What You Are Looking For is in the Library by Michiko Ayoyama
ARC from Hanover Square Press for an honest review
Book Blurb:
“What are you looking for?” This is the famous question routinely asked by Tokyo’s most enigmatic librarian, Sayuri Komachi. Like most librarians, Komachi has read every book lining her shelves—but she also has the unique ability to read the souls of her library guests. For anyone who walks through her door, Komachi can sense exactly what they’re looking for in life and provide just the book recommendation they never knew they needed to help them find it. Each visitor comes to her library from a different juncture in their careers and dreams, from the restless sales attendant who feels stuck at her job to the struggling working mother who longs to be a magazine editor. The conversation that they have with Sayuri Komachi—and the surprise book she lends each of them—will have life-altering consequences.
My Review: 3.5 stars
What You Are Looking For is In the Library by Michiko Aoyama is an ode to all the hard-working librarians in the world. It’s a quiet book that gives honor to the community at large and the importance of libraries.
This book follows five characters that are all missing something in their life. On visits to the library, each of them asks for a book that they think will fix their issue. The librarian, Sayuri Komachi, gives them each a book recommendation that has absolutely nothing to do with their problems. But somehow, strangely, the book opens his or her mind to bigger ideas that helps them work through the roadblocks. Each chapter we’re presented with another character, but their stories weave together as well.
It’s Komachi, the librarian, that I most enjoyed. Her Yoda like knowledge was part mystery and part magic. I do wish she was fleshed out more as she was an important character in the book. The readers get an influx of descriptions about her and her hobbies, but not what makes her the way she is.
Lately I’ve read a few Japanese authors and I’ve enjoyed most of them. The writing definitely has some commonalities in the storytelling and cadence.
Quotes I liked:
Yes, trust. Anything you do – borrowing money from a bank, commissioning a piece of work, sending or receiving a parcel, making a plan with friends, ordering food at a restaurant – all those things can only happen because of a mutual trust with both sides.”
“Isn’t a great thing to want more great books in the world? I want to read them too.”
“I, too, could change, and still be the same inside.”
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