Your rating:
The international bestselling novel sold in 21 countries, about grief, mourning, and the joy of survival, inspired by a real phone booth in Japan with its disconnected “wind” phone, a place of pilgrimage and solace since the 2011 tsunami When Yui loses both her mother and her daughter in the tsunami, she begins to mark the passage of time from that date onward: Everything is relative to March 11, 2011, the day the tsunami tore Japan apart, and when grief took hold of her life. Yui struggles to continue on, alone with her pain. Then, one day she hears about a man who has an old disused telephone booth in his garden. There, those who have lost loved ones find the strength to speak to them and begin to come to terms with their grief. As news of the phone booth spreads, people travel to it from miles around. Soon Yui makes her own pilgrimage to the phone booth, too. But once there she cannot bring herself to speak into the receiver. Instead she finds Takeshi, a bereaved husband whose own daughter has stopped talking in the wake of her mother’s death. Simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, The Phone Booth at the Edge of the World is the signpost pointing to the healing that can come after.
I really have no criticisms of this book. The romance was impeccable, I really enjoyed the way it explored grief and finding a new beginning, and all of the characters felt so real. The prose is simple but effective. Would definitely recommend
Your rating:
Giving this a 3 star just based off of not really being sure how I feel about it.
I like the idea of the story and the heart behind it. But I really struggle with non-linear stories. I mean, I can do multiple timelines so long as they both move linearly. This story, however, jumped a little all over the place and often had lines in the middle of present day where they'd talk about 20 years from now and then back to the present and then to the past and I was very confused.
A good story with good heart and great themes but overall not the package for me.