A review by abbie_
The Restaurant of Love Regained by Ito Ogawa

hopeful sad fast-paced

• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

If you love your foodie descriptions and the kookiness of Japanese literature then consider picking this one up, but if you’re a vegetarian or vegan then I’d probably recommend avoiding this one 🙈

.

Throughout the book we’re treated to lots of mouthwatering descriptions of food (where the translation by David Karashima really shines, not so much elsewhere). Rinko respects all of her ingredients and I would love to visit The Snail restaurant (the original title of the book, the English makes it sound a lot more twee than it is) to see what she would cook for me! But then at the end of the book... I don’t want to spoil it but there are pages and pages of graphic butchering and preparing of an animal, made even harder to stomach by the animal’s role in the book.

.

There were also a few odd instances where I felt the translation didn’t really convey what the original was trying to say. For instance, ‘I looked down and found an old friend standing below me. [...] Rumour had it that his name was Kumakichi’. Rumour had it? Surely she knows the name of her old friend? And that’s just not something you’d ever say when it came to someone’s real name, I don’t think anyway.

.

The more I think about it, the more I realise that I mainly only enjoyed the nicer food parts, the rest was sort of lacking. The plot was loose and the characters kind of two dimensional. Oh well, it’s a very quick read so I’m not mad I finished it!