Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao

SYNOPSIS

On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see only a cosy ramen restaurant. And just 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 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 - through rain puddles, hitching rides on paper cranes, across the bridge between midnight and morning and through 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 she will never be able to take back.

~~~~~

Water Moon was a dreamy epic that whisked me away to so many new worlds. Every good adventure novel needs high-stakes obstacles, fantastical new places, and a top tier mystery to keep the plot moving along and this book had it all. Water Moon was one of my most anticipated reads of 2025 and it followed through. This is one instance where you can definitely judge a book by its cover. The cover promises clouds and magic, dreams and love and danger, a book full of impossible things. Hana and Kei, our two leads, carry this story through every stage of discovery so well that I was blind to every twist that came my way.

Hana wakes up filled with dread at the fact that the rest of her life is now laid out in front of her in black and white. The owner of the pawnshop passed down from her father and previous generations. Never leaving, never having adventures of her own, just the same day, every day, for eternity. So when she wakes up to her father missing and the pawnshop ransacked, she may not admit it, but she’s glad for some of the excitement that’s now on her doorstep. With the sudden appearance of an opportunistic physicist ready to help her no matter what, she whisks him away on adventure he’d never have been able to dream up in his wildest imaginations. As Hana and Kei travel from dreamy world to dreamy world, trying to find answers, they begin to discover some things about each other, and themselves, that make them realize life will never be the same.

As I mentioned earlier, this book read like a classic epic. Similar to Odysseus in an adventure to find/save home, Hana and her crew (of 1 or 2 along the way) come across danger at every turn. I loved the pacing of this book and, as a rookie to Studio Ghibli (where this author definitely drew inspiration from) I was new to this way of storytelling. It was like one of those vivid dreams that get wilder and wilder because it’s really multiple dreams stitched into one. There’s no better way for me to explain it. Reading a story told in this format, without a major climax but many throughout the journey, was a perfect slow-burn.

As entirely enjoyable as this adventure was, I did have some qualms about the romance. I found this story to be more of a focus on generational trauma, grief, and character inner journey’s of self discovery. The romance took a backseat in my opinion and because of this, I didn’t find it wholly believable. Hana and Kei barely knew each other, barley opened up to each other, and somehow still found great love in each other. I feel like the “falling” part of falling in love for them happened in between the chapters, off page.

Romance aside, the character development was fantastic. Hana starts off resigned to and afraid of her destiny. Blind and refusing to analyze the impact she and her father have on the lives of everyone in their world. She grows to know love and caring and a world outside of the small one she locked herself into and finds her bravery and her motivation to carry on. She learns to do things differently, and break the cycle. Kei had some of the best self-discovery in any book I’ve read for a while. He grows from a sad and lonely physicist who doesn’t belong anywhere, to a sure and determined man who no longer fears what is around every corner. His backstory and his present with Hana clash in interesting ways that show him things about himself he never knew he had hidden away.

I really enjoyed this story. It was just as whimsical and dreamy and adventurous as I had hoped…. and it also converted me to a Studio Ghibli fan (do NOT ask how many movies I binged after reading this k?). Although the romance wasn’t to my taste, everything else about this book was fantastic. 3.75 stars