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

emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad medium-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

3.0

It was a cute, short read about books and loss and hope. There were two problems I struggled with though. 

First, there was a mild but pervasive sexism throughout the whole book that was hard to ignore. It might very well be a translation issue cause I listened to it in English. Plus the cat was described in a note at the end to have an unknown gender but was def presented as male by the audiobook narrator so there was more than one place translation could be lost. It reminded me of watership down, women were just there to serve the men forward in their journey.
Sometimes they were actual servants too. It was upsetting and unnecessary. Why do the other worldly men need wives to serve them?


The other issue is related to the sexism, but by how it seems to affect the men. Again; there’s def translation and culture differences I’m struggling through, so I could have misunderstood.  But from what I read, there is no space for the main character to grieve or to be sad. The other characters say he is rude when his grandfather just died.
I get that the book is about him coming out of his shell and realizing he has people. But this idea that he needs to go to school, do his homework and lean on the women in his life to do it is problematic.
This is an example about how the patriarchy hurts men too.   Boys and men should be allowed to grieve and be sad around people; not only process their feelings by either being supported by women and/or saving women and being productive. 


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