Lucky me, I just finished Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao. It came into my life—as these kinds of books often do—as a random pick-up from the New Book shelf at my local library. What first caught my eye was the pale blue cover and the illustrated instructions on how to fold an origami boat. I didn’t even bother reading the description before stuffing it in my bag. I was so taken by the design.
In all honesty, it took me a few weeks to actually start the book. (So long, in fact, that I ran out of library renewals. Also lucky for me: no late fees.) It just sat on my TBR stack, patiently waiting for me to remember it was there. I really just liked looking at it.
But one night, as these things tend to happen, I put down what I had been reading and picked up Water Moon. That first night, I easily read the first 50 pages or more, staying up way past my bedtime. The next night, same story. It wasn’t that I couldn’t put the book down—there were nights when I didn’t read at all. It was more of a gentle tug. “It’s time to read Water Moon.”
Reminiscent of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere or Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea, Sotto Yambao builds a fantastical world just beyond the edges of our own. Somewhere on a backstreet in Tokyo, there’s a ramen shop that isn’t always a ramen shop. And while people line up around the corner for a hot bowl, not everyone who stands in line makes it inside. Some find their way instead to a pawnshop where they can leave behind their biggest regrets.
These regrets take many forms—coins, watches, anything that carries the weight of a bad decision. But for Toshio and his daughter Hana, regrets always appear as beautiful birds they must cage and keep until the Shiikuin—a group of cruel beings who enforce the rules of their world—arrive to take them away.
The pawnshop is a family business. But the morning after celebrating Toshio’s retirement, Hana wakes to find the shop in shambles, her father gone, and the front door wide open. Desperate to find him, she nearly walks out the door barefoot and cuts her foot. Enter Keishin, another ramen-seeker and a doctor of physics. After bandaging Hana’s wound, he somehow convinces her to let him tag along on her search for her missing father—and the missing choices—before the Shiikuin return.
What follows is a journey through puddles and dreams, within bubbles and folded paper. Hana discovers much more than her missing father—she uncovers truths about her family, her world, and herself.
Sotto Yambao has created a truly unique story in Water Moon—a world alive with fantastical possibilities, where the adventure is driven by familial duty and unfiltered love. In a genre that’s “seen it all,” Water Moon manages to surprise with fresh imaginings and a tone that invites you to get fully, blissfully lost.
My favorite quote (from page 197 of the hardback):
Blue slushies, as it turned out, had a purpose other than giving you a brain freeze. Keishin watched Hana pour one out over the floor. He jumped and sank into the blue puddle, pleasantly surprised that he didn’t feel cold.
The trip was quick, over before Keishin could even begin trying to understand what it meant to travel to a star. Foxes made of sand and living scrolls had forced him to redefine what “fantastic” meant, and a star, he was certain, was going to test the new definition’s limits. It was therefore quite understandable that Keishin had a difficult time hiding his disappointment when he reached their destination.
“This is not what you expected,” Hana said, surveying a small village at the bottom of a gently sloping hill.
“I think that I must have misheard you. I thought you said we were going to a star.”
Hana smiled. “You heard correctly. But we will not be seeing one star. We will be seeing many. That village has one responsibility. Each night, it creates the sky.”
There have been more than a few times in my life when I’ve needed something as different and wondrous as Water Moon to get lost in. And just as often, I didn’t know I needed the story until I was already deep inside it.
Water Moon is like a well-brewed healing tea—warming the soul, soothing the mind, and resting the body.
If you like Water Moon then try Neverwhere by Neil Gaimen or The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.
