Book Review: The Full Moon Cafe | Mai Mchizuki (translated by Jesse Kirkwood)

Translated from Japanese, The Full Moon Coffee Shop is a lovely novel. Expect magical realism, if you aren’t familiar with this genre of books. Heartfelt!

What is The Full Moon Coffee Shop about?

Translated from the Japanese bestseller, this charming and magical novel, inspired by the myth of cats returning favors to those who care for them, reminds us that it’s never too late to follow our stars.

In Japan cats are a symbol of good luck. As the myth goes, if you are kind to them, they’ll one day return the favor. And if you are kind to the right cat, you might just find yourself invited to a mysterious coffee shop under a glittering Kyoto moon. This particular coffee shop is like no other. It has no fixed location, no fixed hours, and seemingly appears at random to adrift young people at crucial junctions in their lives.

It’s also run by talking cats.

While customers at the Full Moon Coffee Shop partake in cakes, coffees, and teas, the cats also consult them on their star charts, offer cryptic wisdom, and let them know where their lives have veered off course—because every person who visits the shop has been feeling more than a little lost. And for a down-on-her-luck screenwriter, a romantically stuck movie director, a hopeful hairstylist, and a technologically challenged website designer, the feline guides will set them back on their fated paths. After all, there is a reason the shop appeared to each of them…

What did I think?

This is a difficult book to describe, particularly if you aren’t familiar with this type of Japanese literature centering around cats and the lore surrounding them. Cats are a symbol of good luck in Japan. The legend of cats is that they return a favor to those that treat them with kindness—a metaphor for how we should all treat one another, perhaps.

The book is told in three vignettes that each center around a different person but all of whom connect as well. The Full Moon Coffee Shop can be anywhere, we learn. And it can’t be found, it will find you. The shop is run by magical cats, and it finds people when they are lost and not sure what is next in life. The cats know exactly what you want to drink without you saying, and they know how to help you.

The book opens with Mizuki, who is a former teacher who writes scripts for games. Mizuki is in a bad place, she’s lost any interest in her life. She’s stopped taking care of herself. She lives on instant ramen. After failing a pitch for a television series to a producer named Akari, Mizuki is in a deep depression with nowhere to turn. She finds herself encountering fans. Unexpected, though she was very popular previously. She is invited to a café she has never heard of, and she reluctantly drags herself there. The café is run by cats instead of humans, and it’s surrounded by cherry blossoms. The cats bring her pancakes and use astrology to help Mizuki see her life in a different way. 

The next primary story is Akari’s, the producer who turned down Mizuki’s script. Well, the executives turned it down, Akari respects Mizuki since they worked together early in her career. Akari is also in a place where she was searching for something. We learn that Mizuki was her teacher when she was in primary school, so telling her that they weren’t interested in her script was particularly hard. She finds the café along with the shamed actress from her show, who was publicly humiliated for having an affair. Akari also has a history that she has pain from. The café brings them both what they need.

The third vignette will make sense when you get to Akari’s, so I won’t spoil it here. I found this book to be completely charming. A magical café that was much more than a café. It’s where those who are lost find their path in life, and the most magical part is that the café finds them first. It was nice how the stories intertwined, and a message of the serendipity of life. People who enter our lives for a purpose and then later that purpose is clear, but we don’t always see it at the beginning. Chance encounters, paying forward kindness, and celebrating the past and the future. Lovely!