Galaxies and Goddesses: A Sci-Fi & Fantasy Bookcast

Water Moon
Andrea: I’m Andrea.
Elizabeth: And I'm Elizabeth.
Andrea: Join us as we chat about sci-fi and fantasy books and beyond.
Elizabeth: Looking for a little escape from reality? So are we.
Andrea: Welcome to Galaxies and Goddesses.
Elizabeth: This week we'll be talking about our December book, pick Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao.
Andrea: It's our first listener pick voted on by our followers on Instagram and our last book and our moon themed books for this year.
Elizabeth: It was also a Goodread's Choice Awards nominee this year. It made it to the second round of votes, earning over 25,000 votes to earn eighth place in the fantasy category.
Andrea: Let's get started!
Andrea: Elizabeth, are you willing to entertain us by reading the synopsis?
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Elizabeth: On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawn shop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see only a cozy 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 up on her first morning as the pawn shop'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 choice 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.
Andrea: It's a good synopsis. It does have this adventurous quality to it.
Andrea: Did this meet your initial expectations, Elizabeth?
Elizabeth: Yeah, I think it really did. The back cover there is a little blurb from A. Y. Chao, the author of Shanghai Immortal, that says “A spell binding journey into a magical Ghibliesque world.” And like the Ghibliesque part of it absolutely, 100%.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: I felt it really has that feel to it, like a Ghibli Studio does.
Andrea: Studio Ghibli is referenced within the book.
Elizabeth: That’s awesome.
Andrea: Yeah.
Meaning of the Title
Andrea: Partly because we picked this as part of a moon theme I kept waiting for, okay, how does the moon tie in? And it actually has a big symbolic relevance. The water moon is the reflection of the moon.
Andrea: It's something you can see but you can't interact with, so I thought that was really one of the poetic aspects of the book. I think it's a fitting title too. I like it as a title.
Elizabeth: For sure. I guess the moon as like this reflection. Within the book, it is the reflection of the moon in the puddle. That's why it's Water Moon is that's the only time really that you see the moon. They don't ever go to the moon. It's the moon in the sky reflecting from the water puddle that they use to transport themselves into different parts of this world. But yeah, the thematic essence, I guess, of the moon as like this reflection, not only of the moon reflecting the sun, but also reflecting in the water too. As in like this world is a reflection of the human world.
Andrea: Right.
Elizabeth: I didn't think about the title that much, but when you do stop to actually think about the title, because yeah, the moon is not a place, the moon is a concept.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: So many other moon books that we've read throughout the past, I guess like 10 months the moon is a place, in this the moon is not a place, it's a concept, about the word reflection and what the moon represents as a reflection.
Andrea: So I've been in the habit of marking whenever the moon appears because I like to then use it for a potential quote in a review later.
Elizabeth: Hmm.
Andrea: So I have like blue tabs that are specifically whenever the moon gets referenced and it's usually in the context of the water puddle.
Andrea: There were a couple of other times where the moon got referenced but it always has this poetic element to it and I think the writing styles very poetic as well. And the way that the narrative unfolds and is told, you're going back and forth between memories and different places. It kind of jumps around a lot, but it keeps it interesting.
Elizabeth: Dream worlds. Real worlds.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: In the clouds on the ground.
Andrea: Everywhere.
Elizabeth: Everywhere. And it is almost sweeping.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: You just get swept along into this wild ride through all these different elements and aspects of this world.
Andrea: One of the books that came up when I looked up the audio book for this on Spotify, it was like, if you like this, you may like, and it mentioned Daughter of the Moon Goddess, but I liked Water Moon a little bit better.
Andrea: I think the imagery that's created in Water Moon has more magic in a sense. Not just the way they travel through puddles, but traveling to different dimensions and concepts of time or how memories can be folded into paper cranes that fly around.
Andrea: There's a lot of very poetic imagery in this book that I think is different from Daughter of the Moon Goddess. But I can see how if you liked Daughter of the Moon Goddess, you may also like Water Moon. They have a similar upbeat adventure vibe.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Romance Sub-plot
Elizabeth: Didn't we say that Daughter of the Moon Goddess just had more of a younger feel to it, like young adult almost?
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: But I did not feel that with water, moon. Water Moon felt adult.
Andrea: And there were some adult scenes later on it was like, oh, I didn't know it would go that far.
Elizabeth: Yes it was very adult.
Andrea: I wasn't expecting that.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: But only very briefly, like glances at very adult things. Yeah.
Andrea: We talked a little bit how romantasy means that the plot would fall apart if the romance aspect were taken away. If you took out the romance in this, it would still be a fun adventure.

Elizabeth: Mhmm.
Andrea: If it weren't a love interest, but it were instead a lost sister or something, it would still be a fun journey to read about.
Andrea: So I don't think you need the romance, but it does add a little bit of fun banter and an extra dimension maybe.
Elizabeth: Tension.
Andrea: Tension. Yes.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: So the romance is between Hana, who's taking over the pawn shop and the unexpected visitor Kei, or Keishin, the male protagonist.
Andrea: What did you think about their relationship? Did it feel believable?
Elizabeth: Yeah. I mean, as you learn all of the details of this relationship. Then yes. If it didn't have those things, it wouldn't as much.
Andrea: Well, in the beginning I was a little bit skeptical. I'm like, really, you're gonna just trust this person you just met. Be their ride or die? Someone you just walked through a door and now you're in it for, whatever the price. But I think there is something to be said about forming bonds when you're in like these intense situations.
Andrea: Like they say that you should go on really adrenaline inducing dates if you wanna make a strong connection like that, you should go skydiving because the adrenaline does create these feelings.
Elizabeth: Like trauma bonds?
Andrea: Yeah!
Elizabeth: Whenever I think about that kind of thing, I always think of the movie Speed with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.
Andrea: It’s been so long since I’ve seen that.
Elizabeth: They like fall in love very suddenly on this bus that has to drive a certain speed, otherwise the bomb's gonna blow up, and they're all stuck on this bus together.
Andrea: The two main characters in the book deepen their relationship through trying to figure out this mystery. And it's fun to feel like you're going along for the ride.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: The male main character Keishin's interest was in science. He was a polar opposite of this fantasy world. He talks about looking for neutrinos and studying stars.
Elizabeth: Oh yeah.
Andrea: Studying physics and science, and that is so opposite of this fantasy world.
Andrea: So I thought that was a nice contrast and kind of a fun contrast to play with throughout the book.
Elizabeth: Yeah and part of the way that they escape from the Shiikuin is by imagining themselves inside this high tech fancy technology to detect neutrinos. This vat of pure water with these detectors lining this vat deep inside a mountain.
Elizabeth: Science stuff that sounded real. I don't know anything about that sort of high level of physics, but it sounded real. But then there was this really high level science stuff as part of the fantasy.
Andrea: I think people who study physics would enjoy this book because I do think that like spinning coin was a reference to quantum physics and how two things can be real at the same time.
Elizabeth: Like I would never call this book science fiction, it's definitely fantasy, but there’s a lot of cool science that I don't think is fiction. I think it's real science.
Andrea: And little bits of history too, right? Like the folklore and other bits that keep it interesting.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I was onboard.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: It was quite a ride and it was fun to picture it in the style of Studio Ghibli 'cause it fits so well.
Andrea: There are moments or worlds they go to where they are like two dimensional characters.
Andrea: They are inside of a scroll or they are in black and white.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: Yeah.Very visually cool.
Elizabeth: If someone had enough imagination, they could do it in live action and then make that part like in cartoon it would be cool. Yeah.
Andrea: That would be really neat.
Elizabeth: I feel like with how big production budgets are these days they could come up with something cool.
Fictional Folklore
Andrea: Well, we were mentioning Studio Ghibli was one of the references in the book, and there was a mixture of real and made up folklore throughout the book. So I thought it'd be helpful to call out some of those things and talk about what was real versus what was made up.
Andrea: The main evil character is the Shiikuin. But the Shiikuin are not real. That is made up for this book and I had to look that up to confirm because they are such a well realized entity in the book that it seems like it could be real Japanese folklore.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: They appear have these masks, and then the soulless eyes. It sounds like something that would be, or could be traditional Japanese folklore.
Elizabeth: Yeah, and what is the what is the character in Spirited Away that has like the black robe and the white mask? I just almost imagine them looking something similar to that.
Andrea: These like flowing black garments with a white mask. That's what I pictured too, but apparently they do have bodies. As the bodies decay, they replace parts of their body with metal parts. That is kind of unique.
Elizabeth: Yeah, the character No Face in Spirited Away.
Andrea: That's what it reminded me of too. So that’s part of why I had to look it up.
Elizabeth: What was real? There were other things you looked up that were real.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: I’m learning too.
Andrea: So kitsune is this fox like spirit and that's not made up for the book. That's a real part of Japanese folklore. The kitsune are mischievous fox spirits, often messengers of the God Inari.
Andrea: They're known for intelligence, magical abilities, like shape shifting. So that's a real thing.
Japanese Vocab
Elizabeth: I have to admit, there were a lot of things referred to using the Japanese word that I didn't know. I enjoy that it wasn't overwhelming. Sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming to like, have to look up so many things, but yeah, I have never been to Japan.
Elizabeth: I've never traveled to Asia. I've traveled a lot, but not to Asia. I can't wait to go someday. And I cannot wait to go to the Japanese convenience stores, the konbini because they sound amazing. Great food that’s cheap and fast, great selection, high quality.
Andrea: They are amazing.
Elizabeth: Have you been to Japan?
Andrea: I have been to Japan. It was a short trip, a study abroad type trip. We went to Tokyo and then we traveled to a couple of smaller places. We did stay at a ryokan while I was there.
Elizabeth: Cool.
Andrea: And so when they use the word ryokan I'm like, I know what that is.
Elizabeth: I had to look that up.
Andrea: And so it's nice to be familiar with some of those things. But there was a lot of food references that just went over my head.
Andrea: The way that the author incorporated Japanese words enhanced the book.
Elizabeth: I agree.
Andrea: I think it made it more culturally appropriate and it was still accessible to an English reader. I really liked that and thought it was well done.
Elizabeth: For sure.
Andrea: Well so you mentioned the konbini, the Japanese convenience store. Another word that I didn't know what it was, but I could figure it out in context, was kashu, or kashu, the singer. One of the modes of transportation was to ride a song slash memory. And so they have to remember a song and give it to the singer, I could kind of figure out what kashu was based on the context, but you could have been like a ferry person.
Andrea: But when I looked it up and then it said “singer” was one of the definitions, I was like, oh, that's what it's supposed to be.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I guess I imagined a woman in long flowing robes singing.
Elizabeth: So much happens in so little space that there are parts of it that I don't remember as well. So dreamlike, but like, yeah.
Elizabeth: He has to remember this song, but then she's singing it and how they travel is actually within his memory of it in his bedroom in the real world.
Andrea: In his mind.
Elizabeth: In his mind.
Andrea: Yes.
Andrea: They talk about that being their first date. It's like in his apartment.
Elizabeth: But it's the memory of his apartment, as this song is playing on record, that's actually a woman singing the song.
Elizabeth: Yes. It is so dreamlike.
Dreamlike Reflections of the Real World
Elizabeth: It's so dreamlike.
Elizabeth: One of the locations is even the dream world. In the synopsis it talks about the bridge from midnight to morning and that's how you get out of the dream world is that everybody lines up. You're still in your dream while you're waiting in the line, but then as soon as your turn comes to cross the bridge, you cross and you wake up. And that's where her grandmother lives in a tree.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: They go have tea with her grandmother.
Andrea: That's what I really liked about the book. In a way it reminded me of the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Jim Carey and Kate Winslet. They go into people's memories and that things can change and be distorted and it's a little crazy, but it's such a fun ride.
Elizabeth: Sort of like Inception, the movie Inception is like that too, right? They go into people's dreams and stuff.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: It's all, planting the seed to make it seem like you came up with the idea
Andrea: The levels within the dream. The dream within a dream.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: Right.
Elizabeth: Totally.
Elizabeth: No, but the things that I marked actually were examples of how something in their environment was based upon something in the real world.
Elizabeth: So the first was they followed that music. They floated along in his bedroom on the song. And as they arrive after this song and they made all this travel which was their first date and they arrive and they're in a desert surrounded by grains of sand.
Elizabeth: And each grain of sand represents someone's mistake from the real world.
Elizabeth: “This the Museum of Education. How else are its visitors supposed to learn, if not from other people's mistakes. Some lessons are bigger than others, but all are grains of wisdom.”[151]
Elizabeth: At some point they were in this village and flying kites. Kites represented people's hopes from the real world. “One kite for every hope that is sent to the village. Tonight, they will float in the sky as stars.”[202]
Andrea: Some very poetic and beautiful imagery.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: Yeah.
Andrea: Right.
Elizabeth: It did feel so light, even though there were dark aspects to it, the overall vibe of the book is very light.
Andrea: Hopeful, I would say.
Elizabeth: Yeah. Exactly.
Andrea: It was towards the beginning of the book. It might have even been, in the first scene where somebody comes into the pawn shop and her father is serving tea and it's out of a cup that has been repaired with gold. So it's been repaired using the kintsugi technique.
Andrea: There's this idea that the cracked cup that's been repaired is more precious. Not only the gold makes it more valuable, but also the time and effort in repairing it makes it a more special piece.
Andrea: And so that object is more special. I've always liked that idea. They make a comparison to people being cracked, but still beautiful. It was the first time I'd made that connection. It actually made me cry.
Andrea: If you feel broken, but put yourself back together and come up from that broken place, that you are more beautiful because of it.
Andrea: That's how I saw that.
Elizabeth: Yeah, that’s lovely.
Andrea: I thought that was a really nice way to start the book talking about how cracked, broken things can be beautiful.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Elizabeth: So much of the main character Hana's journey throughout the book is realizing that learning from our mistakes and keeping our mistakes is so important. So much of what this dream world is built on is people pawning their regrets to this pawn shop. She realizes that she doesn't like that she was born to run this shop, making a profit and contributing to the economy and the structure of this world by taking away people's regrets and mistakes. Because then the whole point is when people come to this pawn shop, I don't think this is a spoiler, 'cause this is sort of revealed early on, is that when people come into this pawn shop and they pawn their regrets, they forget them.
Andrea: They haven't had a customer yet that hasn't actually made the deal, right? That everybody that manages to find the door does pawn something.
Well, what about?
Andrea: There are not many plot holes in this book, but I will say there were two things that I was like, well, what about right?
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Lemme hear it.
Andrea: One of them was that they make sure the store is open every day. They were never late to open the store.
Elizabeth: Oh yeah.
Andrea: By the end of the book, they talk about how time might work differently in their world versus the real world.
Elizabeth: They would essentially have to have the same hours as the ramen shop.
Andrea: That was what I was thinking.
Elizabeth: Because that’s what people are coming for is ramen. If they happen to be a little bit lost and have a regret to pawn, they walk into the pawn shop instead of the ramen shop. Yeah.
Andrea: Right.
Elizabeth: One thing I noticed is not necessarily a plothole, but I just was kind of like, huh, is that sometimes how they get from place to place within this world is explained, in quite a lot of detail, like the woman singing and he's imagining this song, but then the whole time they're traveling, they're within the memory of his bedroom, like wild. Right?
Elizabeth: And other times they just suddenly appear somewhere else and like it's not explained whatsoever. There's no connection from one point to next. They're just suddenly in a different place. And I guess that contributes to the dreamlike sense of it, suddenly just something else works.
Andrea: It works. Yeah.
Elizabeth: Yeah, what was the second thing though, your plothole?
Andrea: This is sort of related to what you're saying actually, in that I could buy in to the magical puddle leaping world of like, okay, that we just travel through puddles, ride rumors, be folded like a piece of paper. I can buy into all of that.
Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: I forgot about the rumors. Yeah.
Andrea: I believe it all. Okay, I'm in.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: But what threw me was the one scene where he's helping a pregnant woman, and he helps her give birth. Because he read a book once and he helped her deliver a baby in an elevator. Come on.
Elizabeth: I don't know. Is it a hole, or it's just part of the dream and there can not be any holes, 'cause it's all just a dream?
Andrea: I think the book could have existed without that one scene with the pregnant woman in the elevator I would've liked it more.
Elizabeth: Mhmm.
Andrea: It was supposed to be in the real world and didn't seem realistic to me. I got annoyed.
Elizabeth: As a person who has given birth?
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: It happened very fast.
Andrea: I can't imagine giving birth in an elevator.
Andrea: That's why it made me mad. And the author does have children, so she has gone through childbirth, presumably. I mean, you can adopt children, but it seems like she has probably gone through childbirth.
Elizabeth: Is that she's given birth herself.
Andrea: Yeah, but it just upset me to think…
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: One, a pregnant woman could just that easily give birth, and two, that it doesn't take medical training. Just read a book and deliver a baby. Those two things I was like, come on?
Elizabeth: Well to be fair there are oftentimes, but it's probably more in someone who has given birth multiple times, that the highest chance of this sort of thing happening that there are many pregnancies don't actually require a lot of medical intervention. There is a lot of medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth these days.
Andrea: So you're saying it's not as farfetched as I felt it might have been.
Elizabeth: I’m agreeing with you, but it is possible.
Andrea: Yeah.
Andrea: So those are just two things. They're minor and explained away time works differently. The ramen shop doesn't have to be open and the pregnancy makes a roundabout reason to exist. But I think I think the reason it exists in the book is to show that he had a profound impact and saved a life and he will, impact many other lives.
Elizabeth: I didn’t necessarily pick up on that.
Elizabeth: Like you're right. That whole scene could have just not been in there. Was it really necessary? I mean, there were a lot of aspects of it because so much happens in so little space that there are definitely a lot of bits of it that I'm not even remembering.
Andrea: Right. It was fun to read in the moment.
Elizabeth: Yeah. Once again, I was a long for the ride.
Andrea: Then the one scene with the pregnant woman and the elevator is not a fantastical fun ride pregnancy’s not a fun experience. It's not fun to think back on that.
Andrea: We don't need that chapter, in my opinion.
Spoilers and Interpretations
Andrea: If you don't want any spoilers, this is where you should pause it and come back and listen after you've read the book.
Andrea: But if you're okay with spoilers, please keep listening.
Andrea: My interpretation was that he did exist, like he was a real person, but there could be multiple timelines.
Elizabeth: The first person that walks into the pawn shop at the beginning, right.
Andrea: Is his mother.
Elizabeth: She regretted not having her relationship with him?
Andrea: No.
Andrea: No, that was his mother.
Elizabeth: He was the regret?
Andrea: His mother was the first character to show up, and she regretted not keeping her son. It's implied she had an abortion. She could have gotten on the bus to go see her lover at the ramen shop. She would've kept the baby, but she didn't use it.
Andrea: She didn't keep the baby, and she regretted that her whole life.
Elizabeth: He walks into the pawn shop an adult man.
Andrea: Right.
Andrea: Yes.
Andrea: There's a regret that escaped. A blue bird that flew out and went back in time. In that timeline, she did go to the bus stop, and he was born, and he did live his life out.
Andrea: Does that make sense?
Elizabeth: Oh, I didn't connect that part. It’s just so dreamlike that it's hard to remember the details.
Andrea:  And then Hana's mother, she was in trouble for drinking the sake bottle regrets. There were two regrets.
Andrea: Kei was the bus change.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: He was like the embodied regret in bus change.
Elizabeth: She didn't get on the bus to see her lover at the ramen shop.
Andrea: And like the first timeline, she didn't have the baby.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: But then when the regret escaped, she did make that choice. He was born and had a profound impact on the world. And that's why he's such a bright choice. He was like a very strong choice.
Andrea: And then Hana's mother, she drank a sake bottle, which was a regret and Hana was the baby from that. She took that spirit and had Hana. Does that make sense?
Elizabeth: Oh, wow.
Andrea: So they were both, these regrets that should have never existed. They didn't belong in either world, only to each other.
Elizabeth: So maybe in the end it doesn't work without the romance?
Andrea: Right, right.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: Can we go back a second and talk about the paper cranes?
Elizabeth: The other two books we read that had animated paper cranes were The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill and what was the other one? I can’t even remember now.
Andrea: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna.
yes.
Elizabeth: Wait cause there was also When the Moon Hatched!
Andrea: Oh yes.
Elizabeth: by Sarah A Parker.
Andrea: But they weren't necessarily cranes. They were paper larks.
Elizabeth: Regardless.
Elizabeth: Oh I think you're splitting hairs. Animated, folded paper bird. This is now the fourth book that we read with animated folded paper birds.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: Kind of wild. Like two books that had animated paper birds? Okay, sure. Three. Yeah. Okay. Wait, wait, but wait. But four like. Is that the thing these days? Is that just a coincidence?
Andrea: I don't know.
Andrea: We read 10 books this year as part of the Galaxies in Goddesses podcast, and four had animated paper birds in them, and that was just a coincidence.
Elizabeth: If there's something we're missing? There must be something with moon and animated paper birds. What are we missing?
Andrea: That there’s a connection.
Elizabeth: How else do you explain that? Like actually quite a significant part of the plot was animated paper birds in all of them.
Andrea: They played a role. Yeah.
Elizabeth: I, yeah
Andrea: It brings delight, it's a universally enjoyed concept of flying paper birds. Sure.
Elizabeth: Delight.
Andrea: Why not?
Elizabeth: It is delightful. Yeah.
Folding the Cover
Elizabeth: Speaking folding paper, are you gonna fold the cover?
Andrea: I did not do it. I might fold another piece of paper. I don't like the idea of folding the dust jacket. Yeah. I can't do it.
Elizabeth: To do it would be really cool, because the inside of the cover makes it look so that when it's all folded, there's like a cartoon version of the female character and the male character next to each other in this little boat. It's actually really cool, but no, I'm not gonna do it.
Andrea: It was kind of like a bonus content thing for this book. I don't know what the motivation was, if it was just a marketing thing.
Andrea: I haven't heard of any other books by Samantha Sotto Yambao. She has published other books, but this is her first big successful novel I'm aware of. I felt like this was a way to get it more attention on social media and via marketing to sell more copies.
Elizabeth: By having a dust jacket that you can fold?
Elizabeth: It’s a bit gimmicky.
Andrea: Yeah.
Andrea: I think after reading the book, the book speaks for itself. It can stand alone.
Elizabeth: Wait, there’s a playlist on Spotify?
Andrea: Yes. On  Samantha Sotto Yambao's Instagram page she mentioned in a post that there's a playlist to accompany the book. Most songs were in Japanese, but we'll put a link to that in our show notes so people can check it out.
Andrea: And again, that seemed like another bonus content thing to promote the book. But I think the book can stand on its own. It didn't need the extra stuff. Like you said earlier, it got eighth place overall for the fantasy pick on Goodreads. I feel like that says a lot. A lot of people read this. It was a lot of book of the month picks. It was a Barnes and Noble pick. Got a lot of attention and I'm glad we got to read it as part of our moon theme this year.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Ratings
Elizabeth: What rating would you give to the book?
Andrea: It's a four and a half for me.
Andrea: It was almost a five star read, but the ending was a little bit messy. The first, three quarters of the book, you're kind of chugging along, going on a fun adventure and then you're kind of like, what's going on? It got a little bit confusing and it sorts itself out, but because it wasn't as smooth of a read for me towards the end. I marked that down a little bit. Yeah.
Elizabeth: Yeah. Mm-hmm. I enjoyed it. It was a good book. I liked it more than I thought I was going to. But books like this that are really dreamlike, I don't always like as much.
Elizabeth: But then also as we were talking about it realizing some large plot details are not clear. As you put it, like the ending, a bit messy things that are resolved, but then as we're talking about it I'm like not remembering it very well.
Elizabeth:'Cause I don't think it was made clear as it could have been. But once again, that goes into the whole dreamlike aspect. Dreams aren't always nicely tied up at the end, right? You wake up in the middle of it.
Andrea: Right.
Elizabeth: And so, you know, and so once again, that sort of plays into like, I'm not as big of a fan of a book that's really written dreamlike, I did really like it.
Elizabeth: It was a good ride.
Andrea: Yes, yes.
Elizabeth: I give it a four.
Elizabeth: I liked it as a book, but I think it could make a really good movie, actually.
Other Similar Books
Andrea: The one other book this reminded me of, was The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.
Andrea: I really liked that because it also has beautiful imagery and there's sort of a parallel between how reading books can be a magical experience. And these themes of fate. If you liked The Night Circus, you might like Water Moon.
Elizabeth: This hard to find cafe for people who are lost, then that also is like The Full Moon Coffee Shop.
Andrea: My you're absolutely right The Full Moon Coffee Shop appears to those who need it at the right time. It's a very similar concept. But with that one, I think you really have to be a fan of astrology. It's not as wild of a ride.
Elizabeth: No, not at all. Yeah.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: I guess if you're into Japanese fantasy,
Andrea: This doesn't have to be considered cozy fantasy, but there's a cozy element to it.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: It feels light and hopeful, I think that could be considered cozy.
Andrea: But there are some deeper themes. It does have some big statements towards the end about regret and choices we make. To accept our choices and consider the choices we make carefully.
Elizabeth: And that sometimes the flaws are the most beautiful part.
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: You fill 'em in with gold and rebuild it.
Closing Remarks
Elizabeth: Unfortunately, that concludes this week's episode. We've reached the end of another cosmic journey on Galaxies and Goddesses.
Andrea: Don't worry. The adventure never really ends. There are always more stories to explore and let's be honest, more bookish tangents for us to go on.
Elizabeth: Hey, that's part of the fun. If you love today's episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a review and share the magic.
Andrea: Stay tuned for our next episode where we'll be starting Season Two. We'll be talking about our top 10 reads of 2025 and introducing our new theme for 2026.
Elizabeth: Keep your mind fueled by the magic of stories.
Andrea: And never stop chasing the world's waiting for you between the pages. Thanks everyone.