What I most liked about this book was the ambiguity I alluded to above. I loved trying to decode the meaning in the various bizarre events. It is a strange story and one filled with comedy, yet it constantly makes the reader question societal norms and points to problems that need to be addressed. The book starts as a shallow, almost silly story in which goofy things happen but by the end it becomes much heavier and more psychologically and philosophically loaded. For these reasons, I think it will prove to be a very successful book and will probably get an even better reception than Diary of a Void.

3.5 stars rounded up!

This book was so unusual, I don't think I've ever read anything like it before. It's a quietly surreal exploration of making connections and the idea of ownership.

Rika thinks about things in the same way that I do (like her internal monologue about what prawns see and think before they're frozen). I really loved Venus as a character too, she's so cheeky.

I do love Japanese fiction and I happily read this book based on the recommendation of fans of "What you are looking in the library for". It's a short book and could be described as a novella. Slightly different to the other books I've read which are chapters and each based on a different character and their story (short story format). Very quirky about a Latin speaker hired to talk to a statue in Latin! Very odd but enjoyable.

I adored Diary of a Void so I was excited to find out that another of Yagi’s works would be getting an english translation. When the Museum Is Closed was a book I quickly became addicted to. I loved Rika and their growing closeness to Venus.I loved the way this was written and how the translation didn’t seem to loose any of the messaging and heart of the novel.


It is paced well and while it is a quick read I found myself still thinking about it long after I had finished. I particularly liked how the exploration of rather prevalent concerns and emotions were dealt with in such a way you got thinking without really realising it was making you do it.

A highly surreal and strange concept but I found it really thought provoking and interesting!
Unlike anything I've ever read!

A strange but oddly touching read. When the Museum is Closed is a quiet, surreal exploration of loneliness, longing, and imagination.

The idea of falling for a marble statue, one that talks back to you in your own mind, is both tender and a little heartbreaking. There’s something deeply introspective here, even though some moments, especially the more intimate ones, felt hard to wrap my head around.

It’s an unusual story, but not one I’ll forget anytime soon.

Thank you netgalley for letting me read this book! 😊 With some books, I feel like I have missed something or I haven't understood everything. With this book, I definitely understood all the themes, I liked the concept and the tone of the writing, but it ironically seemed a little over simplistic or surface level. This was possibly due to either translation or writing style, I'm not sure which. I did enjoy it, but only on a surface level for its unique premise. I'm not sure how memorable I'll find it on a deeper level or how often I'll think about this book, which is a shame but I did still like the reading experience.

I was so interested in Yagi's writing, after diary of a void being my favourite book last year.

Following Rika in her day-to-day live, where magical realism blends in with a introspective of ourselves, the narrative is strange (as one expects)but I wouldn't consider it boring. However, I couldn't connect with Rika, maybe her motivations and internal thoughts lacked depth.

I can't pinpoint the true intention of this story. I could see why forming a deeper human connect, one that doesn't speak a dead language, could be hard for Rika or even Venus that spends so long without a proper connection. This book being written during the pandemic makes even more sense to me. However, wish it was maybe not longer but explored a bit better.

Hope to see the author branch out into other characters/topics in their next book.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC

I loved the idea that after hours the statues in a museum (sort of) come to life and the idea that someone would be brought in to chat with them was inspired. I especially loved that the statues all spoke in the language of the times they were created in and thus Venus is doubly lonely as she is the only Latin statues in a room full of Greek ones.

I don't think that I quite understood the metaphorical yellow raincoat or the allergy to heat but I loved the bits in the musem

This is a wonderful surreal tale of a woman working at a museum, who talks to a statue of Venus. But it's also the tale of how this woman grew up with a metaphorical yellow raincoat that sometimes restricts her in social situations. And it's also the tale of her weird neighbours.
I think I liked it!? Not completely sure I 'got' it, though.

This story begins with a surreal premise: Rika, a young woman, starts a mysterious job as a conversation partner to a sentient Roman statue of Venus in a museum after hours. First led to the statue by a strange, handsome curator, Rika is soon left alone, and the closed museum becomes a liminal space where mythology comes to life and reality blurs.
Venus is witty, sharp, and weary after centuries of stillness. Rika, anxious and isolated, finds unexpected comfort in both the quiet stillness of the museum and the structured complexity of Latin—a language she can speak often more easily than her own. As their conversations deepen, a gentle intimacy grows between them, not without its challenges, which allows them to grow and change.

The strongest element for me was the museum itself, evoked as a still, sacred space, alive with the whispers of ancient goddesses in long-dead languages, a haunting “snapshot of ancient mythology.”
Also the character of Rika who struggles to connect to others mainly through the use of language and develops strategies (not the most effective) to compensate and navigate these difficulties.
However, the story’s fast pacing and occasionally disjointed structure made it difficult to follow at times, and not all of its ideas felt fully formed or explained.

This is a strange and thoughtful meditation on loneliness and connection; difference, self-expression, agency, and transformation, all wrapped in a dreamy layer of magical realism. I was reminded of Greek Lessons by Han Kang, by the similar themes covered in both books.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book for my honest review.

Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for providing an e-arc of this title.

Translated from Japanese, this quirky and surreal story follows Rika - a socially awkward speaker of Latin - and her conversations with a statue of Venus. It took me a moment to get lost in the story, due to the unusual relationship and style of writing - such as the use of a yellow raincoat as symbolism for Rika’s social challenges. I felt a little frustrated trying to confirm if this coat was real or not, but that’s just may be just me not getting it quick enough. :-)

The other relationships in this short novel were intriguing and hopeful, and help ground the book in realism.

The book touches on some of the societal issues experienced by outsiders whilst remaining a gentle and not preachy read.

I would recommend this title to those who enjoy the current trend in Japanese short stories - but with a touch of the surreal and a queer mini romance.

This book is definitely memorable, leaving you with lots to ponder once finished. Some readers may want to read it twice!

At the end of this book, I feel like I am not clever enough for the read. I kind of liked it but I am also questioning it.

After Emi Yagi was criticised for the less realistic elements of her debut novel Diary of a Void, she decided to revel in that aspect of storytelling, the result is a compelling novella which effortlessly blends the everyday with the fantastical. A celebration of non-conformity and freedom from society’s constraints, it’s a surreal, myth-like piece, a highly inventive variation on a queer love story. Yagi’s main character Rika Horauchi is an outsider, tentative, withdrawn, she hides inside an invisible yellow raincoat which both shields and forcibly separates her from the world around her. But an unlikely skill, the ability to speak conversational Latin, brings Horauchi aka Hora to a small private museum. There she’s paid to converse with an ancient, marble statue of Venus, a solitary Roman surrounded by a bevy of Greek goddesses. Venus too is alienated, designed to fulfil an ideal of stoical, passive female beauty, she longs to escape, even if that means an end to her existence. As Hora slowly falls for Venus, she finds herself vying with the museum’s curator Hashibami, a man whose obsessive desire for Venus manifests in sinister ways. For Hashibami love equals control and unfettered access.

Yagi was initially inspired to write this by numerous sightings of discarded, naked mannequins inside shops abandoned during the pandemic. Yagi wondered what might happen if they could speak, what they might say about their period of isolation. Her carefully-constructed narrative builds on these imaginings, playing on the sense of the uncanny stirred by objects that mimic the human form. Yagi’s claustrophobic yet richly intertextual novella invokes a variety of pieces featuring similar scenarios from Ovid’s Metamorphoses to Hoffman’s “The Sandman” – Hashibami, with his disdain for living women, reads like a contemporary incarnation of Ovid’s Pygmalion with Venus a candidate for Galatea. But the disturbing interplay between Hashibami and Venus also connects to a strand within Japanese culture, a tendency to attribute human characteristics to inanimate objects – something that crops up throughout the novella - echoed in the many rituals involving dolls. For Hashibami Venus is essentially a kind of doll, a projection of his fantasies, a thing for him to pick up, and then discard at whim.

Hashibami's deeply unsettling behaviour closely resembles that of numerous male characters within a particular body of Japanese literature – sometimes referred to as ‘doll-love’ fiction’ - exemplified by stories produced by writers like Kawabata, Edogawa and Tanizaki. Yagi’s novella deftly critiques the misogynistic attitudes and patriarchal values this subgenre promotes. She could have based the relationship between Hora and Venus on the interactions between a child and her doll. But instead of making Hora the one who confides in Venus, Yagi has Venus take the lead. Venus encourages Hora to open herself up to new ways of thinking and communicating; their bond gradually moving towards equality. Yagi partly modelled their unorthodox romance on Patricia Highsmith’s Carol. She’s even encouraged readers to picture Venus superimposed with the face of Cate Blanchett as Carol in the film adaptation. Yagi’s experiment with the surreal could easily have misfired but I found it completely gripping and oddly convincing. It helped that it’s so well-written/fluidly translated, shot through with arresting, memorable imagery. Translated by Yuki Tejima.

i like these books to come my way sometimes. they remind me of being at school and just learning how to analyse things,meaning, stories. and i loved that at school, haha! but i dont mean it feels like a school task. just more you have to come from it perhaps from a different way. i find this author has that way about her and it feels nice. it feels almost floaty and like you could be sitting on a fluffy pink cloud whilst doing it. like i can actively feel the other side of my brain or neurons working.
it explore some different themes when we look into one womans life you see the subject and telling of the story but its about so much more than that. look behind the statue and you see her life. the connections she has or struggles with. the ability now to talk to this statue and why.
its a gentle book thats how it feels to me. somehow a gentle and kind book. and i think it is definitely one where every single person that reads it might get the out points but every single person can take there own slant.
and even if you dont its still a well written book by an author who voice you will go on to recognise and i think that is great in itself.

I enjoyed this book greatly, although I’m not sure I fully understood it. It is both sublime and ridiculous, and there are many elements that we as the reader are left able to choose whether to take them at face value or to look more closely.

The main character Rika – also known as Hora – lives with a sense of detachment to the real world. It feels very natural, in her world, that she would fall in love with a statue. She has very few significant relationships with other people, and has never let anyone see her true self before, not even her past romantic relationship.

The simplistic plot makes the story feel very familiar in many ways, which helps normalise the more surreal elements. Of course a museum hires someone to talk to the statues at night! Why wouldn’t they? Everything seems so normal and mundane, which helps to bring out the tender character-driven moments.

Delightful if at times unsettling, this is a book that I’m sure will stick with me. Not on a day-to-day, change-my-life way, but in three years time, I’ll still occasionally think to myself, ‘but what about that yellow raincoat?’.

I received a free copy for an honest review.

While the museum undergoes renovations, Rika Horauchi pretends she’s still going to work but instead, she wanders. Haunting, sly, and quietly subversive, this is a story that captures the weight of expectation.

2.5 stars
This was creative, I’ve never read something where the main love interest is a millennial old statue. However, the writing and characters is where I was lost. There was no clear plot or structure, the time jumps were confusing, and I had so many questions left unanswered at the end. This could have been a fantastic novel, but it was just okay for me.

A bit of a strange one. Falling in love with a statue who are you are paid to converse with in Latin isn’t just part of any normal day in the office.

While I liked it overall because it was very easy to read, maybe it was just a bit too simple. There isn’t a massive amount of plot here, which doesn’t bother me, it’s more about the internal workings of the main character. It was interesting to go along for the ride but I’m not sure I fully understood the outcome or that I had grown attached to any character.

When the Museum is Closed by Emi Yagi (translated by Yuki Tejima) is a short, surreal novella—just around 160 pages—that blends whimsical fantasy with poignant emotional inquiry. It tells the story of Rika Horiuchi, who takes a part‑time job conversing in Latin with a statue of Venus de Milo every Monday when the museum is closed. This initially awkward routine evolves into something extraordinary: Venus comes to life, and Rika, emotionally isolated and working a dull warehouse job, finds an unexpected companion—and love—within marble walls.