The Cat Who Saved Books: A Novel
By: Sosuke Natsukawa / Narrated By: Kevin Shen
Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
Oh jeez… I think I’m missing something, like, HUGE, cuz I wanted to LOVE this story…
-BUT-
I was deCIDEdly underwhelmed. Two audiobooks I listened to this week were translations, and in The Plague I pondered whether the translation was at fault for my general sense of >blah<. Here, however?
Well let’s consider what we have in The Cat Who Saved Books which has the BEST cover art EVER. Plus it was likened to The Travelling Cat Chronicles which was, like, the BEST audiobook EVER. Plus Kirkus gave it a fair amount of praise, and Kirkus is usually, like, the BEST EVER when it comes to a good weighing of what works, what doesn’t. I generally go with them most readily.
And Jiminy H. Cricket: Books and a CAT!!!
The story opens with our young Hero, Rintaro Natsuki being unable to shed tears for his book-loving, bookshop-owning grandfather who’s just died. Rintaro is hikikomori, a kinda sorta modern-day hermit, in Japan. He prefers to hide out in his grandfather’s bookstore, but now, with grandpa gone, he’ll have to leave it all to go live with an aunt he barely knows. Rather than go to school, he uses the death, the imminent move, as good excuses to NOT go to high school. Instead, a pretty and popular girl in his classes stops by before band practice to give him his homework to keep up with. NATurally, her kindness is almost too much for him, but she’s a cheerful and none-too-gentle with her remarks sorta heroine, so imMEDiately I liked her.
While on his own in the bookstore, Rintaro is drawn to the verrrry back of the shop, and he finds that, like Lucy in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, there truly is only a loooong avenue to go down. A Cat meets him, an orange tabby with white markings, and this Cat deMANds Rintaro help him to save Books! There shall be journeys, fantastical hijinks, ominous (Yet quirky!) characters who either don’t appreciate books and keep them from other people, or who cut them up to make short short SHORT versions that people can speed-read through, or who print absolute dreck and near-pornographic salacious drivel just to sell sell SELL!
In each of these confrontations, the Cat steps back and has Rintaro step up to the plate, consider The Lie in whatever Truths each might be telling, and somehow make the individual see the error of his ways, and Save Those Books. The heroine somehow can see the Cat as well, and so she joins in on all these AWEsome adventures, and thus we have a budding romance for this young man who stammers, and blushes, and somehow grows along the way. -Plus- Dude! there’s the Cat!!!
Uhm, not really.
Each confrontation is, like, over so fast, the Cat baaaarely is in this story; we DO see growth in Rintaro, so THAT’S good; but yikes! was this over before it was done, or what? Sometimes I yammer on and on and bewail my fate as a reviewer when a short audiobook feeeels soooo loooong. But here? it was a matter of 5-hours being Over. Done. Finished. with nary an adventure to be had.
What WAS charming? Oh gosh, the literary references, for sure. Gimme Alexandre Dumas references, and I’m sooo With You! …until you confuse the beJESus outta me by introducing a villain, having Rintaro hem and stammer maybe once before a single sentence from him Changes The Universe. Add a comPLETEly confusing final and unexpected confrontation where I THOUGHT we were going to be surprised by author Sosuke Natsukawa having Rintaro see the consequences of his Heroic Duels, but which instead was… jeez… I HONestly dunno WHAT as the villainess contradicts herself about a dozen times so we don’t get to see what-all threat she is, exactly -and- I was done in by the end.
Kevin Shen does a pretty good job with Rintaro’s evolution from reclusive and hesitant young man (“I’m just hikikomori!” he wails a dozen times to tell the Cat and the villains that he simply canNOT do this, whatever this is), one who skips school, to a fairly confident young man who realizes that he’s his Best Self when he’s around books… and kind people. I liked that about Shen’s performance, a LOT. -However- his voices for the misguided Book Abusers are way over the top, to the point where I imagine that only kids would find it all entertaining. That said, kids wouldn’t like this, as what youngun’ wants to hear the Hero of the story quote Nietzsche? Well, maybe my sister would’ve loved that as a toddler, but she’s decidedly abnormally intelligent.
Nope, I reeeally HATE to say that I found this choppy and lackluster, and the Cat did NOT save books but only nudged some shy dude to say maybe, like, one itty bitty thing to save the day. I DID like the young heroine, but I’m not eeeven gonna try to spell her name, as I discovered I’ve been saying Natsuki WRONG all along, so obviously I know squat about spelling/pronunciation of Japanese. She’s spunky, tenacious, and dude! Rintaro was a MUCH tougher nut to crack than ANY of the villains he faced, but she did it.
So huzzah for spunky gals, and I s’pose huzzah to a nice enough little concept with okay narration.
Just, gosh, I’m sooo outta here. AND I’m now questioning everything ya danged say, KIRKUS!!!
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