Days at the Torunka Café Book Review
Hi Readers! Finished another book during the work-week this time. This one was also because of mood reading. I had read Satoshi Yagisawa’s previous books. While I enjoyed Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, I did not enjoy More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop. Since this was a new book not part of the previous book series, I thought of giving it a try. Read more below!
~~GOODREADS DESCRIPTION~~
From the internationally bestselling author of the Morisaki Bookshop novels comes a charming and poignant story set at a quiet Tokyo café where customers find unexpected connection and experience everyday miracles.
Tucked away on a narrow side street in Tokyo is the Torunka Café, a neighborhood nook where the passersby are as likely to be local cats as tourists. Its regulars include Chinatsu Yukimura, a mysterious young woman who always leaves behind a napkin folded into the shape of a ballerina; Hiroyuki Yumata, a middle-aged man who’s returned to the neighborhood searching for the happy life he once gave up; and Shizuku, the café owner’s teenage daughter, who is still coming to terms with her sister’s death as she falls in love for the first time.
While Café Torunka serves up a perfect cup of coffee, it provides these sundry souls with nourishment far more lasting. Satoshi Yagisawa brilliantly illuminates the periods in our lives where we feel lost—and how we find our way again.
~~THOUGHTS~~
Days at the Torunka Café consists of three short stories revolving around the Torunka Café showcasing the tenderness in relationships above anything else. Located at the end of a tiny alley, this cozy café is run by Isao Tachibana alongside his daughter Shizuku and a part-timer worker Shuichi.
In the first story, Shuichi meets a mystery woman Chinatsu who comes into the café. We see the theme of self-identity. It’s about how pain from old incidents can still cause people to judge their self-worth, how it can feel like you’re a burden and incapable of love. It was about opening our hearts to new people, new possibilities and most of all change.
In the second story, a middle-aged man Hiroyuki Numata meets Ayako, the daughter of a woman he dated 30 years ago. We see the theme of regrets. While a little long, it had a tender bitter-sweetness to it. It was about trying to find a piece of the past long-gone which made you happy and how that can be at times a glimmer of hope, but at other times just a last chance to be reminded of the person and time that brought a lot of happiness.
In the third story, Shizuku meets Ojino, her dead sister’s ex-boyfriend. We see the theme of grief. After six years of her sister’s passing, we see how she is still coping with a life without her. It showed how grief can make you do things you wouldn’t usually do. It’s about how grief forces you to do desperate acts just so you can feel somewhat closer to the person you’ve lost.
All the interconnected stories had heavy themes of death, grief, regrets, self-identity which revolved around finding and staying in those memories of happiness. While the connections to those long-forgotten memories brought the characters a lot of solace, they also painfully reminded them that it was in the past. So, we see them cling to those memories in self-destructive patterns, but at the end of it, they move on with the help of the community built around the Torunka café.
While all of this sounds charming and healing set in an aesthetic setting, this book did not work for me. It was a mix of Before the Coffee Gets Cold and The Lantern of Lost Memories, both books which I loved. Firstly, the theme flowed well across the three stories, almost too rigidly. What I love most about healing fiction is the absence of social commentary, which is not seen, but felt. This book had it all spelled out, leaving very little to imagination and personal interpretations.
Secondly, the interwoven relationships between the characters. Now this is where I like it spelled out. Two kids who treated each other as brother-sister grow up to fall in love. Two people with a 25ish age gap going on walks, eating together and hanging out. What is their relationship? Simply platonic friends or she was the daughter he never had or something unbecoming? A girl falling in love with her dead sister’s ex-boyfriend? Nope. I would have liked it to be entirely platonic or a mix of love story and friendships, but the non-chalance of their relationships left me guessing and had my focus diverted from the real focus on emotions. The dialogues as much as the affection between characters felt devoid of emotion, which was another major upset. If you read a lot of healing fiction books, you expect a standard from them, which I thought was very low in this one. I have rated Days at the Torunka Café by Satoshi Yagisawa, translated by Eric Ozawa at 2/5 stars!
Here are the book reviews of his two other books:
Days at the Morisaki Bookshop:
More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop:
Until next time,
About The Author
Aishwarya Shenolikar
Hello! I'm Aishwarya, an Introverted bookworm & writer. I have been reviewing books since 6 years on my blog - Mindscape in Words. My favourite genres are Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers, Magical Realism, Poetry, Fantasy & Memoirs. I like the kind of books which evoke emotions on several levels leaving me wrecked, but also incredibly content. I'm dreaming for the world to paint a landscape full of words, more like Mindscape in Words. Hope you enjoy the view.