Headlines:
Magical (realism)
Whimsical
Romantic

I enjoyed the foundational setting of the pawn shop in Tokyo. Open the door and is it ramen or is it a place to stow your emotions? Hana was about to finally take over the running of the shop from her father when the rug was pulled from under her feet. She found herself jumping into an adventure with the latest stray to enter the shop...Keishin.

From here, it was a story of jumping quest to quest, door to door with a cast of unusual characters. All of this was in the backdrop of a sense of peril and the lives of Hana's parents were at stake. The concept of what the pawn shop did was really interesting and the quest mostly kept my interest. I did find the story a bit overly drawn out and I was chomping to get to the end of the quests.

The romance developed rather sweetly and I believed the connection between Hana and Keishin wholeheartedly. I enjoyed the whimsical plot lines but I was never far from being worried about Hana's father and wanting to know more about her mother.

Overall, this was a good story with a magical realism experience I connected with.

Thank you Bantam Books for the early review copy.

“Water Moon”was absolutely magical, from candles that whisper prayers to bridges across the dreamscape to falling through puddles to markets on the clouds. This book has the strongest Ghibli vibes so if you’re a fan of Studio Ghibli, I absolutely recommend this one.

“Water Moon” deals with loss, and grief, and healing, while taking us on a journey full of wonder, love, and friendship.
It focuses on the choices we make and possible regrets we have to live with and dissects how it is to live with a predetermined path and if it is possible to stray from it.
It made me think about how every choice we make, no matter how small, can have huge repercussions, positive or negative, but also reminded me, that having a choice, as well as living with regrets, is a luxury.
The story just felt so cosy and whimsical while still being engaging and thrilling. It is unlike anything I’ve ever read and I enjoyed every second of it.
Hana and Keishin were both such incredible characters and I loved following them so much! They both weren’t perfect but that’s what made them so endearing and it was so sweet to see how they grew closer to each other and helped the other person grow and heal.
The writing was also stunning and there were so many great quotes, the ones I’ve added are just a fraction of the quotes I highlighted. It’s rare for me to annotate or even just underline a quote or two so you know it’s a good book when I can’t stop highlighting. I will definitely get a physical copy so I can properly annotate it and make some doodles as well.

Currently, I’d rate this a solid 4.5/5 stars although I can’t really put my finger on what’s missing for 5 stars however I’ve got a feeling that this is one of the books that will turn into a 5 stars although read upon a reread.

This was one of my highly-anticipated release so writing this down breaks my heart already. The world is so fascinating, I would have loved to learn more about it. About the pawnshop, night market, Horishi, paper house, and the shiikuin. Again and again, I am left disappointed by how boring the couple is. Kei is so pushy and I just hate every time he and Hana interact. I feel indifferent towards the ending, simply glad it is over.

Beautifully written with complex and endlessly imaginative world building, Water Moon was filled with surprises and wonder. Every new location was a delight, from paper houses to villages which fill the sky with stars, from puddle portals to trains which can take decades to arrive. The narrative was always taking new and unexpected turns, while never losing sight of its core plot and stakes. I loved the time I spent with Hana and Kei on their quest.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for this arc.

I adored this book! The perfect combination of whimsy and dark topics, with absolutely gorgeous prose and loveable characters. Truly lives up to the Studio Ghibli-esque claims!

Water Moon is a breathtaking fantasy novel, set in a world where pools of water can teleport you to new lands, prayers are captured in candle smoke, and hopes written on kites form the stars of the night sky. The plot follows Hana, the new owner of a pawnshop which collects burdensome choices from the people of our world. On Hana's first day as pawnshop owner, her father goes missing, the pawnshop is ransacked, and a new customer, Keishin, arrives just in time to help her. Hana and Keishin set out on a journey to find Hana's father, using their memories, secrets, and favourite songs as currency to trade with the kind citizens who help them on their way.

This is a truly magical story written with astounding creativity. The reader is repeatedly exposed to new realities, jumping through a pond to travel to the Whispering Temple, using sleep to find a tea shop which only exists in dreams, and travelling by song to a beach made of lost time. The child-like joy such creative writing elicits is like nothing I have experienced before. Adding to that, the writing is gorgeous to read. Rich descriptions of fantastical lands are interspersed with beautiful, emotive prose exploring the pain of hope, regret, lost time and unrequited love. Its themes are so profound, yet at its heart, this is a fun, whimsical, cosy novel, which is simply a joy to get lost in.

Thank you to Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and NetGalley UK for providing me with the ARC of this novel.

Thank you to NetGalley, Samantha Soto Yambao and the publishers for the opportunity to read this arc in return for an honest and unbiased review.

I liked the cover of this, I liked the title of this, I LOVED the story of this! From the beginning Hana and her father were a delight to read about. They were interesting, and there was a warmth to them. Maybe more so to Hana, her empathy was endearing. As the plot unravels, it feels as though we have fallen into a fictional story based on Salvador Dali’s art. The use of magic within this is fresh and original and it keeps true to Japanese constructs. Whilst immersed in a world of make believe, the story does take a dark turn, which I loved. It developed the characters further, changing the perspective of them and their complexities.

I wanted to like this, I ended up loving it. My only hesitation - we started with a whole new world, the ideas, the magic - it was new and fresh and original - and whilst that continued until the end, it felt like it kind of petered out - the story felt less thought out and almost rushed - I would have loved a better, more descriptive end.

Beautifully written in a very lyrical manner. This book gives you magical realism vibes. The whole atmosphere is very fresh and I loved the East Asian focus. The book did get rather tedious and lagged a bit towards the end.

Hana is prepared to take over her family's pawnshop. Her father is retiring and she knows what she has to do. On the first morning of her ownership, she awakens to a disordered shop, a missing item, a runaway father, and a mysterious stranger that is much more than what he seems. Hana and Keishin's journey through this magical "other world" is a beautiful story of duty, kindness, and healing.

I absolutely love this book. I thought that the "other world" was so creative and interesting. The Japanese cultural influences were very well done also. The story was very twisty but everything was tied up very nicely with some surprises that I never saw coming. I would really like to give this 4.5 stars, but Goodreads won't let me. I will definitely be ordering the hardcover version of this with the origami dust jacket. The creativity surrounding this whole project is just 🧑‍🍳😚.

Water Moon is a beautifully written book that is both captivating and whimsical. It had me gripped from the beginning and that doesn't happen often for me with fantasy books. I feel this was because although I was reading about fantastical happenings, they somehow felt completely believable and the pace felt fast.

The world building in this book is astoundingly magical. It's a truly skillful author to be able to create a rich and vivid landscape and magical system in just over 300 pages! I loved the characters too and quickly became emotionally invested in them.

I also found this to be a thought provoking read, leaving me reflecting on my own choices, regrets and dreams. I just loved everything about it book.

My thanks to Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC for review purposes.

How Water Moon managed to be so whimsically nonsensical yet relatably human will forever remain a mystery to me, but Samantha Sotto Yambao absolutely nailed the dreamlike vibes of this romantic magical adventure. It’s a tender and mysterious tale of choices, of fate, of family, and of the cost of regret, but most of all, it’s a tale of love in all its devastating beauty.

As someone who probably spends way too much time regretting the past and worrying about the future, the idea of a story revolving around a magical pawn shop where you can pawn off your regrets immediately spoke to me. But while Water Moon absolutely delivers on that premise, it also turned out to be so much more than that.

See, we follow Hana after she inherits the magical pawn shop from her father, but her first day could not have been more disastrous if she tried: the shop is ravaged, her father is missing, and her first client, an enigmatic yet charming stranger from another realm, quite insistently invites himself onto her mission to uncover the truth behind this confounding mystery; a mystery that is soon revealed to span multiple decades, lives and realms.

Now, let me tell you, I think neither they nor I could ever have prepared for the fever dreamlike weirdness that is contained within the pages of Water Moon. From jumping into puddles to teleport, to being folded to a new location, to getting your life path tattooed in blue ink which only appears when your skin gets wet, to flying paper cranes made of regrets, to floating markets in the clouds, and to bottles of sand that hold lost time… the creative madness just bleeds off every page; Alice’s Wonderland almost starts to seem like a boringly normal place after getting a glimpse into Samantha Sotto Yamboa’s wonderfully wild imagination.

If all that didn’t give it away, Water Moon requires quite a bit of suspension of disbelief to enjoy, and that extends to the development of the characters and their interpersonal relationships. For me, the intoxicating and almost insta-lovey dynamic between Hana and Kei just absolutely worked with the vibes of this story, and I loved experiencing all the wonders of this magical Japanese folklore-inspired realm through their contrasting insider and outsider perspectives.

That said, I personally did feel like the fast pacing and heavy focus on the rich world building distracted maybe a tiny bit from the character development, and I ultimately ended up only really connecting on a deeper level to Kei and his emotional journey. Moreover, I think the balance between the wonderfully whimsical tone and the more hard-hitting and darkly melancholy aspects sometimes just felt a bit off, which made the ending feel slightly rushed and some of the supposedly shocking revelations fall a bit flat for me personally.

Still, those minor quibbles didn’t hold me back from absolutely devouring this gem of a story, and I can’t deny that the journey was more than worth it. If you are in the mood for a Ghibli-esque introspective yet action-packed magical fantasy mystery adventure full of lush and imaginative world building, soul-stirring emotion, and the most tender star-crossed lovers romance, then I can’t recommend Water Moon highly enough.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House, UK for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. Water Moon is scheduled for release on 16 January, 2025.

Water Moon made me discover that although I love Ghibli-esque movies, it doesn't mean I would love reading ALL Ghibli-esque books.

We were introduced to the main character, Hana, and the pawnshop in the "other" world that her father owns and by the next day she will inherit. This pawnshop is unique - only those who are lost will be able to find it instead of the cosy ramen restaurant, and they can pawn their life choices and regrets for a chance to forget and heal. When Hana wakes up the next day to find the shop ransacked and her father missing, she sets off on an adventure with a stranger that she meets into her world to find him.

When I first read the first chapter, I was hooked. I've always loved how charming the writing of Japanese inspired/translated literature are, and Water Moon in my opinion, has that and also the promise of something cozy and fantastical at once. However, I soon realize this was not the case. The writing was indeed beautiful and there were definitely a few moments in this book where I felt enchanted by the quotes and messages, but it didn't really convince me about the story.

This book has a case of "telling but not showing" that I didn't like AT ALL. For me, the case of "telling but not showing" would probably work in a contemporary setting but since this is a fantasy, it just makes me as a reader feels detached to the story. The plot execution was all over the place - from the constant back and forth jump in the timelines and from how something is "conveniently" explained/introduced just for the sake of keeping the plot going. The imagery is beautiful and whimsical but so many of the world building is done only through explanations or conversations by the main character in a very sudden way that it kind of made it hard to enjoy.

I also felt that the characters were very two-dimensional so it was also difficult to root for them AND their developing romance which felt very insta-love to me. The romance is a big side plot so it's not something that I can ignore while reading. Do I think I would've liked this book better without it? Perhaps.

I think I would've loved this story more if it was a movie - the world building through explanations and dialogue probably would make more sense in a movie format - but for now, this was a let down. It actually took me weeks to finish this and I wanted to DNF multiple times but decided to go through because of the great reviews.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Transworld Publishers for the e-arc!

A unique sci-fi fantasy romance, that echoes a Studio Ghibli whimsy. Overall I enjoyed the central mystery as we search for Hana's missing father. The world building was extensive but slightly shallow, every few pages we are introduced to a cool new concept and then before we can really get our teeth into it we are whisked off somewhere else. The prose was gorgeous at times, but on the whole it felt like the story was trying to do too much in too few pages and everything had just slightly less oomph than I wanted. Overall a really fast paced and engaging read, a great story, I honestly wish it had been even 100 pages longer with a bit more to get my teeth into.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

🌕 Water Moon • Samantha Sotto Yambao 🌕
★★★★

Read if you enjoy:
🌕 Cosy fantasy adventures
🌕 Ethereal world building
🌕 Asian setting and culture
🌕 Magic and whimsy
🌕 Alice In Wonderland
🌕 Emotional romance
🌕 Stories with a mystery element

Hana has worked in her father’s pawnshop all her life, except instead of selling valuable, people who find the shop can sell their regrets. On the cusp of inheriting the pawnshop, Hana wakes on the first morning of her new life as the owner, and finds the pawnshop trashed and her father missing. When the scientific Kei walks into the pawnshop and offers to help, the two embark on an adventure that is beyond reason yet wholly captivating.

This book was absolutely beautifully crafted. Each setting has a tangible and simple concept and yet holds a deeper ethereal quality with its domain. I loved reading about the seemingly limitless imagination of the author. This felt like Alice In Wonderland with Asian flare. I would easily read this over again.

Water Moon is a compelling and enchanting fantasy novel. Its world is quite unique, allowing its denizens to trade in their regrets at a mysterious pawnshop in Tokyo, owned by Hana Ishikawa. I enjoyed the exploration of themes such as self-discovery and choice against the backdrop of magical realism and the ambience akin to Studio Ghibli’s films, boasting rich and beautiful descriptions. I loved reading it!

This is an incredible book - it’s like nothing I’ve read before. Maybe that’s because I tend not to read a lot of fantasy books but I was given the opportunity to read this one and I’m so glad I was!

Set in Japan, we start the story with Hana who is about to take ownership of her father’s pawnshop. But this is not a pawnshop in the sense that you or I would know but one that is disguised as a ramen restaurant and when people stumble into it, they can pawn their life choices and regrets. But on the morning that Hana is due to take over, the shop is ransacked and her father has disappeared. On the same day, Keishin walks into the pawnshop and by offering to help Hana find her father, he is thrown into her world which is wondrous, dark, mysterious and fantastical. Their quest reveals many secrets in Hana and her father’s past but will they be able to find him before they are caught by those hunting them.

The rest of the plot is a bit difficult to go through without giving away spoilers but I would urge others to read this book if you get the opportunity. I loved the characters, particularly the leads, and some of the descriptions were so well done that they really conjured magical images in my mind. This is the first book I have read in 2025 and I suspect it will rate pretty highly by the end of the year.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book.

DNF at 60%. I really liked the premise, but I found the two main characters to be quite bland. I liked the whimsical atmosphere at the start but it felt like that was the starting point for the whole plot, with the world-building seeming a little bit ad hoc and wild.

This is my first read of 2025 and I am giving it a full five stars.

From the moment Keishan walked through the door of the pawnshop Hana has recently taken over, he must have felt like he had fallen down the rabbit hole. In Hana's world nothing fits with the science and logic Kei understands and yet everything somehow makes sense. It's perfectly reasonable to jump into a puddle for transport or be carried to safety by origami cranes right?

Nothing is as it seems at first glance though and just as you think you understand where the story might be going, you don't. The idea of the choices being pawned initially made me think of a certain Disney movie with wishes at the heart of its concept, but everything else about Water Moon has Studio Ghibli vibes for me.

I loved how there is so much to say about the choices we make or regrets we have, even when we feel our life is literally mapped out for us yet, these messages run through the story as an undertone rather than being thrown in your face (making it far more effective in my opinion).

Each scene is so well described it's easy to visualise, and at times, reading was like a movie playing in my mind. In the same way as there was plenty of magic and whimsy in Hana's world, there were also a number of perils. It wouldn't be a true adventure without some touch and go moments and Water Moon has plenty of those as well.

I would say this book has really made an impact on me, definitely one to recommend especially if you love Asian fiction.

Thank you to NetGalley and Samantha Sotto Yambao for providing me with an e-ARC of this book.

Right from the start, the overall vibe of this book is captivating. Comparing it to the experience of watching a Studio Ghibli film feels spot on—it’s whimsical, immersive and vivid. The atmosphere was one of the book's strongest aspects for me. The setting is both unique and colourfully crafted, with each new location described in fantastical detail.

However, the writing was a mix of highs and lows. There were definitely moments where I felt this was a 5 star read. But then, the romance almost brought it down. It felt very "insta-love," with the connection between the characters forming almost immediately. While this might appeal to some, it’s not a trope I personally enjoy which made the relationship feel less believable and organic to me.

Despite this aspect, the book has a lot to offer in terms of atmosphere and creativity. A memorable read overall.

This was a mix of a Studio Ghibli movie and Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

Hana inherits a pawnshop that collects choices. She has never stepped out into the outside world, but when her father goes missing, she is forced to venture outside her comfort zone to search for answers.
She is joined by physics major Keishin who is curious about everything, and when he stumbles into Hana, he is deeply intrigued and wants to help.

This is whimsical, nothing makes sense, and each scene is almost scene where they venture into a new location, dimension, or memory.

<b>“Why did you do it?”
“For the same reason all fools give up good things. We look at our hands and wonder what we could hold if they were empty.”
</b>
I think this tried to be philosophical and melancholic, yet was too magical and simplistic and predictable for it to fully achieve this. I love magical realism, but this one felt like it was written to be a Japanese movie rather than a flowing book.

The romance was hard to buy in to and I wasn’t a fan of any of the ‘twists’ per se.

It was a book that felt soft, whimsical, and pondering. I typically don’t tend towards these books, but it was a nice change of pace.
It was sweet and reflective.

Physical arc gifted by Transworld.