The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa is a good book but also a little unusual. Rintaro Natsuki is a teenager who is working on closing up the secondhand bookstore he recently inherited from his grandfather when something unusual and slightly astonishing happens. A tabby cat randomly appears in the bookstore and claims that Rintaro’s help is required. After some convincing Rintaro follows Tiger the tabby down a mysteriously appearing corridor in the back of the bookstore on their new mission, trying to save books from neglectful owners in various labyrinths. In order to do so they must find and confront a specific person in each labyrinth and help them to see exactly why reading and appreciating books is so important. As they work on navigating the series of labyrinths Rintaro unintentionally starts thinking about who he is, who he wants to be and what exactly he wants from life. He is helped along by various conversations with Tiger but also with one of his classmates who gets dragged along for the ride.
This book was a really great read in that it approached the idea of appreciating literature from a very unusual perspective. I know I am a huge book lover and so is most of my family but I will say that this book also made me really sit and think for a bit about what it is that I love about reading. Each of the labyrinths puts forward different ideas that people have about reading but are also actually somewhat detrimental to readers. I really liked how the book handled some of these concepts such as when it deals with the idea of reading merely to hit a quota and not actually thinking about what you are reading or why you are reading it. Unfortunately, I know a lot of people who are like that but I hope that books like this one will make them think about that exact thing. Books are not just something to be endured in order to check it off of your list but are something to appreciate as much as any other art form and I hope this book would help people to realize that. The book itself seems to pretty well written and does a great job of handling some pretty intricate or intense topics, especially for people who are not used to thinking about them. However, I think the approach it uses would definitely help the average reader to better grasp the topics and themes it includes. There are not a lot of characters present in the story but we do get to really know the main characters because of that, Rintaro especially. The amount of growth he achieves over the course of the book is incredible and I rather enjoyed getting to know him. In all honesty the only thing I didn’t really like was how the labyrinths were merely metaphorical and not actual labyrinths. The center of the labyrinths where Rintaro had to work on liberating the books were also rather interesting as he had to essentially debate the owners of the books and explain why they needed to change their thinking. I liked this aspect because it showed how people think when they participate in that kind of behavior so it allowed some great insight. Honestly, I also just really liked how it continually circled back to the idea of genuinely loving to read. This book was really good so I am giving it 4.5 out of 5 stars.
This book is technically adult fantasy but it would probably appeal to all readers who genuinely enjoy reading, like myself. While I would hope it would also appeal to other readers I also know that it may not so I am just going to state that I hope you will consider it instead. In terms of age range I would also have no problems recommending it to younger readers as well. Not only is the narrator still in high school but there is no content that would be unsuitable for readers potentially as young as thirteen or fourteen. I would worry about readers younger than that understanding some of the content in the book though. If you decide to try this one feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.