Sama Farrag Dive into a world of flying origami cranes, a pawnshop for regrets, and a place where the sky and the sea become one.
“Things don’t have to make sense for them to be real.”
Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao is a novel about choices, fate, and finding your purpose—but it’s not that simple. Behind the doors of an unassuming ramen shop hidden in the bustling streets of Tokyo lies a mystical world beyond imagination. Appearing only to those who need it the most, the Pawnshop of Regret emerges, and you are free to pawn a choice you’ve made for a box of tea. (Send location, please!)
“Our clients have choices that have become too burdensome to carry. We take these choices off their hands so that they may return to their world lighter. Content.”
Hana is the protagonist, and she is meant to inherit the pawnshop the day her father retires. Instead, she wakes on that day to find the shop ransacked, her father missing, and a handsome stranger at the door. Alongside Keishin, Hana embarks on a journey through a pond in the garden to search for her father, a missing choice, and the meaning of life.
What I appreciated most about Water Moon is that it does not over-explain itself. It immerses you in a space between dreams and reality for the entirety of the novel without posing questions as to why you are there. One minute you are asleep and crossing a literal bridge between midnight and morning, the next you are shopping for memories preserved in pearls at a night market in the clouds. Samantha Sotto Yambao created an ethereal and dreamy universe that rendered me unable to put the book down. It’s poetic in all the right ways, and Yambao made every sentence more resonant than the one before. Reading this book late at night before bed with a warm cup of peppermint tea felt fitting—as though slipping seamlessly from the pages into my own dreams. The world is fascinating and completely compelling—it’s Inception as if it were a Studio Ghibli production.
I’m a sucker for a good old-fashioned Wattpad-esque love story. However, the romance in Water Moon fell short. Having literally just met, Hana and Kei spend the novel yearning for each other through a stolen kiss and the classic we-have-to-share-a-bed trope. Their dialogue was at certain points lackluster and trite. That being said, towards the end I had grown to care for them as individuals and had a very, very small soft spot for the couple. Personally, I feel that I would have connected more with the novel if Hana and Keishin had gone on their journeys of self-discovery on their own, with the focal point being their internal reckoning and pursuit of meaning.
Because of the romance, I wasn’t able to completely grasp the profound meaning presented in the novel. I found myself more invested in the setting and the magical realism that is intricately woven into each page rather than the actual story. Although, as it drew to a close, I had grown very fond of the characters and their stories. The few final chapters tied everything together and revealed deeper themes that left me with lasting appreciation for the work.
I give it a 3.5/5—trust the author, trust Hana, and trust yourself to be completely and utterly swept away to another world by Water Moon.
