Water Moon Audiobook By Samantha Sotto Yambao cover art

Water Moon

A Novel

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Water Moon

By: Samantha Sotto Yambao
Narrated by: Cindy Kay
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About this listen

A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets, and then embarks on a magical quest when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop, in this dreamlike fantasy novel.

“Race through a lush world of pure wonder and romance—kites made of wishes that become stars, origami that holds time in its folds, and a night market in the clouds—in this lovely, cozy fantasy reminiscent of Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea.”—Booklist (starred review)

On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.

Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.

Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds.

But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.

“Highly recommended . . . Readers who have been swept up in the cozy charm of Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi and The Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee will fall hard for the mix of magical realism, fantasy mystery, and star-crossed romance.”—Library Journal (starred review)

©2024 Samantha Sotto Yambao (P)2024 Random House Audio
Contemporary Fairy Tales Fantasy Feel-Good

Critic reviews

“This new, soft fantasy is the perfect companion to a fuzzy blanket and a comfortable chair: enter a delightful (but still dangerous) world of paper-lantern wishes and origami secrets.”—Book Riot

“Sotto Yambao’s inventive setting pushes the limits of common fantasy tropes, and her thought-provoking exploration of regret, choice, and free will resonates. This whimsical tale will have readers riveted.”Publishers Weekly

“Race through a lush world of pure wonder and romance—kites made of wishes that become stars, origami that holds time in its folds, and a night market in the clouds—in this lovely, cozy fantasy reminiscent of Erin Morgenstern’s The Starless Sea.”Booklist, starred review

What listeners say about Water Moon

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Sooo good!

This book is so creatively written that it keeps the reader/listener completely engaged! A must read and even if you don’t love fantasy stories, which would be me, this story line is so interesting and simply fun!

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Favorite book

Beautiful, magical, heart warming, and still full of twists. It was like navigating a dream. I absolutely loved this book.

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Relationship centered with mythical beings.

Smooth listen full of messages heard by the keen ear. Intrigued by the voice and fluid read.

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solid listen

the uniqueness of the story line and world building was good. glad it was a bookclub pick

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Dreamy, story-world adventure!

Beautiful, imaginative novel. I felt transported to a Spirited Away-like dream world just on the other side of waking.

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Delightful and Thoughtful

Beautifully written and wonderfully told. Very fun escapism. I loved it. Many metaphors and many layers of love to unfold. Highly recommend.

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A Beautiful Dream

This book reminded me of The Starless Sea in its dreamlike world building. I do wish I had read this on print first as there wasn' long enough between when the tale switch from the story to a characters internal thoughts. I had to rewind multiple times to figure out where I was in the book. Over all a very enjoyable read. the narrator did a great job. I'm looking forward to reading more from this author. Hopefully we'll get more tales from the other world.

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Water Moon

Water Moon, by Samantha Sotto Yambao, is a wonderful, magical journey. Excellent narration. I think my favourite of Ms Yambao’s books since her first - Before Ever After. I love the characters and don’t want the story to end. *****

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Magical, Haunting, Lovely

Water Moon is the kind of novel that makes you escape your world, yet question the mysteries surrounding it at the same time. This novel was a delightful ride in and out of places you never expected. It’s refreshingly original in the best of ways. The world building and character development caused me to want to live in this book and never come back! Read or listen, I did both and will be doing it again!

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Ghibli for Readers

I finished this book many days ago but wanted to sit and muse over my thoughts before giving my review. Just as tea is meant to be sipped, Water Moon requires a nice kettle, steeping, and sitting with thoughts. As the kids say, 'Let it cook'.

This book does so much right. Almost every review has the words 'Studio Ghibli' mentioned, because for fans it is desperately hard to sepeate the feel of this book with the adventures of classics like Totoro, Howls Moving Castle, Kiki's Delivery Service, Spirited Away, or the ever new classic- The Boy and the Herron. Water Moon will plunge you deep into the Ghibli style atmosphere filled with wonder, adventure, coming of age and magic. There is such extreme creativity in the magic itself within the telling of this story. Many recent books have attempted to create a similar atmosphere- a specific one that comes to mind is Hotel Magnifique, the Temu version of a Ghibli movie.
Water Moon, however, takes you on a mind-bending adventure where up is down, right is left, and paper is folded into worlds. It is quite possibly the first book I've read that begs to be put in an animated setting since The Starless Sea. It is a love poem to all Japanese animation and i long for someone to put ink to paper.

*PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD GHIBLI TEAM- MAKE THIS FILM.*

When one reads a lot of fiction things tend to get a bit monotonous. Water Moon will captivate you all the while screaming, 'I AM DIFFERENT, HEAR ME ROAR' through the entire story.
I adored each new landscape or precious moment of exiting a new location. I can't begin to put into words how special and unique each new setting felt. It was radically different than most anything I have read in years.
Water Moon achieved so much within its pages, yet I think the reason I grappled so deeply with how to review it is due to a couple tangible issues.

-Lack of Grounding- All Ghibli films ground the viewer in the opening scenes. This is massively important, as it presents the viewer with a relatable character, in a tangible world- before throwing them into a reality that bends their mind in a way that is hard for our muggle world brain to comprehend. It is exactly why we relate to Harry, Percy, Lucy, and Alice all so well. They are humans, just like us- that have been presented with a magical opportunity they won't understand. It helps us grasp onto the magic carpet before flying. It's relatable.
Although this isn't always the way to digest content...it does make it more palatable. Water Moon did not take this approach and it tends to make things feel exhaustive.

-Duel Perspective- First, I'd love to encourage authors to stop writing so much Duel Perspective. I find it really intrusive on most all narratives. Once in a while you get a banger like Six of Crows, but it's rare. Much of the time I don't find the story more comprehensive or digestible when getting more than one perspective- I find it irritating. We as a reader are thrust into the magical world our protagonist Hana lives in and watch as our regular boy counterpart open a door to her pawn shop, when he thought he was walking into a Ramen shop. All of this is fine and sets the perspective that we are aware of the magic thoughts and realm through Hanas eyes and mind, setting the reader up to believe she will learn about the regular muggle boy. Then things broke down when it turned into a duel perspective...
If we were going to have duel perspective why not follow him into the ramen slash pawn shop? It felt so odd to start in the world of magic only to be jolted over to his mind. I didn't like it and I do wonder how others perceived it?
I did enjoy his inner monologue ...um, setting (so as not to spoil) but outside of that - I wish Yambao had simply chosen one character over two.

-Magic At First Sight- Our regular boy is thrown into absolute chaos and manages all of this toxically too well. Idk if "magic at first moment" could be a parallel to "love at first sight" but this book does both- and not for the betterment of the story telling. He is honestly un-relatable, and our main character is a tad robotic.

-Dialogue. I won't be the first or last to communicate the issue of the dialogue. Lot's of telling over showing, pressing more into Hana feeling robotic. I struggle to complain, as so much of the prose is pretty at points, but ...it can't be ignored- our characters communication falls flat. I DO think in an animated version this would feel better. Again, Water Moon is essentially a love letter written to Ghibli....Ghibli could ultimately fix things. Their dialogue isn't always deep or necessary because you visually can see everything happening on screen, which is a massive advantage. I didn't hate the conversations throughout this book- but I frequently found their moments of communication lackluster to the incredible intoxicating setting.

- Atmosphere vs. Immersive- Water Moon has an incredible atmosphere that has been built for you to view- but I oddly wouldn't call it immersive. Books such as Circe or The Starless Sea are immersive in a way Disney can only dream of concocting. It is incredibly rare to read a book and smell the sweat on the characters brow or taste the honey on their tongue. Immersive books are one in a million and for many Water Moon will be that. I believe it deserves to be that, but for me stayed on the atmosphere plane instead. I am with the characters, I can see them interacting with the plot surrounding them, but I didn't feel that I was in the room with them.

-LightSpeed Pacing- This story travels to each destination at an incredibly rapid pace that i found irritating. Let me linger in the paper crane. Let me smell what is around the characters. Some of this problem leans into the problem of dialogue. Dialogue plays a large role typically if there is a steady, calm, non-active scene. When the dialogue isn't strong enough essential Lulls in books are tend to be a bit thinner. Let me get my footing with this plot. Yes they are on the run, but let me have moments where its not redundantly getting new settings almost each chapter. When you push me off the edge it should feel like a big reveal. There is so much ledge pushing that it takes away from the drop. I need to feel that drop. I need my stomach to jump and my soul to leave my body sometimes. The amount of jarring location switching took some of the ambiance away that I yearned for. - An easy example is the scene in Howls Moving Castle where they make breakfast.
This scene is so relatable, the characters Slow down, break bread, cook bacon, - while feeding the personified fire the leftover egg shells. I'll call it 'lullaby magic'. It lulls me into obsession with this world. It's gentle and understandable- a scene we've all experienced with a dash of magic. Then, when you have a wizard turning into a giant bird-creature our brain is more willing to accept it. We've had our cake and eatin it too, we broke bread with a Wizard. Water Moon left me DESPERATE for slow scenes like this. They aren't completely absent, however, they are rare and the dialogue during them felt static.


All in all I want to reread this story. It's an immediate favorite. There are so many creative layers down to the cover folding into an origami boat...
Wind in my hair or not, plot being devilishly too quick- I will be returning many times to Water Moon.


Concept 6/ 5
Setting 5/5
Characters 3/5
Magic System 5/5
Magical Objects/creatures 6/5
Plot 4/5
Coherence 3/5
Romance 3/5
Prose-4/5
Audio Reader 3.5/5

Final Rating- 5 Stars ( I want a longer 6 star version - with improved dialogue )

Final Verdict- "It was rare, I was there, I remember it, wind in my hair, I was there I remember it all." "We found wonderland, you and I were lost in it. We pretended it could last forever" - Taylor Swift Musings the last few days

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