The Bookish Mindset

Overview:

Title: Water Moon
Author: Samantha Sotto Yambao
Published: January 2025
Genre: Magical Realism
Themes: Family, Fate

One sentence summary: Set in a pawn shop like no other, patrons can pawn their regrets and the owners will relieve them of them, with their own use for these regrets.

One sentence review: If you’re looking for something cosy with beautiful settings, delicate delivery and a twisty plot, then this is the book for you.

Review:

The morning Hana is due to take over the pawn shop from her father, she finds the place ransacked, or so it seems.

But this is no ordinary pawn shop. This pawn shop connects our world with an incredible new one that needs the pawn shop for its services. Rather than pawning items, those that find the shop can pawn their regrets, the choices that sit heavy on them. 

Kei enters the shop on that same day and their fates change forever. 

Well, where to begin? If you’re looking for something cosy with beautiful settings, delicate delivery and a twisty plot, then this is the book for you. 

Every new place we’re taken has been crafted with care, but not just in their descriptions, in their intent too. We have places where hopes and dreams are turned into stars, origami made houses and night markets that sit high in the sky. Lots have described it as having Studio Ghibli vibes and I totally get that. 

Where this differs slightly, and absolutely excels, from the rest of the cosy fantasy I’ve read is that the plot is second to none. There is pace, there is intrigue, there are plot points and twists and turns that had my jaw hanging open.. without it loosing the cosiness and adding stress to the reader. 

There’s other very minor plot points that I didn’t anticipate but thoroughly enjoyed that I won’t mention because for me not knowing them added to it (DM me if you want to know or discuss!)

I adored this and highly recommend it.

If reading more is something that you’re looking at doing this year then should check my reading challenge out here! Read nine books from nine prompts over the first six months of the year and be entered into a draw to win a bundle of bookish goodies.

If you’d like to get yourself a copy, you can support local bookshops while doing so on Bookshop.org with this link here.

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And don’t forget to check out my other blogs and reviews – you can find books with similar themes in the same folder link below, or click back onto blogs to see the whole offering.

Last updated 28/04/2025