A bookshop that appears to select people only under certain circumstances is the perfect amount of whimsy for “The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop” by Takuya Asakura, which is a story that focuses on healing.  

This story follows four different visitors and their different journeys, all of which lead them to the magical bookshop run by a girl and her calico cat. To reach the bookshop, each visitor must read the same book at the same time as the girl, Sakura, while surrounded by cherry blossom trees.  

The concept of this book is very unique and cute. Sakura and her cat create so much whimsy and relief for a book that is centered around healing for the various characters who enter their shop. This is because it adds enough magic to make the story fun while not taking away from the stories being told.  

Some of the characters who are on their own journeys actually intersect at the end of the book too, which makes the entire story feel full circle. However, only a couple of characters are connected. It would have been nice to see how the other characters could be tied together by more than just the bookshop.  

The author also did a fantastic job describing the setting and story as a whole by using descriptions centered around the five senses. It made it very easy to truly be immersed in the story.  

However, there were a few minor issues. Firstly, some of the grammar was a little off, like with the dialogue. In most books, dialogue is surrounded on both sides by two quotation marks, but in this story the dialogue only had one quotation on both sides. This is something that is very minor, and it is something likely caused by it not being originally in English.  

Another minor issue is that the introduction to the bookshop for each character felt very repetitive. It was often described similarly, if not the same, as the previous character described it before.  

It wasn’t a problem at first, but it slowly began to feel slightly annoying by the third or fourth visitor. If there was a bit of variation or minor details being added with each visit, the feelings of slight annoyance would not have happened.  

Overall, this story is more of a feeling journey, so if you are looking for a more plot heavy book, this may not be the book for you. However, for this book being 207 pages long, it did a fantastic job at encapsulating all of the right emotions for the healing journey each character experienced.