The Full Moon Coffee Shop: A Novel (Mochizuki)

The Full Moon Coffee Shop: A Novel
Mai Mochizuki
Translated by Jesse Kirkwood (2014)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a Pandemic Book Club book. Both the ebook nore the audiobook had months-long waits at all three libraries, so I finally requested the hardcover. I had that in two days. It's a quick read. It's not a novella -- it was over 200 pages. The book was published in Japan, where it is set, and was translated into English by Jesse Kirkwood.

The story is broken up into three parts with an epilogue that ties it all together.

There's a coffee shop that only appears when the moon is full, and it doesn't have a fixed location. It appears to people who may be lost and need some directions. And it's run by cats with names like Mercury, Mars, and Uranus (who can appear human). It's not an actual shop, but a cart that has tables and chairs set up in front of it. If you sit at one of their tables, you can't order anything. They will bring you what you need. And they will read your star chart stating which planets are in whatever house, and what that might mean when applied to your life.

In the first part of the book, a romance screenwriter is now writing story lines for side characters in romance videogames, the kind that can conclude happily but leave the player wishing for the better character, so they keep playing. She gets a call from a producer about a script she sent. The other woman wants to meet her in person. The producer doesn't realize that the writer doesn't live in that neighborhood any more because she's downsized a bit.

The lunch meeting doesn't go well. The producer tells the writer that the network wouldn't go for it. It seems like the stuff that used to be done and doesn't reflect today's trends. The writer is shocked that the producer came all that way to deliver bad news, so she doesn't advocate for herself. The producer notices this.

The writer then finds herself in the company of the cats and learns more about herself. She makes a decision and decides to focus on making the best script for the videogame she possibly can.

In the second chapter, the producer is having a crisis. She wanted to see the writer because she remembers her as a substitute teacher from when she was a child. But the meeting went so poorly that she never had a chance to tell her. The producer has a couple of problems. One is love-related, and the other is affair-related. She has to fire an actress who had an affair with a married man because the public would be outraged and wouldn't accept her in the kind of roles that she plays.

By the time the day is over, the producer is drinking with the cats and set her straight on a thing or two.

In the third part, the fired actress gets her stars read and we find that everyone seems to be connected, going back to the same school. The substitute used to walk a group of kids to school, and all of them are important to the story and the cats. They remember every day passing the house of an old man who used to have his window open and would play piano. One day, he wasn't playing. The substitute teacher was worried and checked on him. He'd collapsed in his home. The kids got help for him.

As one might guess, things start to work out for all the people to whom the Coffee Shop appeared to. And in the epilogue -- IF YOU FOUND MY PAGE BY RANDOM CHANCE AND HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK, THERE IS A SPOILER COMING AFTER THE DASHES ---

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And in the epilogue, we find out that the old man was a symphony conductor who wasn't satisfied with his life. One night, he met the cats at the Full Moon Coffee Shop. After that, he quit conducting to focus on being the best piano player that he could be. He loved playing music for the children who walked past his house every day. And he remembered the kindness that they gave him. And as a reward, he asked the cats to look after the children and the teacher who helped him.

A touching ending that tied the book together more than I thought it would be.

I enjoyed this. This was the third hardcover book of the year, and it was only the middle of January! (Yes, I'm behind with my reviews!)

Next up, a YA book that I found a bunch of books in the series before misplacing all but the first somewhere in my house.

If you stumbled across my page via the Internet, please check out my short book series, Burke Lore Briefs.

The Easy Life in Kamusari (Miura)

he Easy Life in Kamusari , Shion Miura (2009)
Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter (2021)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was one of the free books I downloaded on Amazon's World Book Day.

The book is written as a memoir, but it's fiction. For one thing the main character is a man named Yuki (not to be confused with his coworker Yoki, who I did confuse him with at first). Less obvious, the author is female. (Obvious when you get to the picture and bio, of course.)

Also, when two woman appear who seem to be goddesses of the mountain, you can be sure that you've left memoir territory.

Famous Legends From Portugal (Abrantes)

Famous Legends From Portugal, Miguel Carvalho Abrantes (2021)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a freebie, and I was interested in legends other than the usual ones I see.

Divided into sections dating back to before Portugal was even Portugal, it's a collecton of stories about the stories. The tales aren't told, except as a summary of the legned (and sometimes popular variances). These are sometimes accompanied by travelogues, by which I mean, if it is the elgend is associated with a certain place, you are informed where that place is and what structures or artifacts remain from that time period. (Some have been completely torn down.

There are legends of kings and explorers along with religious legends and some famous people and places. Nothing that stands out, though, as I've finsihed two other books that I remember more.

Free ebook.

Beartown (Backman)

Beartown, by Fredrik Backman (2016)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was a book group selection. Another one that got off to a slow start because it jumped around a lot. I found myself dividing time between and a novella and a whole lot of manga. I started reading it in Libby, but I switched back to kindle for the "infinite scroll" feature.

The book takes place in a dying town called Beartown which is slowly disappearing into the woods as businesses close up and people move to other places, like neighboring Hed. The town has heart, though, and hockey. And this year's junior hockey team is going to the semifinals (against rival Hed) and then, if they win, to the finals. That will lead to greater things and turn this town around.

I'll start with that because the book starts with a scene of someone pointing a gun at someone else in the woods (literally, we don't know who) and says that this is the story of how this came to be. We then get a couple hundred pages about high school hockey. But it's a hockey town.

Introductions for the major players fly at you pretty quickly, so you're not sure who to care about. When we met Peter and Kira, it's hard to believe that they're a married couple, let alone one that's been together long enough to have two kids. (Three, actually -- that bombshell is dropped midway through.) Peter is GM for the hockey team, the Bears, which includes the juniors and the A-team. The A-team isn't seniors or high school students (although apparently high school can play) but a professional team, or at least semi-pro, that gets paid. From the there, some guys move on. This also explained how Peter made it NHL from the juniors and without going up to the A-team. Again, it's Norway, so it doesn't follow what I might be used to if I actually followed hockey, or high school and college sports.

Speaking of Norway, the most graphic part of the novel involves a 17-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl. Had that been in America, the girl being 15 might've counted a little more against the older boy. But the town's reaction might not have.

So Peter's the GM of the club. David is the coach of the juniors who are chasing glory. Sune is the old man who is the coach of the A-team and whom the president and the board want to resign on his own volition for the good of the club. It's the worst-kept secret. David will get that job, assuming his wins the finals because no one promotes a loser. Seriously. Maybe not in those words, but that's the feeling.

David's star player is Kevin Erdahl, who can do no wrong. That's mostly because whenever he does, Benji is there to take the fall. On the ice and off, it's Benji's job to protect Kevin, and that's why Benji can get away with anything, including being stoned most of the time they aren't on the ice. Kevin wouldn't survive on the ice without Benji. He almost doesn't survive off the ice without him.

Fatima cleans up the trash at the hockey rink. She has a son Amat who practices every morning for an hour before school. Sune comes in early one day (clearing out his office before the inevitable) and sees him. He leaves a note for David to get him for the juniors quick. David puts Amat through a brutal tryout and then puts him on the team. He's crucial in their victory. He's one of the team now. He's a Bear.

After the game, there's a party at Kevin's house. His parents (who are never named in the book, and I confirmed that with wikipedia) are away as they are very often. They rarely get to see Kevin's big moments. Another player bets Kevin that he can't score with the GM's daughter Maya (who came to the party with her friend Ana). Maya likes Kevin, and Kevin has shown some interest in her. Ana likes Benji, but he bails on the party as soon as he sees 15-year-olds coming into the house. Events that night will tear about the town as no one wants to take sides and yet everyone does.

Maya runs out of there and runs home, although she's spotted by Benji who leaves her there because she wants to be alone. She fakes being sick the next day and destroys all the evidence because she doesn't want anyone else to know. She believes that so far Kevin ony hurt her, but if it gets out then he will have hurt everyone. She tells Ana only because Ana came across Kevin and when they met, he looked scared. She knew something had happened and came over. It lasts a week before Maya comes forward and tells her parents what happened. They go to the police even though it's almost a week later, and she answers their questions and goes to the hospital to be checked out. The police show up to question Kevin and take him off the bus before it can leave for the finals.

And that's everyone's biggest problem: that Kevin will miss the big game. And he'll become the victim. And this hockey town will be ripped apart. The father tries to bribe or bully people. The mother, on the other hand, was aware something happened a week earlier because she found, and destroyed, all the evidence in her home, including a button that flew off Maya's blouse. But she's a mother first, and has to protect her son.

One wild card is Amat. He loves Maya (or at least had a crush on her) and fought his way upstairs to Kevin's room. He opened the door when it was happening, and his intrusion stopped the attack. But he'd been drinking, so he isn't such a reliable witness, and maybe 5,000 kroner will help convince him of that.

I appreciated some of the fast-forwarding to 10 years later so we can see how things turned out for some people but that actually left more questions unanswered. According to Good Reads, there are two more books listed as being in this series although I don't know if they are sequels of some sort or not.

I enjoyed the book, even though I wasn't sure if I would, and of course, it was going to be maddening as the people responded to a touchy situation. I just hope I forget too many of the details before the book club meets.

Life (Yao)

Life, by Lu Yao, translated by Chloe Estep (1982)

(Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.)

This was another book that I downloaded during Amazon's World Book Day promotion. I picked it mostly because it was near the top of the list and it was short. Yes, I wanted to squeeze a few more books in.

Life takes place in a peasant village in China, and in a nearby city. Everyone has their place dictated to them, and moving up is no easy task. The rules can be manipulated, but doing so has its consequences.

Many people follow old ways, and tradition is strong even in the ones who don't. But change is coming. Then again, it isn't there just yet.

The story centers around Gao Jialin, who is educated, but didn't place into university, so he went back to his village and became a teacher. Unfortunately, he gets displaced from this job by Gao Minglou, a village leader, in favor of the leader's son. (I was a little confused here if there was a relation between these two Gaos, because Gao Minglou seems to be some relative to the other muckety-muck, Liu Liben, aside from the fact that their families are connected through marriage.)

Jialin winds up doing the work of a peasant, so much so that he works his hands raw from overdoing it with the tools.

He also falls in love with Qiaozhen, the second eldest child of Liu Liben, who was never sent to school. The oldest daughter, Qiaoying, is also uneducated and married to Gao Minglou's son. The youngest daughter, Qiaoling, went to school. The similarity in names sometimes confused me with the oldest and youngest, as they aren't mentioned as much.

Although Liu Liben didn't educate his oldest daughters, he still wants better for them than the life of a peasant's wife. He is important in town, and he can marry them, he believes, to the sons of better off families. However, Qiaozhen shows no interest in any suitors or matchmakers. She's in love with Jailin. To many, it looks unseemly. To others, it's modern love.

When threats and schemes don't seem to work to discourage this relationship, a new solution is arrived at. Basically, in modern corporate parlance, they kick the problem upstairs. That is, get rid of the unwanted person by giving them a promotion and sending them elsewhere.

Jialin gets a job as writing reports in the city, and he becomes very good at it. He has less time for Qiaozhen, and she starts to seem more simple to him. At the same time, he meets Huang Yaping again. He knows her from school, and she works at the radio station. She is datng Zhang Kenan, another old friend from school, but she doesn't love him. She falls in love with Jialin, and tells him so. She convinces him that they should each break up with their other love interest, so they can be together, and then move to a bigger city together.

But Life has a way at laughing at the plans of ordinary mortals, as politics and petty revenge rear their heads.

It was an intereting read, although it took longer than I expected because I only read it at meals. Before bedtime, I tended to drift off, no matter how long I kept at it. (So, not engrossing.)