanese book I took it.

This was the first book I read in March and the last I started and finished before the arrival of the virus in Cyprus. A strange month. Quarantine, seclusion, praying, flagellation. I'm kidding. Only the first two are valid.

Strange month also in terms of readings too.
With this book as an exception plus my last book from March: [b:Shutter Island|21686|Shutter Island|Dennis Lehane|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1329269081l/21686._SY75_.jpg|1234227], all the rest were lukewarm disappointments.
They had a slow pace and their themes were not my favourite.
This is the side-effect of blindly buying books from all over the world with the only criterion being the country of origin: Japan, Jordan, Malaysia.

But, they weren't back books. They were pretty slow and I was utterly bored and wanted them to end, in contrast with this book which I found cute, weird, a bit saccharine, but nevertheless with a good pace that didn't bore me. Digestible. You have a nice time and then you move on.