Rintaro is a reclusive high school student. He becomes even more reclusive after his grandfather passes away and leaves him a secondhand bookshop. The ostensible plan is for Rintaro to move in with an aunt he barely knows and close the shop for good. That changes when a talking cat enters the bookshop and insists Rintaro must save books from neglectful or misguided owners. The cat guides Rintaro (and sometimes another companion) through four labyrinths. At the end of each one is a purported book “lover” who needs to be taught a lesson. One such enemy is a man who reads books and then traps them in cases away from any other prospective readers. Another seeks to summarize books to the point where they are mere sentences, straps of their former selves. Rintaro must use his bookworm-ish nature to convince them to change their ways. He might change his own ways while he’s at it.
The characters are fairly bare-bones. Rintaro is labeled a hikikomori, a lovely word pulled untranslated from the original Japanese that doesn’t quite capture its nuance in English. But for someone who is purportedly a shut-in, Rintaro seems completely willing to go on adventures from which he may not return with a cat he just met. Perhaps I’m only criticizing him because I’m jealous? We may never know. Rintaro’s classmate and friend, Sayo, is concerned about him. She stops by the bookshop regularly, and Rintaro fails to pick up on even the most obvious signs that she’s into him. Sayo embarks on a few of the book’s quests, adding some extra flair. The real stars here are the “villains” who don’t treat books as they should. They feel like caricatures, but that ethos works in a book so short (less than 200 pages in my copy). The final boss of Rintaro’s journeying fell flat, functioning as a stand-in for religious texts whose readership may have waned over the years. But the first three, including the businessman who will only publish bestsellers, are interesting enough.
I also appreciated the talking cat simply because—and I know this may come as a shock—it’s a talking cat.
The Cat Who Saved Books is a lovely exploration of what it means to be a “reader,” though I recommend going in with a healthy dose of trepidation. Rintaro’s ideas can be preachy, to the point where his conclusions on how books would be read or appreciated feel like opinions being spouted as fact. The intentions are good; books should be enjoyed and loved by as many as possible, even if they aren’t the best sellers climbing the charts or making the rounds on Booktok (a thing Natsukawa never explicitly mentions, but whose spirit is nonetheless lurking throughout).
Packaged in a short novella-ish page count, The Cat Who Saved Books offers nice ruminations on reading and relationships. It can only afford to go so deep, however, and must, therefore, scratch the surface within its limited run. This leaves some of the book’s ideas underdeveloped and some of its characters lacking. Still, it’s a quick and easy read for cat- and book lovers alike.
Rating: The Cat Who Saved Books – 7.0/10
-Cole
